Never fast enough

Among all of the outstanding IEEE publications, the IEEE Engineering Management Review enjoys some rather unique challenges in filling its mission. This magazine's particular opportunity is to draw great material from a range of highly respected publications. In that fashion, we have many great organizations working for us and the Review's editors have not had to work with very many original authors (often enjoyable but more often time consuming). The challenge faced is the restrictive difficulties and expense in obtaining electronic reprint rights for articles included in the Review. Within our own Institute this precludes the Review from participating in the electronic version of the All-Society Periodicals Package, and it also has somewhat impeded our efforts to develop a Web presence. Many publishers now recognize this difficulty and are wrestling through the issues of electronic reprint rights. Progress is to be expected over time, but not quickly, and certainly not soon enough for our readers. Addressing this challenge to the Review is not simple but it is helpful; it has caused the Engineering Management Society and its editors to reconsider its options for serving members. The Society's plans include more original content (but not more than 50%) and a Web presence that will better complement the Review's mission and dialogue with members. Starting with the previous issue, executive summaries are being prepared and will be posted on the Web site for all articles reprinted since 1995. That is a time-consuming and expensive task to do properly, but the Review is making progress and readers will much more ably find "that article" published a while back. Your feedback regarding these summaries will be appreciated.