Tuesday 17 May 2011

ATN friends wants you!

I've finished the current extra-urgent bit of work that was on my list yesterday night, and now I only have to wait for the piece to dry and bring it to the post office. And the rest of today? I'm taking it off. Yay.

But since I promised you more info from NESAT, I will at least tell you about the ATN meeting.
For those of you who have never heard of ATN, it is short for "Archaeological Textiles Newsletter". This has been an institution for quite a few years now, started way back on somebody's kitchen table and sent out as a biannual newsletter.

Nowadays, the ATN is put together, edited and sent out by a small group of people, and it used to be printed at the university press in Copenhagen. However, this printing possibility seems to have ended; the university wants to close its publishing department. And that in turn means the ATN has to make some changes for the future. It is planned to change it to an annual double volume instead of two volumes per year, and of course a new print shop has to be found. Plus a name change has been discussed - from "Archaeological Textiles Newsletter" to "Archaeological Textiles Review", since it seems that something called a newsletter is not worthy for external funding, while something called a review is.

These changes mean that the ATN (or ATR) will need a few more members to survive - so if you are not a subscriber yet, but interested in textile archaeology, please join the "Friends of ATN" (which is a subscription for one year, called membership because of some other bureaucratic issues) and help it survive! 
Anyone can join, you don't need to be affiliated with any university or research institute. And it is really worth it - there are always interesting articles in the newsletter, and the ATN regularly sees the first (or even the first and only) publication of a smaller textile find, or a preliminary results note about a work in progress. Subscribing is easily done via the secure webshop of ATN, and it's not expensive either - the one-year membership costs 20 Euro.


Oh, and of course you are welcome to spread the word...
 

3 comments:

Fanny said...

I am definitely tempted! :D I'll check it out right away...

Cathy Raymond said...

I'm more than tempted but money's a bit short till next week. I have one of their back issues, and am tempted to buy two more, at least....Yes, I should fork over for a membership, should I not? Now, while the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Euro is less punishing than it's been for quite some time.

Cathy Raymond said...

I just bought a 2011 ATN membership two days ago. I'm eagerly looking forward to this year's issue--it looks really interesting! I probably still will by the more tempting back issues eventually. (Umm, tight clothing in ancient times....) Thanks for your post reminding us all of ATN--there's some really interesting information in there that doesn't seem to turn up anywhere else!