Report of the Editor of Speculum

Introduction

Much has happened at both the MAA and at Speculum since our assumption of duties on September 1, 2011. This report will therefore offer both the traditional report of the Editor on the previous year’s publishing activities and information about transitions that have taken place since September 1. While we hold both the positions of Executive Director of the Medieval Academy and Editor of Speculum jointly—as has long been the MAA’s practice—we have begun to disambiguate duties and responsibilities on the day-to-day operations. Policy discussions and decisions remain joint, in consultation with the Executive Committee and Council.

Statistics

Let us begin with some statistics. In 2011 Speculum published 15 articles in 552 pages and 627 pages of reviews and brief notices for a total page count of 1,205. The table below provides comparative totals back to 2007.

The contractual arrangements with Cambridge University Press remain in place. FY 2011 saw a small (barely 1 percent) gain in institutional subscribers, from 2,835 to 2,854. This modest increase reflects two major factors: a maturing library market in the face of economic downturn (seen across the board for subscription models over the past few years) and the necessity of libraries to take the print along with the digital edition. While CUP’s marketing plan remains successful, this points to the MAA’s need to disaggregate digital from print options to reach new, emerging markets and libraries that have reallocated resources from print to digital. Despite steady subscription numbers, CUP gross revenues for Speculum were up.

The MAA continues to receive a royalty from sales of institutional subscriptions, guaranteed 85 percent of projected sales. In FY 2011 payments from CUP to the MAA totaled $143,271, or 3 percent over projections. This included $87,701 in royalties (85 percent of projection); $35,700 in editorial fees; and $19,869, predominantly in sales of the digital archive of Speculum being created by CUP. These figures are more than double (212 percent) FY 2010 ($50,000 advance against royalties + $17,500 editorial fees = $67,500).

Under our predecessor a wide range of Speculum costs had already moved off the MAA’s ledger and onto CUP’s: warehousing, printing, mailing. Office workload had also decreased because CUP began to manage all institutional subscribers. MAA members continue to receive a 20 percent discount on all CUP titles as a benefit of membership. Cambridge Journals Online continues to host the online version of Speculum, to sell digital offprints of articles and reviews, to offer downloadable copyright assignment forms, a fully searchable archive of Speculum, reprint permissions forms, and management of subsidiary rights (and attendant income to the MAA).

Our predecessor’s insistence that the MAA retain its relationship to JSTOR, even after the CUP contract was signed, continues to bear fruit in both royalties and permissions fees, totaling $19,854 in 2011 ($23,443 in 2010; $23,092 in 2009; 2008, $16,956; 2007, $13,206; 2006, $12,420; 2005, $10,578; 2004, $9,803). As reported last year, the cost for printing and mailing Speculum was $109,778 in 2006. After the first year of the CUP contract it fell to $4,285 in FY 2010. It reached zero in FY 2011. In addition, the MAA realized a one-time net gain of $29,162 in FY 2011 from budgeted but unexpended set-asides against future Speculum manufacturing costs that were freed up in the new budget.

Upon our arrival on September 1, 2011 there was an outstanding backlog of 137 articles submitted to Speculum that had not yet completed peer review. This has required identifying and pursuing reviews from nearly 300 peer reviewers for the backlog alone. We have determined that this backlog was due to two major factors. The first has already been reported on by our predecessor Paul Szarmach: the rapid increase of submissions to Speculum. The second appears to have been the result of the early transition from a paper-based submission system (using in-house tracking tools) to the online Editorial Manager (EM) system. While relatively easy to use on a day-to-day basis, the EM system itself is complex and the learning curve for administrators can be steep. In our first several months therefore we set out to rapidly reduce this backlog. As of April 2012—and including all new submissions—this backlog is now hovering at about 60 submissions. This is now a dynamic number. We estimate that the ideal—given submission rates and review periods— would be about three dozen articles designated as "in process” at any one time. Much remains to be done; but all authors are now answered immediately upon query, peer reviewers are identified and assigned via EM, reminder letters are generated, and peer reviews themselves are received via EM. The acceptance rate for Speculum is currently 8 percent. Average decision time has been brought down to the advertised six months. We hope to maintain the acceptance rate, while cutting the average decision time to about four months.

In January 2012 we were apprised of a backlog of nearly 200 completed, submitted, but unpublished book reviews, some of the titles going back to 2007. With the help of our new editorial assistants, we have therefore begun to incorporate a mix of these reviews into every issue of volume 87, making sure to balance the discipline, publication date, and the publisher of the backlogged books for review. In all, thus far, for the current volume of Speculum, between article backlog and new submissions, and new and backlogged book reviews, the Editor has engaged the volunteer services of nearly 700 peer reviewers: a remarkable record of professional dedication among medievalists.

Editorial Staff

The Executive Director’s report has already discussed the MAA’s actual operating deficit of $78,817 as of September 1, 2011 and decisions taken before and subsequent to our appointment. For Speculum, budget cutbacks meant one less work day a week for Speculum editors. As reflected in the masthead of the January 2012 issue, we also implemented new associate editor positions, dividing responsibilities equally between an Associate Editor for articles and one for reviews. In January 2012 both Jacqueline Brown and Mary-Jo Arn tendered resignations, effective January 31.

Under the terms of the contract with CUP, Cambridge was already bound to provide editorial support for these two positions. However, this service had been waived under our predecessor. We immediately therefore requested that CUP begin a search for both editorial positions. Our criteria were: Ph.D.s in the humanities with extensive editorial experience in a range of scholarly publications. We retained final review and approval of all candidates, and we are happy to say that many excellent applications were received. Both positions (now freelance through CUP) were filled immediately. Our new editor for articles is Dr. Shirley Werner (Ph.D., Classics, Yale), and our new editor for reviews is Dr. Ellen Wert (Ph.D., Anglo-Saxon Literature, Temple). They have already begun their duties with issue 87.1 (January 2012).

In addition, to pick up much of the slack of the day-to-day processing of review copies and correspondence with reviewers and with the Book Reviews Board, handled by the Associate Editor for Reviews, the MAA initiated a search involving several Cambridge-area colleges. We have appointed the two winning candidates as editorial assistants. They are Katherine Taronas (B.A., Harvard; M.A. candidate in Byzantine studies, Tufts) and Paul Lindholm (B.A., Boston College, concentration in medieval studies). Both also have excellent computer and language skills. Under the direct supervision of the Editor of Speculum, they are now working their way through the backlog of reviews and sorting through the complexities of revamping the book-review process. Ultimate responsibility for all content of Speculum and correspondence with its boards, authors, reviewers, and readers remains with the Editor of Speculum.

Cambridge University Press Contract

2011 was the second year in the five-year publishing agreement between CUP and the MAA for volumes 85 (2010) through 89 (2014). As was reported last year, one must bear in mind the distinction between subscribers and members. Subscribers are institutions (mostly libraries) that pay for and receive Speculum with a print or print/digital option, while members are individuals who receive Speculum as one benefit of membership in the Medieval Academy. CUP handles institutional subscribers, while the MAA continues to serve individual members and their subscriptions. CUP does mail all copies to both members and institutional subscribers.

The Cambridge contract remains good and sound, and we endorse our predecessor Paul Szarmach’s pursuit and embrace of this partnership with CUP. Working relationships with CUP continue to be excellent. We have found staff on every level, from administration to marketing and editorial, to be attentive, flexible, and open to discussion on all matters pertaining to the editing, production, and publication of Speculum. The MAA has received other benefits from the relationship with CUP. Editorial Manager (EM, owned by Aries Corp. and licensed to the MAA via CUP as part of our contractual agreement) is an online manuscript submission and trafficking system. It allows Speculum, its Editor, and its Editorial Boards to view submissions online, provide initial review, enter potential peer reviewers into its online database, then issue customizable form letters to invite, remind, and thank peer reviewers of submissions. It also provides customizable form letters to contact authors on editorial decisions and recommendations. While Speculum uses this system for all normal correspondence, the Editor continues to send individual e-mails to authors either in the case of rejection or of acceptances requiring revision (most do), according to peer reviewers’ recommendations. In both cases this avoids the impersonal quality of communication inherent in any automated system and allows the Editor greater flexibility and nuance in communicating with authors.

Yet another potential advantage to Speculum’s publication provided by the implementation of AMS (see Executive Director’s report) will be the ability to move reviews online— and behind the subscription wall—at whatever time frame and schedule the MAA wishes. The present quarterly system can be maintained, reviews can be issued monthly, or— as with the TMR—they can be issued on a more frequent basis. In addition, a digital edition of Speculum could then be offered to individuals as a benefit of membership. Implementation of both initiatives is technically possible immediately—and CUP has offered to do so—but our sense is that this must be carefully discussed and planned over the next year.

Past Trends & New Directions

Some background to this discussion that we should all bear in mind as we do move forward. Beginning with the work of our predecessor, and encouraged by our digital committees and the Council, the MAA has indeed been doing some catch-up on many of these electronic details. But in terms of societies being positioned to fulfill their scholarly role vis-à-vis their memberships, we must begin with the realization that the MAA has been serving its membership with almost the same tools it used in 1925: a journal, a newsletter, an annual meeting, and membership appeals.

The MAA published its first issue of Speculum in 1926. This first issue (1.1) offered 8 articles of about 9–11 pages each, some "notes,” and 15 pages of book reviews. Every issue that year was similar, totaling 32 articles, 4 notes, and 60 pages of reviews. By its first annual meeting in April 1926 the MAA had 503 members. In 1948 Speculum was publishing 32 articles and about 260 pages of book reviews. At that point the MAA had 1,054 members. (The Newsletter that year notes that 36 others had not yet paid their dues.) In 2011 Speculum (86.1–4) published 15 articles in 552 pages and 627 pages of reviews. The average length of the articles had risen nearly fourfold (37 pages); and the numbers of reviews had expanded at the same rate in response to the ever-increasing number of monographs and other noteworthy works published annually.

In the beginning—in 1926—a member of the MAA had a 1-in-15 chance of getting an article published in Speculum. That became a 1-in-30 chance in the 1940s and now, with approximately 4,000 members of the MAA, a member’s chances of getting an article published in Speculum are 1 in 266. These odds do not take into account nonmembers, who may also publish in Speculum.

While selectivity and quality are surely important criteria for publication in Speculum— and they will remain so—one does have to wonder how the membership is being served by the constrained opportunities within the MAA for engaging in the scholarly discussion. Together with our Editorial and Review Boards, and in consultation with the Executive Committee and Council, we will begin to explore various options for broadening the possibilities for scholarly communication within the MAA while maintaining our high standards of peer review and editorial quality.

Recognitions

We are grateful to the Speculum Editorial Board for their continuing good advice on submissions, practices, and policy questions. We wish to thank Frederick M. Biggs, Cynthia J. Brown, John J. Contreni, Rachel Fulton, James Masschaele, Maura Nolan, Monika Otter, Conrad Rudolph, and Wendy Scase for their service to Speculum and to the MAA.

The Book Review Editors form as important a group. We also extend our thanks to Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Steven Botterill, Susan Boynton, Brian A. Catlos, Theresa Coletti, Maria Dobozy, Colum Hourihane, Anthony Kaldellis, Yousef W. Meri, Joseph Falaky Nagy, Frederick S. Paxton, Philipp W. Rosemann, David Townsend, and Barbara F. Weissberger.

This year one position on the Editorial Board and five on the Book Reviews Board came up for rotation. We are happy to report that Rachel Fulton has agreed to accept a second term on the Editorial Board. Due to the increasing volume of titles submitted for review in history, the two current positions—for early and late medieval history—have now been expanded into three: Mediterranean studies, early northern, and late northern history. The following new members have already been named to the Book Reviews Board: Suzanne Conklin Akbari (English and comparative literatures), Ross Brann (Jewish, Islamic), Gregory Hays (Latin tradition, manuscript and book studies), Julian Hendrix (early medieval history), Leonora Neville (Byzantine studies), Carol Symes (late medieval history). They will begin the first of two three-year terms immediately at the conclusion of the annual meeting.

A Last Note

In honor of Jacqueline Brown’s many years of distinguished service to the Medieval Academy, President Emerita Caroline Bynum has made a generous contribution with the hope that it will challenge others who have come to know Jackie over the years to honor her through similar expressions of generosity. She and Jackie have already identified a substantial list of distinguished MAA members, former and current members of the editorial boards of Speculum, executive directors, and other friends who might be approached. We are now gathering the addresses of this list in order to make an initial appeal. We extend that invitation to you here.

After some discussion with Caroline Bynum and Jackie Brown, with the Treasurer and Presidentials, we have all agreed that the best use of these donations would be to establish a fund to help offset the costs of obtaining images and image rights for articles that have been accepted for publication in Speculum that make use of visual resources not ordinarily available from the author’s own archives, or under Fair Use, free Commons agreements, or from institutional archives and image repositories. Funds would be applied at the discretion of the Executive Director and Editor of Speculum, most especially for scholars whose institutions do not provide funding to subvent the publication of visual resources, with no individual subvention to exceed $500.

President Emerita Bynum has committed an initial gift to the MAA of $1,000 for these purposes. The fund would be called the Jacqueline Brown Fund, and images appearing in Speculum using these funds would be designated in an introductory footnote, such as "The images appearing in this article were underwritten by the Jacqueline Brown Fund.” We welcome your generous support of the fund in recognition of Jackie Brown’s remarkable contribution to this Academy and to Speculum. Finally, we again join all members of the Academy in expressing thanks to both Associate Editors, Jacqueline Brown and Mary-Jo Arn, for their many years of unrivaled service to Speculum and to the Medieval Academy of America.

Respectfully submitted,
Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto, Editors