Editorial Notes

EDITORIAL NOTES In the words of Gomer Pyle, “Surprise, Surprise!” Bet you never thought you’d see three editions of the Yearbook in the same year. Certainly Bob Richardson, who not only had to pick up, wrap, ad­ dress, and mail all of the issues but had to pay for the copy-editing and printing, wishes he hadn’t! However, it has only been through the efforts of Bob; of Rick Cooper, who has done another outstand­ ing job of doing the final editing, assembling the entire volume, and seeing it into print; of the Editorial Board for their timely reviews; of the authors for making quick corrections and for generally bearing with me during the editorial process; and of Presidents Dan Arreola and Robin Datel that this and the preceding two volumes of the Year­ book have made it to the light of day in such a rapid manner. The Yearbook definitely is a team effort, and I sincerely appreciate all who have been involved. One of the problems encountered in this rapid publication sched­ ule has been the emergence of a few glitches. Volume 60 in particular was plagued with graphics problems, specifically in the Brown/Ryder article. Computers certainly have made writing and publishing much easier and faster; however, pitfalls still exist in the form of certain types of graphic formats “falling out” during the production process. In an effort to minimize future problems, I have asked Robert Provin, the head cartographer in the department here at Northridge, to serve as graphics editor. His expertise, along with a higher degree of coor­ dination among all the parties from authors to printers, should help produce more mistake-free Yearbooks. I hope you enjoy this volume of the Yearbook. You’ll find that the range of topics covered by articles is wide and, at times, contro­ versial. In all cases, however, I think the papers represent solid scholarship and are excellent examples of the geographer’s craft. I particularly find the President’s Plenary Session on Regional Geog­ raphy to be extremely well done and contributes a much-needed 220 Editorial Notes 221 perspective to the discipline. I also like this volume because it truly is a yearbook in that nearly all of the material printed here was pre­ sented at the Flagstaff Meeting. I also like how sets of articles fit together, addressing similar topics from divergent perspectives. By reading Arreola then Mains, Shelton then Nemeth/Keirsey, for ex­ ample, one gets a sense of the richness of the discipline. Of course, the pieces by Wallach and Brown/Mathewson are meant to be comple­ mentary, although the authors didn’t know this to begin with! Yearbook readers will note, however, a deficit in this volume, namely, the short supply of Book Reviews. Again I make the plea: SEND REVIEWS! Finally, I’d like to end with a bit of “bumper sticker” philosophy that occurred to me recently as I was driving around California while on vacation: “A picture may be worth a 1,000 words, but a map can answer a 1,000 questions!” Darrick Danta California State University, Northridge ...