EDITORIAL ASSISTANT REFERENCE LIBRARIAN CONTRIBUTING EDITORS & CONTRIBUTORS

The values and impact of civil society organizations have recently been much in the news. Due to the tragic and almost incomprehensible damage inflicted on human life and property in the late December earthquake and tsunami disaster, the responses of civil society organizations to address immediate needs and to work toward providing long-term rehabilitation efforts have been widely discussed. In addition, the role of charitable giving by individuals and businesses has been frequently noted, with the large amount of private giving for disaster relief being praised by media outlets. Various large donor countries, such as Canada and the United States, have also made it easier to transfer individual and corporate donations for tsunami relief. But the discussion of this out-pouring of money to aid the disaster victims has also been cautious, because many fear that other causes, such as the need to address fairly common-place deaths from malaria throughout the developing world or the crisis in Darfur, will be forgotten by many. It is against this background that issues of prime importance to this Journal have been brough