EDITORIAL

Editing books is a gratifying experience, albeit a humbling task. The conception of a volume, the research of and the contacts with po-tential contributors, the subsequent, sometimes laborious, interactions with authors and referees, the work with safety margings in an optimized sched-ule involving other components of the publishing chain, the strict deadlines to get the masterpiece out in time for big events, etc., all the successive steps are often both exciting and stressing. Not infrequently, editors swear, when delivering the material for a book to the publisher, that they will never undertake such an endeavor again. But, struck by the virus, they do not need much time to launch new projects... The rôle of editors and referees involved in journals and magazines has already been discussed in these volumes (see e.g. Abt 2001, Cramer 2001, Lequeux 2000, Pottasch 2000 and Robinson 2002). In edited books, the task is essentially to get the best out of chapters sollicited from authors initially approached for their expertise1 and a contribution is very rarely turned down. Of course, there are sometimes difficult cases requiring psychology and diplomacy. Prima-donna-like behaviors, leading to psychodramas, are sel-dom met. More worrisome is the increasing proportion over the years of no-shows and failures to provide formally committed contributions. Rea-sons for such a significant trend remain unclear. Overload of work? Quickly changing priorities? Conflicting channels for visibility and career progress? Decreasing sense of responsibility regarding commitments or word given? Here are a few questions for sociologists of science. 1Other criteria are applied too, sometimes a contrario such as the ability to meet deadlines and to write in proper English (although this editor, as many of his colleagues, occasionally re-writes valuable contributions when delivered in poor language). Balancing themes and geographical coverage is also part of the policy, whenever feasible, for the OSA series