Starting in Houston with historian Dr Frank E. Vandiver of Rice University and followed in Boston the following year with another historian, Pulitzer Prize winner Dr Allan Nevins, they go right up to the latest 2011 edition presented by Richard Edelman, President & CEO of the Edelman public relations firm.

Almost all the 50 Distinguished Lectures over the last half-century are available, a valuable and rich collection of insights and commentaries on public relations.

The listing of films, TV, radio and novels on PR has been updated with the addition of the PRDepiction web-based resource to power it.

Both can be found under the resources tab on the website.

While the US (18) and UK (8) have the largest national groups of submissions, the conference is increasingly international in its reach. Researchers in 28 countries have put in abstracts, almost double the 2011 range. This year, for the first time, abstracts have come from Bulgaria, Brazil, China, Georgia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, New Zealand, Palestine, Turkey, Taiwan and UAE.

It’s excellent news and a boost for future research. In all, the conference has received more than 170 abstracts for three conferences and demonstrates that this really is a developing field.

The conference will be held at Bournemouth University on July 11-12 next year. Join us and make history!

Registration for  the Conference, to be held again at Bournemouth University, has opened. Details can be found under the Registration tab or at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2517357484.

Join us on July 11-12 and make history!

Potential speakers have proposed papers and presentations on public relations archives and collections in the UK and US. So we are making a call for papers, presentations and information about archives and collections.

Are you aware of an archive mainly concerned with public relations? It might be about an organisation, a major personality, a collections of books and paper or in audio or visual form – film, television, audio, posters, exhibitions. It could be a stand-alone collection or part of a national archive, for example, the Library of Congress papers in the U.S.

If you would like to submit a paper or presentation, please do so by Monday, December 12. Alternatively, please send details of archives and collections to prhistory@bournemouth.ac.uk by Monday, June 4, 2012.

These will be included the conference papers and discussed at the archives special session at the conference, and later posted on its website, under the Resources section.

The IPRA archive was acquired by Bournemouth University in early 2011. It contains papers, newsletters, books and photographs from 1953 to the early 2000s. A preliminary cataloguing of the archive has been undertaken by Prof Tom Watson of The Media School. Brief summaries have been made of the Executive Minutes and Agendas, Conferences and Meetings correspondence, and Congresses correspondence. Also other elements of the archive are listed.

Include in the archive’s photographic collection are photos of Edward L. Bernays, Doris Fleischman (1) and post-war pioneers of public relations.

The full Call for Papers is accessed through this link: IHPRC 2012 – CALL FOR PAPERS

The first key date is Monday December 12 for abstracts. Successful authors will be notified in the week of January 23-27.

Referencing style is Harvard. Please use the BU Guide to Citation in the Harvard Style  http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/library/citing_references/docs/Citing_Refs.pdf

“The success of the first two IHPRC in 2010 and earlier this year has led to its establishment as an annual event,” said Prof. Tom Watson, the conference chair. “Since the last conference in July, there has been a steady stream of enquirers from around the world about next year’s event. They have come from speakers from previous conferences and from new researchers. It’s immensely encouraging.”

Prof. Watson said that the Conference’s Call for Papers will  be issued shortly. It was also hoped to announce the 2013 dates in near future.

The conference, held on July 6-7, attracted speakers and delegates from 16 countries who heard 28 presentations and a keynote address by noted PR historian and journal editor, Ray E. Hiebert.

In the report, prepared by BU’s Red Balloon production house, you will get the flavour of a very successful conference from delegates and speakers.