Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Version at BMCR home site

BMCR's 20th Anniversary.

Editor James J. O'Donnell

The first issue of Bryn Mawr Classical Review was released for internet distribution twenty years ago today. We thank our many colleagues who have joined in the editorial process, our very many colleagues who have reviewed for us, and our many, many readers and friends over the years. There were only a handful of "e-journals" back then, and the only journal in the humanities that is senior to us by a few weeks is Postmodern Culture. We are one of the oldest (if not indeed the very oldest) e-journals to offer complete "open access" (in the jargon that has evolved since), that is, we have made every word of our publication freely available over the net from the first day. We are particularly grateful to another (overlapping!) set of colleagues and friends who have helped produce and make use of our textbook series, Bryn Mawr Commentaries, on whose revenues BMCR depends for its free distribution. (When you assign a Bryn Mawr Commentary, in other words, you support BMCR.)

If you lift a glass in our honor on this anniversary, savor as you do the irony that this grave and senior pioneer of electronic publishing is devoted to chronicling and assessing the publication of the printed book. We do not prophesy the future, when e-books and p-books settle their relations with one another. But we persist.

James J. O'Donnell
Richard Hamilton
Camilla MacKay
Rolando Ferri

Date: 28 Nov 90 21:54:35 EST
From: James O'Donnell [JODONNEL@PENNSAS]
Subject: new classics review (e-)journal

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

A new review journal has begun publication. Hard copy subscriptions are available, but this notice announces that subscriptions to e-mail distribution is also invited. Details of access at the end of this message.

*Bryn Mawr Classical Review* will survey new books in `classics' (Greek and Latin literature, Greek and Roman history, broadly construed), offering concise and informative reviews within 6-12 months of publication. Our editorial policy is to have as little editorial policy as possible. Boundaries are kept loose (though on the whole, strictly archaeological publications are excluded). Over the course of the first year, we expect to assemble a board of regular contributors representing as many competences and approaches as possible: their jobs will be to review regularly and to scout new titles wherever they can be found. The founding editors are Richard Hamilton of Bryn Mawr College and James J. O'Donnell of the University of Pennsylvania.

A particular effort will be made to report on new books published in languages other than English. In addition to the concise reviews that are our mainstay, there will be other features: *Seen Elsewhere* (newsworthy items related to the profession), *Definite Articles* (notices of recent scholarly articles that one or another of the members of the board thinks deserve special attention: again, emphasis where possible on European publications), multiple reviews of a single title (to show different points of view), occasional reviews of older books revisited in a fresh context, even occasional essay reviews. Letters to the editor are gladly welcomed and will be published, as well as interesting and timely opinion columns. The only material excluded *a priori* will be items that could be characterized as `notes' or `articles': our view is that there are sufficient outlets for that kind of publication, but that the need we hope to fill (if not actually create) is for timely discussion of new publications and for discussion generally.

The Review will appear five times a year. The hard copy subscription rate will be kept as low as possible; the mechanics of publication are identical to those of Bryn Mawr Commentaries (which will subsidize the first year's publication) and the pricing policy there may be taken as a reasonable guide to our capacity for maintaining reasonable prices here. For the first year, one copy is being sent free to every North American Classics department known to us (others will be added to the list if they so request).

Review copies may be sent to our editorial address and are gladly received. We also welcome notice of forthcoming publications and advice generally. Materials should be sent in the most computer- ready form possible. Our first preference is to receive reviews and correspondence by bitnet at BMCR@BRYNMAWR or (from internet) BMCR@CC.BRYNMAWR.EDU; second preference is to receive Macintosh disks prepared in Microsoft Word (SMK Greekkeys is the default method of receiving and printing Greek); IBM disks may also be sent, and traditional hard copy will also be accepted.

Hard copy subscriptions are available for $10 per year: write to

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Thomas Library, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 19010

To subscribe for automatic distribution of the e-mail version, send a mail message to MAILSERV@CC.BRYNMAWR.EDU containing as the *only* line of message the words SUBSCRIBE BMCR-L. Do *not* put anything on the `subject' line for this message if prompted to do so. To obtain back issues, you may use `ftp' interactive technique as follows:

ftp cc.brynmawr.edu Username: anonymous Password: guest

At the `Command:' prompt that follows

cd bmcr dir

That will produce a list of files currently available in that directory; the issues will be numbered sequentially by volume and number, so your next command will look like:

get bmcr1-1.txt

You would get volume 1, number 1. Vol. 1, number 2 will be followed by Vol. 2, number 1 (therefore bmcr2.1) to keep `volumes' and calendar years coterminous. The transfer of files with ftp is very quick (18K per second in my case, so the whole of the first issue took about 7 or 8 seconds to transfer to the mainframe where I was logged on. (IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO USE ftp, send me a note at JODONNEL@PENNSAS and I will construct a kludge.)