At one time our newsletter was published monthly, but a lot of factors went
into our decision to go to a bi-monthly schedule.  We found that it wasn't
missed that much. First, we printed all of the awards since the last
publication (that is a big attraction for our faculty).  Also, we no longer
had to depend on the newsletter to inform our faculty of upcoming
opportunities, since by that time we had begun to receive monthly deadline
alerts over email and were able to post those on our central computer system
where they could be accessed by everyone.  We also developed a computer
program that cross-matched faculty research interest profiles with the
funding program topics and prepared individual memos to the faculty.
Because we had so many faculty members who did not have access to email (or
chose not to use it) we continued to send paper copies of upcoming deadlines
to the associate deans for research in each of our colleges and they
distributed those of interest to their faculty on down to the departments.
This essentially halved our newsletter expense but still allowed us to
communicate with the faculty on a regular basis.  Almost every office on
campus is now connected to the Internet, so I am hoping that soon we will be
able to have a www server on which we will post our newsletter.  We might
also use email to distribute it to the colleges, and then they can
distribute it to individuals in any manner they choose if their faculty do
not use the www. We normally distribute close to 1300 copies, and to put
that many copies on the central system would create quite a stress.  I am
concerned, however, that we will lose the advantage of having the faculty
see our newsletter in the mail periodically. As someone else has mentioned
there is some advantage, I believe, in having the faculty see the newsletter
and associating it with the research office.

>I distributed a newsletter for a year earlier in my career here but was
>asked to eliminate that expense.  I have no hard data, but I believe
>there would have been more proposals subsequently if the newsletter had
>not been stopped--the number of submissions dropped a bit.  I think the
>newsletter is the simplest and cheapest means of getting visibility and
>increasing the number of applicants, and I'm sure it has other uses and
>benefits.  There are other ways of attaining visibility, but having that
>copy arrive punctually in their mailboxes was an insidious reminder that
>they could not escape, even if they didn't read it.
>
Shirlene Hagler
Coordinator of Sponsored
 Programs Information Services
Office of Research Services
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas 79409-1035
(806)742-3884