11/29/2020 UPDATE: There will be an information session and brain storming discussion on December 12 at 1:00 PM EST (UTC -05:00)
To receive the meeting link and password, send an email to
Possible New Publishing Opportunities with the HBS!
Would you like more opportunities to be involved with publishing with the HBS?
We are very excited to announce the formation of an Exploratory and Planning Committee for a possible new online publication and are looking for members who would be interested in working on the planning, creation and running of this publication. Read this article to learn more!
Since its creation in 1989, the Historic Brass Society has published an annual journal consisting of peer-reviewed articles. From that very first issue, the Historic Brass Journal has maintained high standards and it has become a highly-respected journal in the field of brass scholarship.
What many newer members may not realize, however, is that from 1989 through 2005, there was a second publication, the Historic Brass Newsletter, published annually, except in 1994 when two issues were published.
The Newsletter contained news of events and members, reviews of books, music, recordings, interviews and articles of interest to members but not of a peer-reviewed nature.
With the new database-driven website upgrade, it was decided in 2006 that the Newsletter could be replaced with news and articles posted in the website’s modern Content Management System (CMS) and the Newsletter was discontinued.
Since that time, all member news has been posted on the website and, from time to time, reviews, interviews and an occasional article has been posted on the website.
Over time, we’ve found that this has worked very well for disseminating news and fairly well for reviews and interviews, but not as well for articles. While every review, article, interview and news item can be found a couple different ways and there are certainly things we can do to make all types of articles easier to find, we want to do better.
Even more importantly, we want to provide more opportunities and incentives for members to write for the HBS and work in our publishing process, and provide greater recognition to those who do. We believe that we can accomplish this while providing a better means to present all of the types of material that is not typically published in the Historic Brass Society journal by starting a new online-only publication with an entirely new team of members
Some of the goals of this new proposed publication are:
- Provide new opportunities and incentives for members to write for the HBS and participate in its publishing process.
- Better showcase all online content and its authors
- Publish an online magazine in some format with possible active links to additional content (i.e. documents, videos, sound clips, etc.)
- Possibilities for Document Object Identifiers (DOIs - permanent links for referencing online content by other publications) for individual articles as for the Journal
- Publishing of many more articles that we do today
- Broaden the scope of content and the readership and, hopefully, increase incentives for people to become members
- The new publication and its staff would be distinct from the Journal while both publications would foster linkages between each other and share some of the same branding elements like the HBS logo.
As with the Journal, there would be no remuneration for those involved so the incentives lie elsewhere as in the joy of collaborating with one’s peers from around the world, pride in participation in a quality publication, recognition for one’s published articles and important academic credit for publication and editorial service.
For this new publication to become a reality, the initial step is to form an Exploratory and Planning Committee consisting of members who would like to be involved in the planning, creation and running of this new publication. In order for this new publication to get off the ground, it will need to be thoroughly planned with members committing to work at all levels of its production including layout, design and production, editing, writing, various technical roles as well as advertising. There are many ways that this new publication could be organized, prepared and presented. It will be up to this committee to explore the possibilities and make recommendations as part of its proposal.
This committee will work closely with Technical Director and Board member Steven Lundahl and others to produce a detailed proposal to present to the Board of Directors, including staff assignments, by the end of the second quarter of 2021, if possible.
If you are interested in becoming involved and would like to serve on this committee, please email the Nominating Committee at
Steven Lundahl
Technical Director and member of the Board of Directors
