decade, publication of the Journal has always been a year at least behind schedule - in some years three or four years behind. This year, with the publication of Volumes 39 and 40, we have at last come back on schedule, and are now completely up-to-date.
On this issue, I should explain that Volume 40 bears the date "2000". This is short for "2000-2001". The Journal for any year should be published after the AGM at which the Financial Accounts for the year in question, and the President's Report covering that year, are presented to Members. Thus Volume 40, for 2000-2001, could only have been published after the 2001 AGM. Volume 41, for 2001-2002, can similarly only be published after this AGM. It is Council's policy that any Volume should be published sufficiently soon after the AGM so that it is in members' hands before the next AGM. Volume 40, therefore, should have been published, as it in fact was, after the 2001 AGM, and be in members' hands before today's AGM, which it was as well. So we are up to date at last! My thanks go to our hard-working Hon. Editor (Journals), Dr Peter Halliday, for having achieved this.
Editing the Journal is no easy task, especially as it is done entirely on a voluntary basis, and takes up an immense amount of time. It is true that computerisation has made the job a little easier than when the Hon. Editor had to deal with a mass of manuscripts in various degrees of illegible handwriting, but it is still hugely time-consuming and problematic.
The Journal is the premier academic periodical for Hong Kong studies, and, as such, gives the Society an important place within the academic community, in both Hong Kong and overseas. As I have mentioned above, Council would like to see more sets of the Journal in more academic libraries, and is actively considering how best to achieve this. I hope to be able to report more on this issue in next year's Report.
In the meantime, as Dr. Waters mentioned last year, we hope soon to have a contents-list for the Journal with some full texts in an on-line web-site format. We had, indeed, expected this to be available well before now, but Hong Kong University Libraries, through whom this project is being undertaken, found their contractor unsatisfactory, and eventually the contractor had to be replaced. A new, and, hopefully more satisfactory contractor is now in place, and Council hopes that
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