 |
 |
Thu July 24, 2008
|
|
|
Thu July 24, 2008
|
|
|
Annual meeting, American Musicological Society |
|
Information for those scheduled to present papers or chair sessions in Quebec City
Presenters
The final program 
is available now at the web site. Check there for your session time and location. (Maps of the facility are located at the back of this file.)
Session chairs are appointed by the Program Committee. Your session chair will be in touch with you regarding sharing a draft of your paper. Please follow her/his requests in this regard.
Audio-Visual. All rooms are provided with computer projectors, DVD/CD players, iPod/MP3 connections, and microphones. Piano and VCR are available in some, not all, rooms. If you requested it, you will have it. Laptops and computers are not provided.
Pianos are provided in rooms 204AB, 206A, and 208AB only. VCR is provided for the Film session Saturday (206B) only. Overhead projectors are available on an ad hoc basis.
If you must have an overhead projector, please send Bob Judd a e-mail with the name of your session. (Please do not request an overhead for "backup, just in case.")
For those who are using their laptops for display with a supplied LCD computer projector, please note this important new procedure:
AV Preparation rooms: Rooms 205C and 206A at the Quebec City Convention Centre will be set aside for those who plan to use their laptop (for powerpoint or DVD display, for example) at the following times:
Please plan to come to try out the system and make sure all the connections are correct at one of these times. Don't just show up at your session and assume that you can figure out how to get your laptop connected to the projector! Rooms are provided with AMS-member monitors to assist with handouts, but we do not have the resources to provide a technician for every room for the entire conference.
Handouts: please provide sufficient handouts for your audience. Room sizes vary from about 140 to about 290; when room assignments are finalized, you can gauge the quantity you'll need. Some presenters bring enough for a "full house;" some bring one for every two, assuming "full house". Despite the cost in money and trees, it is probably better to err on the high side.
Final room sizes: (All session rooms are in the Quebec City Convention Centre)
Music examples: if you are using a recording it is respectfully requested that appropriate acknowledgment of the performance and/or performer(s) be made in your paper or on a handout.
All who present papers are required to register for the meeting.
Session Chairs
Thank you for agreeing to take on this important task, central to how the Annual Meeting functions for the Society.
There will be no meetings for session chairpersons ("chairs"), so please read the following suggestions carefully and contact the AMS if you have further questions.
You will get (via e-mail) a detailed list of the presenters, their affiliations, email addresses, and paper titles about 1 June. You should request, from each presenter, a complete copy of the paper to be presented along with any handouts so that you can review these materials before the meeting. A receipt date about a month from the meeting (26 September) is strongly advised. Evaluate to be sure participants' papers will actually fit into the allotted time. Also get brief biographical sketches (affiliation, papers or books published) from each of the presenters.
It is critical that you plan your time period (normally three hours) as precisely as possible. People migrate from session to session, and thus they must have total confidence that papers will start at the appointed times (AM: 9:00, 9:45, 10:30, 11:15; PM: 2:00, 2:45, 3:30, 4:15). For AMS sessions: plan on two-minute introductions, 30-minute papers (maximum), and 13-minute question periods. Keep to 45-minute slots for each paper. There is little point in introducing your session in an extended way, since many people change rooms at paper-breaks.
We cannot overemphasize the importance of this. In four-paper sessions, you may wish to take a very short (literally no more than two-minute) break halfway through, but under no circumstances allow a break to derail the schedule.
Get AV needs-lists from presenters (all AV questions should be directed to the Bob Judd at the AMS office).
Arrive at your room ten minutes before the start of the session to meet the speakers and the room monitor and look over the AV setup.
Paper presenters know that their time length is thirty minutes. In the unlikely case that a paper threatens to go on well beyond this limit, you should intervene by passing notes to the speaker that time is running out.
At the start of each talk, announce the names of the authors, the title of the paper, and which author is presenting the paper. Short biographical information should be provided.
Your other main task is to control the question period. Remind both questioners and speaker(s) to be brief. Audience members should only ask questions; any background information that they give should be kept as brief as possible. Speakers should briefly answer the question posed, and then stop and take the next question. As a rule, questions and answers should not last more than about a minute each, i.e. up to two minutes for each question-answer pair. The speaker and questioner should not continue back and forth; if they do, ask them to postpone their public conversation until a private moment, to allow others to contribute to the public discussion. If people don't comply with these guidelines, don't be afraid to interrupt them. Be polite and tactful, but also firm.
Establish and announce the order of questioners. Encourage shy audience members to ask questions before allowing the confident ones to ask a second question. If there are many questions, announce in advance who will pose the last three questions, apologize to the others, and stop when the last person's question has been answered. That should, of course, be as near as possible to the allotted time. Please note that talks scheduled before breaks or before the end of the day will not be extended. It is important to begin and end sessions on schedule.
Please prepare several comments or questions for each paper in case the discussion needs to be started by the chair.
If you are chairing the opening short panel of a morning or afternoon, please show courtesy to the chair and presenters of the following panel by ending several minutes early and vacating the table promptly (as two short sessions are slotted for the same room, the new chair and panelists must be ready to go immediately). For morning short sessions, the first panel should end by 10:27; for afternoon slots, 3:27. This may sound a bit picky, but it is necessary to make the meeting run well. If you are on the second half of such a slot, please be ready to go immediately at the appropriate time (10:32 or 3:32).
All session chairs are required to register for the meeting.
