As editors it is our pleasure to announce that the 2016 IMC Proceedings are ready and can be downloaded now. The huge volume of the PDF exceeds the size limit valid for all standard e-mail accounts; hence download is the only option. I recommend to download the full sized version PDF and to save it as a PDF on your own PC. This version is recommended for printing:
https://meteornews.net/pdf/2016_IMC_Proceedings-cleaned.pdf (56,3 MB)
I also prepared a PDF version with minimal file size, which may be helpful in some cases. Some (too) low resolution figures look blurred; therefore this “small” PDF should not be used for printing:
https://meteornews.net/pdf/2016_IMC_Proceedings_small.pdf (33,8 MB)
A large number of presentations was expected at the IMC because of the combination with the Meteoroids Conference; hence the Proceedings would be exceptional in size. When the preparations for the 2016 IMC started, I was still working on the 2015 Proceedings (Mistelbach, Austria) and already looking forward to the challenge to do the 2016 Proceedings too. End 2015 the IMO cancelled my task as IMC coordinator in IMO in order to have the IMO Treasurer to handle all IMC related matters. No longer being able to work pro-active on any Proceedings aspects, I felt uncertain if I could still edit these Proceedings. When the IMC organizer, Felix Bettonvil, asked me again, I decided to accept the challenge in spite of the less efficient work situation shortly before the IMC. As I had edited already 9 volumes of IMC Proceedings before, it would be a great pity to lose all that expertise. I could reserve my free time in evenings and during weekends for about 6 weeks to get the job done. My wife Adriana volunteered to help as co-editor what eliminated communication time with any other co-editors. As nobody had bothered about Proceedings in the months before the IMC, the planning according to the delivery deadlines of papers ran into delays as about half of all papers were delivered too late. A number of people didn’t mind the fact that a paper is mandatory for each presentation. We lost a lot of time on sending reminders and at several moments the editing work got a break due to a lack of input. The editing work peaked after the final deadline of 30 June for paper submission, the accumulated delay with postponed papers had to be compensated with late night work. We managed to assemble a first complete draft by July 17. Many authors were invited to download this draft to verify their paper once more. This extra verification produced a very good response and some more typos and in some cases revisions in the text could be applied. In the final week all corrections were made, the submission to the ADS Abstract service was prepared and a selection of photographs provided by Felix Bettonvil included. Today the Proceedings are ready for public use and in order not to cause unnecessary delay; we can share the Proceedings now, one week sooner than initially estimated!
The early availability of the 2016 IMC Proceedings may create the impression that the making of these Proceedings was just peanuts. The opposite is true. Editing a paper costs minimum 1 hour of time, on average 2-3 hours per paper as some papers require as much as more than 6 hours of editing time. Although communication was kept minimal, the mail exchange with all authors involved in these Proceedings represents a lot of time too: I got over 600 incoming mails archived for these Proceedings. The preparation of the ADS Abstract Service submission took over 24 hours to prepare the data file and all 98 PDF’s. Each received paper has been remade in a virgin version of the template to avoid compatibility issues with Word like experienced last years. The Proceedings consist of 102 Word files, all kept apart during the editing procedure. For the creation of the final volume, 102 PDF files were created which were merged using Adobe Acrobat Writer, a job done to produce the Internal use version of 17 July as well as for the Public use version released today 24 July.
We wish to thank all the authors who contributed to the 2016 IMC Proceedings, Casper ter Kuile for providing the group photo, the photographers who submitted the pictures used in these Proceedings, but who could not be identified from the bulk upload on Flickr, the proofreaders and rewriters Lucie Heywood, Bob Lunsford, Tony Markham, Michael O’Connell, Vincent Perlerin and Jean-Louis Rault, and last but not least Felix Bettonvil who provided great help to collect papers, to send reminders, to provide the photographs to illustrate these Proceedings and to prepare captions for these photos .
As editors, we wish you all happy reading!
Adriana and Paul Roggemans
