Often when people speak of “award season” they are referring to the Oscars, the Grammys, and the Golden Globes. But the publishing industry has its own series of awards that typically doesn’t require buying expensive couture or borrowing jewels before you accept an award. In fact, I have yet to see a red carpet recap of any publishing awards. Nonetheless, becoming an award-winning publication has many values, not the least of which is confirmation that your leadership is steering the publication or organization in the right direction.

Hopefully you heard, saw, “liked,” or even posted a link to information about SSP’s (Society for Scholarly Publishing) blog, The Scholarly Kitchen, which was recently nominated for a Webby Award in the business blog category. If you have no plans to start a business blog but still enjoy the thought of winning awards for your publishing work, you may also enjoy reading about the winners of the 2010 EXCEL Awards, which you can find in this issue of FrontMatter. Allen Press is delighted to be working with multiple publications earning EXCEL Awards in 2010. In April, Association Media & Publishing, formerly SNAP, announced the winners for the 30th Annual EXCEL Awards, recognizing the best and brightest in association media and publishing. Winners were chosen for taking bold chances in editorial, design, advertising and marketing, online publishing, digital editions, mobile applications, and electronic newsletter categories.

Speaking of bold, the steps toward eBooks and mobile technology taken by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) and detailed for attendees at the 2010 Allen Press Emerging Trends in Scholarly Publishing™ Seminar, Scholarly Publishing: Boldly Going Where No Journal Has Gone Before, have been recapped in this issue by James Wonder, Director of Emerging Technology at AIP. If you weren’t able to join us at the seminar or would like to see the presentations again, video and slides from the meeting have now been posted online (http://allenpress.com/resources/archive).

We’d love to hear from you if there are awards and topics we haven’t covered and we are always interested in your feedback about the newsletter and ideas you have for future articles. Please e-mail comments, suggestions, or ideas to frontmatter@allenpress.com.