On the circuit

Greg Good Director of the Center for History of Physics	Albert Einstein's Documents Going Online Radio interview by The Take Away, March 21, 2012 "Albert Einstein's entire archive of manuscripts, letters, theoretical musings, and personal correspondences are going online. More than 80,000 pages of material, owned by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will now be digitized and shared on the web. To date, only 900 pages of the brilliant scientist's legacy have ever been available to the public. The digital archive will offer the world an entirely new look at one of the 20th century's most important figures, scientific or otherwise. With Greg Good, director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics, we discuss the man behind the most famous equation in history." » Listen to the interview

Fred Dylla Executive Director and CEO American Institute of Physics	"One publisher's journey through the public access debate" 2012 Academic Publishing in Europe meeting, January 25, 2012 Abstract: The origin of the public access debate is often tied to a goal upheld by all stakeholders: the expansion of access to and broad use of scholarly publications. Starting with principles and recommendations set forth in the 2010 Scholarly Publishing Roundtable report¹, my talk will outline a pragmatic path forward and identify appropriate and cost effective roles for expanding access for all stakeholders. While working to bridge the schism brought on by the public access issue, the strategy takes into account the access directives of the COMPETES legislation that became US law in early 2011. Over the past year, a diverse group of STM publishers has developed public-private partnership options with two US federal research agencies, and the engagement has proven to be a step in the right direction. 1.) See Campbell, B., Willinsky, J., Anderson, R., Learned Publishing 23, 2010, 264-266 » Download the presentation 3MB

Philip Hammer Associate Vice President Physics Resources	"The State of Physics in 2011: A Demographic and Policy Overview" Physics Colloquium at Univ of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; November 30, 2011 » Event information Abstract: The health of physics is subject to many influences, both internal and external. My talk will explore a variety of data that taken together paint a complex and fascinating picture of the state of our field. By many measures, physics has never been better. By others, physics has chronic problems with which our community continues to struggle. My talk will present recent American Institute of Physics demographic data on physics degree production, employment, and salaries. I will also provide a crash course on the Federal R&D budget and the outlook for the future. Finally, given the complexities of physics' relationship to national policies and the economy, I will make suggestions on how our community can be more proactive in influencing the health of our field, locally and nationally.

Catherine O'Riordan Vice President Physics Resources	"Scientific Societies and Public Outreach: How to get the word out" University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia; November 29, 2011 Abstract: Using satellites to decode origins of diseases, revealing the secrets of flocking birds, and teaching the science of energy conservation. Each of these topics, when written for a general audience and distributed broadly, can communicate the importance of physical science in every-day life. Universities, government agencies, and scientific societies all try to communicate results of scientific research. Communicating science, however, is a core mission of scientific societies. In addition to communicating science through meetings and scholarly journals, many scientific societies also reach broader audiences through a variety of media to increase the public*s awareness and appreciation of science. The American Institute of Physics, as an umbrella society of 10 member societies in the physical sciences, is in a unique position to both support the outreach efforts of our member societies, and to launch outreach programs that are too large or complex for one organization. Outreach programs include supporting scholarly research in the history of science, collecting data on the science workforce, organizing student physics days at amusement parks, producing short science TV segments aired during the evening news, and creating a news wire service that is re-broadcasted out to many international news websites. I will explain the role of this type of outreach and provide some "behind the scenes" views of how these tools are put together and distributed through many types of media. In addition, I will discuss the demographics of the U.S. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) graduates and how we can work to increase awareness of the differences within the supply of graduates to the workforce. » Download the presentation 9MB

Alex Wellerstein Associate Historian Niels Bohr Library & Archives	"Gambling for H-Bombs: Publicizing and Privatizing Laser Fusion, 1969-1975" Maryland Colloquium in the History of Technology, Science, and Environment; College Park, MD October 13, 2011 » Event information Abstract: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a new technology known as “laser fusion” blurred Cold War distinctions between war and peace. Essentially a “dual use” technology, the physics of laser fusion is similar to thermonuclear weapons. However, laser fusion also held out the promise of important peaceful uses: it could be a limitless form of cheap, clean electrical power. In a very small span of time, interest in laser fusion spread outside of classified government laboratories, well before the government was ready to declare the technology safe for unclassified work. Foreign companies, university researchers, and, most problematically, private corporations, all got into the laser fusion game in the early 1970s. This created a regulatory headache that called into question the very foundations of the Cold War secrecy regime: what was kept secret, why it was kept secret, and who it was kept secret from. The problem, in its essence, was that Cold War system had been set up to handle disloyalty and espionage, not profit- or glory-seeking, and the government was slow to adapt to, and at times completely befuddled by, these emerging changes. » View this presentation

Joe Anderson Director, Niels Bohr Library & Archives	"Pragmatic Appraisal: Building Collections in the History of Science" Fifth Conference on Scientific Archives; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Panel session: "The creation of scientific collections: acquisition as a strategy of production and preservation of scientific memory". The acquisition policies adopted by scientific institutions are defined as the set of principles that guide the programs, projects and procedures pertinent to the processes of collections growth. This picture involves the discussion about the scope of collections, management policies, forms of acquisition (transfer, donation, or purchase), guidelines for selecting donated material, regulatory instruments, and other aspects. However these institutional policies cannot be disconnected from societal demands concerning the construction of the scientific memory of their own society. This process of recognition on the part of society and the custodial institutions of scientific collections enables the legitimacy and institutionalization of that which is identified as the scientific heritage and, importantly, that which ought to be preserved. » Download this talk

Terry Hulbert Director of Business Development	"Social media and the scholarly record: a square peg and round hole interface?" Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers International Conference 2011, Heythrop Park, United Kingdom Abstract: Is social media too informal or ephemeral for inclusion in the scholarly record? Should publishers continue to look for ways to help with this or will communities lead the way? Do researchers want social media included as part of the 'real' record? Are we trying to fit a square peg into a round hole? This presentation will take a look at what's currently happening in this area and how social media might be used to inform and support research - although will it form part of the scholarly record? » View this presentation