Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy

This book is the fourth volume under the title "Organizationsand" "Strategies in Astronomy (OSA)." These OSA Books areintended to cover a large range of fields and themes. In practice, onecould say that all aspects of astronomy-related life and environmentare considered in the spirit of sharing specific expertise and lessonslearned.This book offers a unique collection of chapters dealing withsocio-dynamical aspects of the astronomy (and related space sciences)community: characteristics of organizations, society activities, strategies for development, operational techniques, observingpracticalities, environmental constraints, educational policies, public outreach, journal and magazine profiles, publication studies, electronic-media problematics, research communication, evaluation andselection procedures, research indicators, national policies andspecificities, expertise sharing, contemporary history, and soon.The experts contributing to this book have done their best to write ina way understandable to readers not necessarily hyperspecialized inastronomy while providing specific detailed information and sometimesenlightening 'lessons learned' sections. The book concludes with anupdated bibliography of publications related to socio-astronomy and tothe interactions of the astronomy community with the society atlarge.This book will be most usefully read by researchers, teachers, editors, publishers, librarians, sociologists of science, researchplanners and strategists, project managers, public-relations officers, plus those in charge of astronomy-related organizations, as well as bystudents aiming at a career in astronomy or related space science.