Logic List Mailing Archive

Position: Supervisor of the ASL Typesetting Group (fwd)

Position: Supervisor of the ASL Typesetting Group


The Association for Symbolic Logic seeks applicants for the position
of Supervisor of the ASL Typesetting Group, which will become vacant
in Fall 2002.  This is a part-time position which requires a total of
about one month of work spread out during the year, and pays
accordingly.  It involves primarily TeXnical duties with some
administration, which can be done from home or any office with a TeX
installation and a good internet connection.  Candidates who have a
good knowledge of logic will be preferred.

It is the responsibility of the ASL Typesetting Group to produce the
two quarterly ASL journals, The Journal of Symbolic Logic and
The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, which are currently
publishing about 2400 pages per year.  Articles accepted by the
editors of these publications are forwarded to the Typesetting Group
in various electronic forms (mostly dialects of TeX).  Four issues of
each of the two journals are made up each year and forwarded to
the ASL printer in the form of high resolution Postscript
files; the ASL printer (currently the American Mathematical
Society) is a company which prints, binds and mails copies of the
periodicals to libraries and to individual subscribers.  There is an
expectation of growth in the responsibilities of the Typesetting
Group, in connection with the ASL book publishing program, which is in
a start-up phase.

In addition to the Supervisor, the ASL Typesetting Group employs a
Production Editor who is responsible for all correspondence
with editors and authors and for the flow of work within the Group;
and a group of typesetters (currently five) whose job is to
convert the submitted files into professional quality TeX-files
consistent with the Association's own stylefile asl.cls, a variant of
AMS-LaTeX.  Except for the transmission of author-corrected proofs
which must often be done by snail mail, all communication among
members of the group is by email, file transfer and the occasional
phone call.

The Supervisor of the ASL Typesetting Group has the overall
responsibility of administering the Typesetting Group and seeing to it
that the ASL publications are of high quality and are produced in a
timely fashion.  Specifically:

(1) The Supervisor hires and trains the typesetters, and corrects and
approves their work.  This involves advertising these positions when
they become vacant; choosing among applicants in a fair and useful
way; and supervising closely their work for some time after they are
hired, until they become proficient in the use of the ASL macros.
(Note:  the turnover in the typesetting group is small, and the
current group is excellent and very stable.)

(2) The Supervisor is responsible for the work of the Production
Editor, who reports to him/her.  (Note:  the current Production Editor
has been running the Typesetting Group since it was established eight
years ago, needs no real supervision, and is expected to keep the job
for some time to come.)

(3) The Supervisor has the overall responsibility of maintaining,
correcting and updating the stylefile asl.cls, with the help of the
stylefile's author.  (Note:  asl.cls has been stable for some time
now, and it is not anticipated that it will require any substantial
changes in the near future.)

MOST SIGNIFICANTLY:

(4) Every three months, the Supervisor assembles one issue of the
JSL and one of the BSL from among the articles which
are ready; corrects and improves the TeX-files, especially the figure
placement and ``vertical alignment'' (page-cutting); prepares the
covers and the Tables of Contents of the issues; and produces and
transmits to the ASL printer at specified (strict) dates the
high resolution Postscript files from which the journals are actually
printed.  (This work is somewhat more complicated for the December
issues, because year-end covers and annual Tables of Contents must
also be prepared.)

This task amounts to about 80% of this job, about four or five days
of full time work every three months, and it is also ultimately the
most important, as the Supervisor carries the responsibility for the
quality -- the final ``look'' -- of the ASL journals.  It should be
noted that several templates and programs have been developed which
aid considerably the preparation of covers and Tables of Contents, so
that, in fact, much of this work beyond the final preparation of
individual articles is automated.

The main qualifications of an applicant for this position are a good
knowledge of TeX and a love of good mathematical typesetting; but the
job also requires delivering finished work on fixed deadlines, which
often involves working under time pressure.  For someone with these
qualifications, this work is pleasant and rewarding, both in terms of
its compensation and for the satisfaction that it may give.

The Supervisor of the ASL Typesetting Group reports to the ASL
Publisher, C.  Ward Henson, who is in charge of administration of the
overall ASL publishing program.  The Supervisor will be appointed by
the ASL President, Richard A. Shore, on recommendation by the
Publisher.

To apply for this position, send a Curriculum Vitae and a
clear description of prior work in TeX and any administrative
experience to C.  Ward Henson, ASL Publisher, henson@math.uiuc.edu.
For additional information on the details of the job, contact Yiannis
N.  Moschovakis, ynm@math.ucla.edu.
-- 

Association for Symbolic Logic
Box 742 Vassar College
124 Raymond Avenue
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604, USA


Fax: 845-437-7830
asl@vassar.edu
WWW: aslonline.org