Executive Committee of the American Institute of Physics
Minutes of Meeting
Members Present: Philip M. Morse – Chairman, Robert T. Beyer, Charles B. Duke, W. W. Havens Jr., H. William Koch, Sidney Millman, Norman F. Ramsey
Absent: Jarus W. Quinn, A. A. Strassenburg
Nonvoting Participants: R. A. Young (ACA)
Guest: John L. Vossen, Jr. – President, American Vacuum Society
AIP Staff: H. William Koch, Director; Sidney Millman, Secretary; G. F. Gilbert, Treasurer; R. H. Marks, Associate Director for Publishing; Lewis Slack, Assoc. Dir. For Educational Services; D. M. Lasky, Assistant to the Director; M. M. Johnson, Assistant to the Secretary; Mitchell Koch, Manager of Publication Division II – for Items Nos. 14 and 15; John Auliano, Technical Advisor to the Director’s Office – for Item No. 16
Chairman Morse called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m.
1. Minutes
Upon motion made by Beyer, seconded by Ramsey, and passed without dissent, the minutes of the 13-14 December 1979 Executive Committee meeting were approved.
2. Nominating Committee Procedures and Recommendations
Koch reported on his latest discussion with Lewis M. Branscomb, the Chairman of the Nominating Committee of the Governing Board. The committee expects to furnish nominations for all committees two to three weeks before the March Board meeting. Branscomb is only going to supply names for existing committees and did not feel it was appropriate for the Nominating Committee to propose new committees.
3. Report on AIP Building Activities
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Revocation and Reinstatement of Building Permit
Marks reported that, due to a difference of opinion with the Town of Oyster Bay about which is the front, side, and back of our Woodbury building, the building permit for the Woodbury addition was temporarily revoked, causing a delay in construction of about two weeks. Everything got straightened out and construction is proceeding according to schedule.
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Financing of Addition
Gilbert reported that AIP has run into all kinds of red tape with Bankers Trust Company in securing the construction loan but he was optimistic that they will give us what we want. After the letter of commitment is signed, it will take a minimum of 60 days to issue the bonds.
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Purchase of Furniture and Equipment for Woodbury
Gilbert noted that the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency had originally authorized the issuance of Industrial Development Agency Bonds for AIP in the amount of $2,900,000 to cover construction of our Woodbury addition and to acquire and install equipment. We entered into an agreement with The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America for the purchase of bonds covering 75% of the total, i.e., $2,175,000, to cover the cost of the Woodbury addition and the retirement of the existing mortgage. This means there is a balance of $725,000 in IDA bonds still available for furniture and equipment. The IDA authorization requires the issuance of these bonds prior to 21 July 1980, although we understand that there would be no difficulty in securing an extension of this date.
Marks added that the estimated cost of the furniture and equipment is about $350,000. The new bond issue could also provide for the needed expansion of the ATEX equipment at a cost of $200,000, and new equipment for our duplicating shop for $100,000.
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Time Schedules for Construction and Staff Moves
Marks reported on a tentative schedule for moving the camera and darkroom and the Videocomp from 800 Second Avenue to Woodbury. This will be followed by the conversion of the old lunchroom into a computer room, and the move of the ATEX photocomposition equipment.
4. Notice from IRS and AIP Response
Gilbert reported that the IRS agent, F. Doman, is now back at AIP auditing our unrelated business income tax returns. We have again engaged William Lehrfeld, who had successfully defended our 501(c)(3) status, to prepare our response.
5. Discussion of AIP Financial Reserves
Gilbert distributed a “Statement of Available Reserve Funds and Major Commitments” listing the various authorized expenditures from April 1976 to March 1979 from our reserve funds of $3,300,000 for equipment, purchase of the Woodbury facility, and renovation of headquarters, and noted that our reserves are now at the very low figure of $155,000. Marks stated that we are going to ask for an increase in journal prices and page charges.
6. Report on Planning Committee for the Committee for Public Policy
Morse called attention to the “Guidelines for the Interaction between the Committee for Public Policy (CPP), the Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics and the Councils of the Member Societies” (previously distributed). The Planning Committee recommended these guidelines to the AIP Board and that a Committee for Public Policy be set up.
The following motion was made by Duke, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Executive Committee recommend to the Governing Board establishment of a Committee for Public Policy with the indicated guidelines subject to modifications, if any, by the Board.
(The guidelines, if approved by the Board, will be appended to the minutes of the Governing Board meeting of 28-29 March 1980.)
7. Experience of American Vacuum Society in its Negotiations with Representatives of the U.S. Department of Commerce Concerning Restricting Attendance at the First International Conference on Bubble Memory Materials and Process Technology
John Vossen, President of the American Vacuum Society, distributed a document on the “Chronology of Events Surrounding the First International Conference on Bubble Memory Materials and Process Technology,” and discussed the AVS experience in the negotiation with representatives of the Department of Commerce who were concerned about possible violation of regulations proscribing the export of technical information. Gloria Lubkin was encouraged to write a news story for Physics Today on this detailing the whole affair.
8. Recommendations of Publishing Policy Committee
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Journal of Chemical Physics Letters
Marks reported that the proposal to start publishing a Chemical Physics Letters journal is being considered by the Publishing Policy Committee.
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Chinese Physical Review
Koch called attention to agenda Attachment C, and reported on the Publishing Policy Committee discussion of the advisability of AIP’s undertaking the production of a journal to be called Chinese Physical Review. The following motion, made by Duke and seconded by Havens, was passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Director be authorized to seek funding for the production in 1981 of a journal to be called Chinese Physical Review to consist of selected translations from several original Chinese-language journals of physics, with an initial year’s budget not to exceed $60,000.
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Review of The Physics of Fluids
Koch reported that the Publishing Policy Committee endorsed the idea of reviewing The Physics of Fluids journal. This would be the third journal to be reviewed, after Review of Scientific Instruments and The Journal of Chemical Physics. The following motion, made by Havens, was seconded and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Director be authorized to establish a review committee for the journal, The Physics of Fluids.
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Proposal for Up-grading AIP’s ATEX System
Marks called attention to Agenda Attachment D providing detailed specifications for additional equipment to be purchased for up-grading the ATEX system. This would give us four additional keyboards with capacity for 7,000 additional journal pages.
9. Election of Corporate Associate
Lasky reported that Exxon Research & Engineering Company has applied to become a Corporate Associate of the Institute at the $1,000 rate. The following motion was made by Havens, seconded and passed without dissent:
MOVED that Exxon Research & Engineering Company be elected a Corporate Associate of AIP as of 1980.
10. News from Other Organizations of Interest to AIP
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Initiation of Copyright Litigation Against Campus Copying Service
Koch reported that a threatened suit against a campus copying service for duplicating journal articles without paying copying fees is apparently being settled, and they have agreed to cease making copies and infringing on publishers’ copyrights.
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Renewed Invitation for AIP Participation in CSSP
Koch reported on a recent letter he received from the President of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents inviting AIP to participate in CSSP activities. He stated his intention to decline the invitation.
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Relations with Physics Briefs and Engineering Index
Marks reported on the AIP involvement with the German Physics Briefs; we are sending abstracts on time and they are paying the agreed-on fees on schedule. He also reported that, after a year of successful abstracts input to Engineering Index during 1979, they have informed us that they do not want to continue with it until they resolve some of their own internal problems.
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CESSE Session on Public Affairs – 6 March
In connection with the foregoing discussion of a Committee for Public Policy, Koch reported that the Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives is also turning its attention to this subject.
11. Review of Proposed Program for Assembly of Society Officers and Governing Board
Koch called attention to the program for the 28 March AIP Assembly of Society Officers and to the meetings that will follow: (a) a meeting of the AIP Corporation on 28 March, (b) a brief meeting of the Executive Committee also on 28 March, and (c) the Governing Board meeting starting with a reception at 5:30 p.m. and an evening session at the Sheraton-Russell Hotel following dinner, also on the 28th. The Governing Board session on the following day is to be held at the AIP headquarters building.
12. Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics
Koch announced that the first Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics is going to be awarded this summer by the American Astronomical Society to Joseph H. Taylor, Jr., of the University of Massachusetts.
13. Bequest to AIP from Herbert S. Polin
Slack reported that AIP was named in the will of Mr. Herbert S. Polin, who died last summer. He had visited the Institute a couple of times when he was trying to find a pied-a-terre in this country. The assets of his laboratory in Switzerland are very minimal. Slack did examine his possessions at a local warehouse and AIP acquired various instruments. There were 20 boxes of books, some of which are worth keeping in our library.
The meeting was recessed for luncheon at 12:10 p.m. and reconvened at 1:00 p.m.
14. Status of Publication Division II
Mitchell Koch, the Manager of the newly-formed Publication Division II, reported that, to handle the APS publications as a dedicated group, there are 27 copy editors located at Woodbury, compared with six this past summer. He was quite impressed by the quality of the staff which has been hired so far. The Woodbury staff is composing most of Physical Review by typewriter. In addition, they are composing The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, The Physics of Fluids, and a group of Soviet translation journals. The total composition activity is at an annual rate of 40,000 pages. When the Woodbury addition is constructed, it will house photocomposition equipment for the APS work and Publication Division II will then be entirely dedicated to APS publications.
15. Status of ATEX Operation
M. Koch also reported on the current ATEX operation at AIP. He noted that the Institute has been engaged in this for about a year and a half. The ATEX group, which is located in Manhattan, produces about 15,000 pages, the bulk of which are for the Journal of Applied Physics, the Journal of Mathematical Physics, Applied Physics Letters, and JETP Letters. We are still developing the use of ATEX for composition of directories. The ATEX system will be moved to Woodbury some time this year.
16. Computerization of Accounting
John Auliano, Technical Advisor to the Director’s Office, described progress being made in the areas of (a) Computerization of accounts payable, (b) Computerization of accounts receivable, (c) Interface to the General Ledger, (d) On-line access of the General Ledger, (e) Maintaining schedules within the Accounting Division, and (f) Data Processing vis-a-vis Word Processing.
17. Next Meeting
It was agreed that the Executive Committee will meet on 28 March, and on 18 June 1980. In addition, a possible brief breakfast meeting in Washington might be scheduled, if needed, on Tuesday, 29 April, at 7:30 a.m.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:00 p.m.