Rich, my fateful mail delivery guy, dropped the new MT on my desk. I had other things to do, but I couldn't resist.
I haven't read the whole magazine yet, but from a quick scan it is patently clear that this is not your ordinary technical journal. It is beautiful and packed with info. And so, I went back to the mailbag page and checked the pulse.
There was a sampling of opinions, some pro change and some anti change. In the end the argument seems to be divided as follows:
1. I don't like MT; I don't need another glossy shallow industry magazine
or
2. Thank goodness we are finally moving out of the stone ages.
Oddly, I am sympathetic to both points of view, but, overall, I am thrilled that we are trying. I deeply sense that the MT editorial board is running a very worthwhile experiment and I will look for fine tunes and improvements in every issue. The way I see it we are actually engineering an optimized solution.
At this stage I am swinging very slightly to opinion 1 above, not because of any lack of quality in technical content, but on a perceived notion that, despite a need to upgrade the magazine, we always need to remember the scholarly purpose of the magazine (and the society).
In this regard I have one very simple suggestion: At the end of each article can we reserve just a few lines for bibliographical notes. For example I noticed that a few of the articles were based on annual meeting panel discussions. In that case it could state: "This article is a summary of panel meeting such and such, for further details see the SNAME 2010 annual meeting proceedings. www.sname.org/xxxxxxxxxx"
If there are technical papers or SNAME standards or publications that are backing up certain articles they should also be mentioned in the bibliography with proper links to the location on the Voyager site where these papers can be accessed.
While printing long links may seem a little silly, the on-line version of the magazine can provide immediate connections to the underlying data.
The most important purpose of these links and notes is to show the reader that the authors are not sucking the articles out of their thumbs, but rather condensing complex subjects that are grounded in carefully considered technical discourse, which I think will separate MT from the rest of the pack and set an entirely unique standard in technical journal publishing.
Most interestingly, it might very well bridge the concerns expressed on the mailbag page.