When no response was forthcoming by early January 1998, one of the editors phoned the publisher only to learn that the proposal had not yet been sent out. In late January the proposal was finally sent to the referees who will not be able to provide reviews until early March. Clearly it will be nearly a full year before they even have a decision and perhaps as long as two more years before they see the volume in print. The time between acceptance and publication presents yet another obstacle. Once an article or a book is in press, it often encounters lengthy delays.
Books fare no better.
One colleague experienced delays of nearly a year in seeing her book issued once it was physically in production, as a result of management disputes and mechanical problems. I have noticed that often colleagues in other disciplines find procedures such as those described above to be inexplicable. When lengthy delays are foreign to the way of thinking of those who evaluate records of research and publication, junior faculty in the arts may be at a disadvantage. Another related problem involves the expectation of several institutions for its faculty members to have published monographs before being awarding tenure. This requirement is becoming less feasible in the arts at the end of the twentieth century for several reasons.