Bird Observer is staffed entirely by volunteers. We are currently looking to fill three positions as soon as possible.
Proofreader
- The proofreader reviews the entire issue in PDF format to check that the finished issue will be correct. Tasks include reading all text, titles, and captions for spelling, typographical, and grammatical errors; checking for omissions or repeated elements in the text; and seeing that photos, captions, maps, charts, tables, and figures relate to the text correctly and are in the proper places; and ensuring that all is consistent with the BO style sheet. The proofreader also checks the graphic elements of the issue: front and back covers, table of contents, masthead, pagination, footers, titles, fonts, and type sizes.
- The job requires a moderate level of familiarity with North American birds, geography, history, biology, natural history. A smattering of many foreign languages helps a lot, mostly European; Latin and Greek are useful. The proofreader does a lot of web searching: for the proper spelling of place names, for quotes from literature, for authors' names and spelling, for Latin binomials of bird names—a lot of searching. Be familiar with the use of Adobe Acrobat PDF annotation.
- The work is two or two-and-a-half intensive full days every two months. The proofreader must be highly organized and motivated in order to meet the production deadlines.
To inquire about this position, contact editor@birdobserver.org.
Copyeditor
- The copy editors review and correct an edited article; they do not edit a second time. Copyediting includes checking the manuscript for errors of grammar and punctuation, misspellings, and ensuring that the article adheres to BO’s style sheet. The copy editor checks all names, dates, maps, figures, captions, calculations, bibliographical references and literature citations. This person reads with a critical eye to catch possible inconsistencies or errors but makes no substantive changes to the text without first discussing it with the editor.
- The job requires a moderate level of familiarity with North American birds, geography, history, biology, natural history. The copyeditor does a lot of web searching: for the proper spelling of place names, for quotes from literature, for authors' names and spelling, for Latin binomials of bird names and English spelling of bird names.
- The copyeditor must be able to meet deadlines, sometimes at short notice.
To inquire about this position, contact editor@birdobserver.org.
Mailing Assistant
The mailing assistant assists the mailing manager in preparing the printed issues of Bird Observer to be mailed in accordance with U.S. Post Office bulk mail regulations.
Initially, the job requires the assistant to be available at somewhat short notice for a couple hours six times a year (usually during the last week of Jan, Mar, May, July, Sept, Nov), usually in the evening or on a weekend, to help the mailing manager at her residence in Medford with attaching the subscriber mailing labels and assembling the issues into coded bundles and then into tagged mail bags.
Ultimately, the assistant should become capable of taking over the entire mailing process if the mailing manager is unavailable for a given issue. To that end, the assistant will meet with the mailing manager to learn:
- the procedures for picking up the boxes of issues at the printer at Porter Square in Cambridge and for delivering the mailbags to the Area Distribution Center in Waltham.
- how to fill out the 6-page postal form to calculate the cost of the mailing.
The job does not require any knowledge of birds or any particular computer skills. The subscription manager recently created a computer spreadsheet to help with the postal costs calculations, but costs can also be computed with any hand-held calculator.
To inquire about this position, contact Renee LaFontaine, dacooper@tiac.net.