Executive Board update
The Board has had two fruitful meetings since September, focused primarily on two major points of business.
The first, and most exciting, is DSNA23. We are pleased to announce that our next biennial conference will be held June 2-5, 2021, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Orin Hargraves has been hard at work forming a conference committee, and the Board is very excited about how things are shaping up. Save the date!
The other point of business is to help develop a strategic plan for the DSNA’s future. Lexicography and lexicology in North America have changed dramatically since our founding 45 years ago, and the Board has felt that the time is ripe for reevaluation. The DSNA is doing much better than many small academic societies: we have seen a gradual drop in membership, but our gradually increasing revenue from the journal has made up for the lack of membership dues, and so we enter this next season better off than many other societies, and from a position of strength.
That said, the DSNA of 2020 faces challenges and reaps benefits that we couldn’t have dreamed of in 1975. How can we use our online platform for our benefit and the greater benefit of lexicography/lexicology? How will the EU mandate for Open Access publishing affect us? Who are our members, and how can we better serve them and involve them as a society? What sorts of governance structures do we still need to put in place, and how do we do that? These are just some of the questions that the Board will be asking over the next few years as we seek to move the DSNA into the next phase of its existence.
Publications Committee update
The Publications Committee has had two meetings since the last newsletter went out. Plans for the journal continue apace, and we have settled into the semiannual nature of publishing the journal.
There are two main concerns and questions we are wrestling with as a Publications Committee. The first is how the EU mandate for Open Access will affect us. Like many small academic societies, we rely on the royalty revenue from the journal to offset the operational costs of producing the journal. This is how we keep membership fees low (and part of why your Executive Secretary encourages you to access the journal online through your institution, if you can, rather than use the free login we supply, since the former nets us revenue, and the latter costs us money). The good news is that the DSNA isn’t alone in trying to navigate this change, and we can rely somewhat on the deeper expertise of our sister societies. Wendi Nichols, as the head of the Publications Committee, has been researching various options, with the goal of both complying with the mandate and keeping the journal self-funding.
The other issue is improving our online presence, particularly regarding navigability of our website and the continuance of our listserv. Though the website was redesigned recently, the structure of the site is based on a decade-old one-page blog, rather than a website. Finding information on the site is difficult, and we are not using the site well. Now that we have backend technical support to protect and maintain the site, we look forward to creating a site that’s easily navigated and easily updated.
GLOBALEX REPORTS APRIL-DECEMBER 2019
The Globalex management committee met virtually on 9 April 2019 (16:00 CEST), with Ed Finegan, Ilan Kernerman, Lars Trap-Jensen, and Simon Krek in attendance.
While the MC keeps detailed minutes of its meetings, “Reports” (like this one) serve as concise meeting summaries to communicate efficiently to the Continental Associations (CAs), which may publish the Reports on their websites, as DSNA does.
While Globalex wants to benefit from the ELEXIS news feed service, Globalex will be able to add material, particularly from the CAs, as one way to minimize duplication between ELEXIS and Globalex interests. Ditto for publications on the two sites: avoiding duplication needs to be addressed. Work on mounting Lexicon on the Globalex site is progressing. This statement applies to all the minutes that are given.
After two successful Globalex workshops held in conjunction with Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC), a third will be held at the DSNA biennial meeting in Bloomington, Indiana in May. Going forward, Globalex will aim to mount events in connection with CA conferences and with other groups so as to foster shared knowledge with branches of endeavor outside lexicography, such as language technology and semantics.
The Globalex management committee met virtually on 15 May 2019 (9:00 CEST), with Ilan Kernerman, Simon Krek, Julia Miller, Dion Nkomo, and Lars Trap-Jensen in attendance. This Report constitutes a summary of what was discussed.
The third international workshop of Globalex, GLOBALEX Workshop on Lexicography and Neologism, was held on 8 May at the DSNA biennial meeting in Bloomington, Indiana. The abstracts and PowerPoint presentations will be posted on the Globalex website*; the abstracts will also appear in the July issue of Kernerman Dictionary News, along with bios and photos of the presenters. Revised papers will be submitted to Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America as a special refereed issue guest-edited by the organizers, Annette Klosa-Kückelhaus and Ilan.
At DSNA’s general business meeting, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver offered a welcome presentation about Globalex and its goals, substituting for Lars, whose late flight change precluded his making the presentation. The upcoming meetings of Asialex (June 19-21), Afrilex (June 26-29), and Australex (September 3-4) are expected to have similar slots available for brief presentations about Globalex and its goals.
The mounting of searchable issues of the journal Lexicon on the Globalex website is progressing.
*https://globalex.link/events/globalex-workshops/globalex-workshop-2019/
The Globalex management committee met virtually on 13 June 2019 (16:00 CEST), with Ed Finegan, Ilan Kernerman, Simon Krek, Dion Nkomo, and Lars Trap-Jensen in attendance. This Report constitutes a summary of the discussion.
Slides from the Globalex Workshop on Lexicography and Neologisms, held in conjunction with the DSNA biennial meeting in Bloomington, Indiana, have been added to the Globalex website.* The mounting of searchable issues of the journal Lexicon on the Globalex website is progressing, and other publications are being added to the website, including links to articles published in two Nordic journals.
Several themes for future workshops were identified, including neologism in languages other than those addressed in Bloomington, “controversial words,” “linking dictionaries,” and “lexicography and semantics.” Possible conferences for future Globalex workshops include LREC, ACL, and the Language, Data and Knowledge conference.
A sad note: Deny Kwary, an active member of Asialex, passed away in early June.**
* ttps://globalex.link/events/globalex-workshops/globalex-workshop-2019/
** https://experts.profile.unair.ac.id/deny-arnos-kwary/
The Globalex management committee met virtually on 31 July 2019. Attending were Ilan Kernerman, Simon Krek, Julia Miller, Dion Nkomo, and Lars Trap-Jensen. This Report constitutes a summary of the discussion.
The Globalex website was hacked and is down temporarily.
Lexicon has now been published online, with all issues from 1994 to 2018; all articles available as separate files. A point of access from the Globalex website will be added. Two Nordic journals will become accessible through the Globalex site, as mentioned in last month’s report.
At the successful Afrilex conference in Windhoek, Dion made a presentation about Globalex, relying on an adaptation of previously presented material. The PowerPoint presentation about Globalex and a recent video-recording will be mounted on the Globalex site and the continental associations invited to provide links to them.
Proposals for future Globalex workshops were discussed. The Afrilex choice for a workshop is on the topic of pedagogical lexicography and dictionaries in the education system. Euralex will also be looking into holding a Globalex workshop in 2020. Julia is preparing a Globalex presentation for Australex in September. As it is too short notice for a workshop at the UNESCO conference “Language Technologies for All” (Paris, December 5-6), a presentation of Globalex could suffice, along with a proposal to the organizers to co-organize a workshop on lesser-resourced languages.
An application for the planned LREC workshop is being prepared by Ilan, Simon, John McCrae, and Jorge Gracia on the topic of linked lexicography, both monolingual and bilingual.
Simon has joined the board of LT4All. We may make suggestions for content, and suggested ideas included a Globalex presentation, a workshop or a panel with participants from Africa (Dion), Australia (Julia), and possibly South America. All are urged to check the website* and return with ideas.
Attending the Globalex MC virtual meeting on 26 August 2019 were Ed Finegan, Ilan Kernerman, Simon Krek, Dion Nkomo, and Lars Trap-Jensen. This Report is a summary.
Globalex website. Some changes to the website have been agreed to by all MC members, and further changes to the About page will be made soon.
Administration. Concern about how many CA members access our reports led to an agreement that the social media channel of Elexis could be used to disseminate the reports further.
Conference spotlights. Julia invited greetings at Australex from the sister CAs. Globalex reps are encouraged to ask their respective CA presidents to send greetings.
A Globalex greeting/presentation slot is planned for eLex in Sintra, Portugal, in October.
Workshops in 2020. Planning for the Afrilex conference is progressing. The first CFP awaits confirmation of final date and keynote speakers.
Lars has inquired of the Euralex board about a workshop on neologisms at the Euralex conference in Greece and awaits a reply.
Ilan will prepare a proposal for a workshop on linked lexicography for LREC.
Papers presented at the Globalex workshop at the 2019 DSNA meeting are under review for publication in a special issue of Dictionaries, to appear in the spring of 2020.
Repository for Globalex documents. Simon’s suggestion of a Globalex directory as part of the Elexis cloud solution, allowing each MC member to access documents via a personal login (like Dropbox), was welcomed by all, and Simon will set it up.
Publications. Lexicon is available on the website, with each article and entire volumes accessible. The search function will be developed and is expected to be ready for the opening of the eLex meeting as a new version will be launched by then, including Lexicon. The Nordic journals are already available online, so only a linking is needed for them. Ed reported that appendices to articles appearing in Dictionaries are sometimes too large for paper issues and could conveniently appear on the Globalex website.
Other business. At DSNA, Ilan and Gilles-Maurice de Schryver communicated with Regiani Aparecida Santos Zacarias (regiani.zacarias@unesp.br), a Brazilian lexicographer who showed interest in forming a South American association, and this is now developing.
Attending the Globalex MC’s virtual meeting on 23 September were Ed Finegan, Ilan Kernerman, Simon Krek, Julia Miller, Dion Nkomo, and Lars Trap-Jensen. This Report summarizes the meeting.
Publications. An acknowledgement of the contributions of Gilles-Maurice de Schryver and Teja Goli to the mounting of Lexicon on the Globalex website has been added to the site. At the eLex conference in Sintra, Portugal (October 1-3), a meeting about digitized journals etc. worldwide seeks to provide overview and access while avoiding duplication. Elexifinder is a service by which publications anywhere on the web can be identified; the service can be accessed at the Globalex site or the ELEXIS site https://elex.is/tools-and-services/. Articles not otherwise available on the web can be digitized and stored in a Globalex repository.
Simon reports that various long-term funding models for ELEXIS have been discussed; see video presentations at videolectures.net/elexisobserver2019_panel_elexis_clarin_dariah/.
Conference spotlights. AustraLex had a successful conference in Canberra over two days with 41 participants. Prof. Jakelin Troy was keynote speaker, and Prof. Tania Ka’ai has become AustraLex’s president.
Preparation for Afrilex 2020, to be held June 22-25 in Stellenbosch, continues. A Globalex Workshop on pedagogical lexicography will take place at the conference; the CFP is under development.
Website. The “About” page at the Globalex site is being revised and will be posted soon.
Workshops. Zoe Gavriilidou, organizer of the Euralex 2020 congress, welcomes the idea of a Globalex Workshop on neologisms, to be organized by Ilan and Annette Klosa.
Attending the Globalex MC’s virtual meeting on 24 October were Ilan Kernerman, Julia Miller, Dion Nkomo, and Lars Trap-Jensen. This Report summarizes the highlights of the meeting.
Conference spotlights. The slide presentations from AustraLex have been posted on the AustraLex website (https://www.adelaide.edu.au/australex/publications/); the aim is to link to them from the Globalex site.
Website. There was agreement that we should use “alliance” (or “constellation”) rather than “association” in characterizing Globalex: Globalex – Global Alliance for Lexicography.
Globalex will serve as the main repository for publications. For security reasons regarding Elexifinder, ownership of the Globalex domain may be transferred to the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, although concerns were raised about ownership by any specific institution.
Globalex workshops in 2020
1) The first Globalex workshop in 2020 is planned in connection with the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC, https://lrec2020.lrec-conf.org/en/), May 11-16 in Marseille. Ilan has submitted a proposal for a full-day workshop on linked lexicography, co-organized by Simon Krek and including a monolingual track in conjunction with ELEXIS (managed by John McCrae, Galway) and a bilingual and multilingual track in conjunction with TIAD (Translation Inference Across Dictionaries), managed by Jorge Gracia (Zaragoza) and Besim Kabashi (Erlangen-Nürnberg).
2) The workshop at the Afrilex meeting will be open for applicants in combination with targeted invitations. It will be organized as a parallel session to the main conference, either as a full-day or part-day event. The reviewing of proposed papers will likely be done by Dion and Herman Beyer. Papers from the main conference will be published in Lexikos; a publication channel for the workshop papers has not been determined.
3) A third workshop will take place at Euralex in Alexandroupolis,Greece, on September 8th. Managed by Annette Klosa and Ilan, it is the second iteration of a workshop on neologisms in lexicography and is due to run from morning to afternoon, ending before the Euralex opening. The call will be open and may be followed by invitations. The Euralex scientific committee may review workshop submissions. For publication, a special issue of the International Journal of Lexicography is under consideration.
Miscellany. At the closing session of eLex in Sintra, Ilan presented a very brief update on Globalex. If it was videorecorded, it or a link to it will be added to the Globalex website.
Attending the Globalex virtual meeting on 19 November were Ed Finegan, Ilan Kernerman, Simon Krek, and Lars Trap-Jensen. This Report summarizes the meeting highlights.
Globalex workshops
1) No word received yet about the workshop planned for the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC, https://tiad2019.unizar.es/), May 11-16 in Marseille. As detailed in October’s report, this would be a full-day workshop on linked lexicography, co-organized by Ilan and Simon and including a monolingual track in conjunction with ELEXIS (managed by John McCrae, Galway) and a bilingual and multilingual track in conjunction with TIAD (Translation Inference Across Dictionaries), managed by Jorge Gracia (Zaragoza) and Besim Kabashi (Erlangen-Nürnberg).
2) Preparations for the workshop at the Afrilex meeting continue.
3) The papers to be presented at the Globalex workshop at Euralex in Alexandroupolis, Greece, will be organized into a special issue of an appropriate journal; publication in the International Journal of Lexicography is under consideration.
4) To strengthen the reputation of the various journals and increase the likelihood of indexing by Thompson-Reuters, citation to the other lexicography journals, wherever appropriate, is strongly urged.
Website. Further refinement of the home page of the Globalex website is under consideration.
Miscellany. The possibility and desirability of Globalex becoming a site where lexicographers would look for state-of-the-art training courses of relevance to lexicography was endorsed. There would likely need to be a representative from each Continental Association to report what is going on locally to a central source (Lars volunteered to do this); ELEXIS may offer support for an assistant to help with the work.
Attending the Globalex virtual meeting on 18 December were Ilan Kernerman, Simon Krek, Julia Miller, and Lars Trap-Jensen. This Report summarizes the meeting highlights.
Workshops. The Globalex LREC workshop will take place on May12, 2020, with the theme “linked lexicography.” A CFP has gone out and Simon will make announcements via various mailing lists. A call for papers to the Globalex workshop at Euralex 2020 went out a few weeks ago. No limitation on the languages covered is foreseen, and the program committee of Euralex and the workshop organizers (Ilan and Annette Klosa) will select from the widest range of submissions.
Conferences. There is a risk of conferences coinciding in 2021, as eLex is considering holding its next conference in Brno in June 2021. That June is already crowded with conferences, given that Asialex and Afrilex conferences are usually held in June, the DSNA biennial meeting is scheduled for June 2-5 in Boulder (Colorado), and the Nordic conference is likely to take place in early June or late May. The eLex date will be set at a meeting in January.
Website. Teja has updated the Events page with the recent information about the workshops. About publications on the Globalex website and the Elexifinder task, Simon reports that work is not yet completed but is in progress.
Julia mentions that the Australex website will move to a new host.