December. 1958 



Avars: Publications and Public Relations 



207 



Other discontinued series were the Ex- 

 ecutive Reports of the State Laboratory 

 of Natural History. 1878-1916. and of 

 the State Entomolojrist. 1900-1'^15. Most 

 of these reports were published as pam- 

 phlets and were published also in Univer- 

 sity of Illinois reports or in Transactions 

 of the State Horticultural Society. 



Annual reports made by the Natural 

 History Survey to the Illinois State De- 

 partment of Reijistration and Education 

 were begun in 1918 and have been con- 

 tinued to the present. These reports have 

 been published by the Division or by other 

 administrative units of the state govern- 

 ment. Biennial reports have for many 

 years been included in the Blue Book of 

 the State of Illinois. 



A considerable number of important 

 contributions by Illinois Natural History 

 Surve\ staff members have been published 

 in the bulletin and circular series of the 

 Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station. 



Many staff-written articles covering 

 results of research have been published in 

 technical journals. In a biennial report 

 published 70 years ago, Forbes (1888:8) 

 listed about a dozen articles "written at 

 the Laboratory, but published elsewhere." 

 In each of the past few years, approxi- 

 mately 80 articles written by staff' mem- 

 bers of the Illinois Natural History Sur- 

 vey have appeared in publications other 

 than those issued by the Survey. 



EDITORIAL PERSONNEL 



That some editing was done on the 

 first papers published by the Illinois Nat- 

 ural History Society is evident from a 

 sentence in the Secretary's Report pub- 

 lished with the Transactions for 1860 

 (Wilber 186W:8) : " The following pa- 

 pers were prepared — most of them — for 

 the last meeting of the Society, and have 

 since been revised for publication in this 

 report." The Preface indicates that Wil- 

 ber (1861^:3-4) was the Editor. 



For many years Forbes himself did 

 considerable editing of the papers issued 

 by the agencies he headed. Until 1926 

 his principal editorial assistants were 

 Charles A. Hart and Miss ALary Jane 

 Snyder. "Mr. C. A. Hart, my efficient 

 secretary," Forbes (1882^:8) wrote in an 

 early report, "is responsible for the cor- 



respondence, for the preparation of pa- 

 pers for the press, the correction of proofs, 

 and other clerical service." To the "effi- 

 cient secretary" was soon assigned the 

 "labeling, determination, and arrange- 

 ment of the insect collections" of the 

 State Laboratory (Forbes 1887:2). By 

 1896 he was listed as Systematic En- 

 tomologist and Curator of Collections 

 (Forbes 1896:2). 



Miss Snyder joined the staff' of the 

 State Laboratory of Natural History in 

 1883 and retired from the staff of the 

 Natural History Survey in 1925. She 

 died in 1938 at the age of 93 years. She 

 was listed successively as amanuensis, 

 stenographer, secretary, and editor and 

 proofreader. Apparently, as Hart's ento- 

 mological activities increased, his editorial 

 duties were taken over by Miss Snyder. 



A scientist who knew Miss Snyder well 

 characterized her recently as "an excellent 

 editor." He added, "overcritical in a 

 way." Good editors, like good scientists, 

 are apt to be "overcritical in a way." 



Tradition reports that Forbes was not 

 easily satisfied either with his own or his 

 assistants' papers, that he was meticulous 

 about detail. 



H. H. Chapman, Yale University staff 

 member ^vho worked on forestry prob- 

 lems for the Natural History Survey dur- 

 ing the summers of 1922 and 1923, stated 

 recently that Forbes was accustomed "to 

 revising the reports of his subordinates, 

 cutting them down to about one-fourth 

 of their original bulk" (letter of Julv 10, 

 1958, from H. H. Chapman to C' W. 

 Walters). 



Successor to Miss Snyder in 1926 was 

 H. Carl Oesterling, who for 2 years, be- 

 fore he was appointed full-time Editor of 

 the Natural History Survey, was em- 

 ployed jointly by the Illinois Geological 

 Survey, Illinois Water Survey, and Nat- 

 ural History Survey. Oesterling had previ- 

 ously taught at the Universitx' of Illinois. 



After Oesterling went to the Univer- 

 sity" of Illinois Press in 1931, Carroll B. 

 Chouinard was appointed to replace him. 

 Following Chouinard's appointment, the 

 editorial office was called the Section of 

 Publications. Chouinard resigned in 1937 

 to go to Pennsylvania State College, and 

 James S. Ayars was appointed F^ditor. In 

 1947 the title of Editor was changed to 



