Editorial

The big squeeze
Peter Donoughue

Are we living through the death throes of publishing as we know it? The answer lies in our understanding of big retail, big technology and big China.

Editors in transition
Michael Webster

In a world where perceptions can be as powerful as reality, understanding the commercial realities and trends in the publishing industry is essential.

Proprietary intellectuals
Andrew Ryder

The traditional academic model is an open-source one. Ideas are exchanged and enriched through competition and discussion. Under the proprietary model, brand-wearing intellectuals act as gatekeepers and often as ‘owners’.

Slang in Australian English
Sue Butler

Slang responds to a desire to live life dangerously, to flaunt the power of the word, to demonstrate a particular kind of style. Will the old-style slang of Barry Humphries be replaced by the language of Bart Simpson?

Dumbing down for museum audiences
Jennifer Blunden

Museums have moved from the cabinet-of-curiosities-type exhibition to the notion of writing label text as if it were part of a conversation. This doesn’t have to be at the expense of intellectual rigour or integrity.

‘Editing, at its best, is a conversation’
Bryony Cosgrove

Shortly before publication of Prochownik’s Dream, Alex Miller discusses the process of working with an editor — handling conflicting responses to a manuscript and questions of voice, characterisation and setting. The editor can play a critical role in bringing a book to its full potential.

Editors in conversation
Pamela Hewitt

Loma Snooks and Renée Otmar consider the transformations in their working lives and look ahead at the challenges facing editors with relish. They discuss projects that meant a lot to them, the relative merits of in-house and freelance work and reflect on what keeps them going.

Mentoring — indexers point the way
Max McMaster

With limited opportunities for on-the-job training, there is a growing desire for a workable mentoring scheme for editors. The Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers has come up with an ingenious approach that seems to bring benefits all round.

What is different about science editing?
Janet Salisbury and Hilary Cadman

Science editing is much like any other type of editing — what makes it different is the content, which is scientific information of some kind.

Macquarie’s fourth edition
Reviewed by Neil Lovett

Since its almost tentative first appearance The Macquarie Dictionary has made a journey of intergalactic proportions. It is now a little over 4.2 kilograms of thoroughly researched and massively supported information on what Australians say and write, and how we say and write it.

At the Typeface
Reviewed by Rosemary Luke

At the Typeface is a selection of contributions to the monthly Newsletter of the Society of Editors (Victoria) over its 35-year life. Editors are too often described as ‘invisible’. This collection gives due recognition to people who have earned the respect of the industry.

Lost Libraries
Reviewed by Paula Grunseit

Despite the odds, throughout history, desperate and often heroic attempts have been made to preserve libraries and save great collections.

The Language Instinct
Reviewed by Janet Mackenzie

Language is the raw material that editors work with, but few of us have studied modern linguistics. The Language Instinct is an illuminating overview, written in the best tradition of popular science.

About the contributors
Editorial Board and Acknowledgements
Guidelines for contributors