Executive Committee of the American Institute of Physics
Minutes of Meeting
Members Present: Ralph A. Sawyer – Chairman, Stanley S. Ballard, W. W. Havens, Jr., R. B. Lindsay, Robert G. Sachs, Mary E. Warga, H. W. Koch
Absent: Ronald Geballe
AIP Staff Present: H. W. Koch, Wallace Waterfall, G. F. Gilbert, Lewis Slack, Mary M. Johnson
The Chairman called the meeting to order at 9:35 a.m. He welcomed the two new members, Messrs. Ballard and Sachs.
1. Minutes
Upon motion made, seconded, and carried without dissent, the minutes of the meeting of March 21 were approved as distributed.
2. Financial Statement for 1968
Mr. Gilbert reported that the financial statement for calendar year 1968 had been distributed to all members of the Governing Board with his letter of May 29. (Copies are attached to these minutes for others who should have them.) Mr. Gilbert also displayed a copy of the auditors report which had just been received and said that copies of it would be distributed to Secretaries and Treasurer of all Member Societies. He explained that the 1968 deficit of approximately $29,000 was primarily in the publication area. All publication costs increased, there was a drop of approximately 5% in page charge honoring, and also a significant drop in advertising income. Mr. Gilbert also distributed pie charts, copies of which are attached, showing the sources of AIP income and the distribution of expenditures. (A copy of the 1968 financial report as distributed with Mr. Gilbert’s letter of May 29 is attached to the official minutes.)
3. Revision of 1969 Budget
The original AIP budget for 1969 was adopted by the Executive Committee at its meeting in December 1968 and projected a net income for 1969 of $550.00. That budget was based on actual figures for the six months ended June 30, 1968, the last figures available, and on our knowledge that the percentage of publication charges being honored was rapidly decreasing during the latter part of 1968. It was understood that a revision would probably be necessary in mid-1969 and a proposed revised budget for 1969 had been prepared by the staff and copies distributed to all members of the Executive Committee prior to this meeting. Copies of the proposed revised budget are attached showing a projected net expense for the year of $22,550.00. In presenting the proposed revised budget the Director made the following points:
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Publishing operations present our greatest problems. The adoption of the “two-track” system for processing journal manuscripts with its built-in delay of publishing unhonored pages is having the desired effect of increasing honoring and the Director predicted that, by the end of 1969, the delay needed to stay within the page limit for unhonored pages should not be much more than one month.
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Maintaining a staff in the Editorial Section has been a major problem. Getting the journals back on schedule and keeping them there is essential and to do that we must have an adequate staff and be able to keep that staff. By substantially increasing salaries in the Editorial Section we have been able to stop the losses. This has resulted in some higher costs as shown in the revised 1969 budget.
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Advertising has dropped off and the revised budget is based on a realistic estimate of what we expect to get in 1969.
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As authorized by the Executive Committee at its March meeting, the Ukrainian journal is being discontinued and is not included in the revised budget.
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To get the projected deficit for 1969 down to the $22,500 it was necessary to cut approximately $27,000 from the budgets of Education and Manpower, Public Relations and Physics History. It is proposed to do this mostly by delaying programs rather than by dropping any of the present personnel in those activities.
There was considerable discussion of the budget changes proposed and particularly of the policy to be followed during the rest of the year with respect to unhonored pages. Mr. Havens said he felt from his experience that Institute salaries were too low in some areas and he approved of the idea of salaries in the Editorial Section which would enable us to keep a good staff of competent copy editors. Although we are pleased with the apparent recent increase in the percentage of pages to be honored, we should not relax our policy of limiting unhonored pages. After further discussion the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the proposed revised budget for 1969 be adopted with the understanding that the budgeted number of unhonored pages in archive journals will not be exceeded and that the budgeted number of honored pages may be exceeded only if it does not adversely affect the finances of the journal in question.
4. Corporate Associates
The Secretary reported that the number of Corporate Associates in 1969 was 139 compared to 148 in 1968. However, the net received from them (dues less journal costs) will be a few dollars higher than in 1968.
The Cities Service Research and Development Company, Inc. has applied for Corporate Associate membership at the rate of $500.00 and, upon motion made, seconded, and passed without dissent, the company was elected a Corporate Associate of the Institute.
5. Translation Journal Inventory
For the benefit of new members of the Committee, the Director reviewed the background history of our controversy with the National Science Foundation about the income from the sale of the back number inventory of translation journals. He distributed copies of his letter of August 15, 1968, to Mr. Rosenthal in which the AIP position was stated in detail and also a copy of Mr. Rosenthal’s reply of April 25, 1969, in which Mr. Rosenthal requested that AIP pay NSF $148,909.00. (Copies of both letters attached to official minutes.) The Director said that the Institute had offered to discuss a compromise settlement but that had been rejected. In view of Mr. Rosenthal’s latest position, the Director said he felt the only thing for AIP to do was stand pat and let NSF take us to court if they want the full amount. The Director said he proposed to visit Mr. Rosenthal in company with other AIP staff members to see if some amicable settlement could be reached and, for that visit, he would like to be armed with an endorsement of our position by the Executive Committee. He read the following suggested motion which was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Executive Committee renews its endorsement of the position as stated in the Director’s letter to Mr. Rosenthal dated August 15, 1968. The letter refused the request of Mr. Rosenthal to reimburse the National Science Foundation in full for the net income derived from the partial sale of the inventory existent when the last NSF grant was terminated.
6. Subscription Prices for 1970
The Secretary explained this was the time of year when we must fix subscription prices for AIP journals for 1970. With the AIP deficit previously reported for 1968 and with a prospective deficit for 1969, we must find ways of increasing AIP income in 1970 or consider curtailing some of our activities. Objections now being raised about our publication charges make us believe they should not be increased. Therefore it appears increasing journal subscription prices is the best way to increase income. Past experience shows that increasing subscription prices has little effect on the number of subscribers.
A memorandum on subscription prices prepared by Hugh Wolfe was then distributed. Mr. Wolfe pointed out that an increase of about 5% can be expected in the costs of printing, mailing and subscription fulfillment. Composition and other “front-end” costs may go up about 10% in 1970 and another 5% in 1971. Assuming that member subscription prices should cover the costs of printing, mailing, and subscription fulfillment and that non-member prices should be double the member prices, Mr. Wolfe proposed subscription prices as given in the following table for 1970. His estimate was that these subscription prices should yield about $180,000 more than our present subscription prices.
| 1969 Subscription Prices | Suggested 1970 Subscription Prices | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Non-Member | Member | Non-Member | |
| APL | $7.50 | $15.00 | $8.50 | $17.00 |
| JAP | 15.00 | 25.00 | 17.50 | 35.00 |
| JCP | 25.00 | 45.00 | 35.00 | 70.00 |
| JMP | 15.00 | 30.00 | 15.00 | 30.00 |
| PF | 15.00 | 30.00 | 15.00 | 30.00 |
| RSI | 11.00 | 13.00 | 11.00 | 15.00 |
In discussing the above suggested prices it was pointed out that no increase is being recommended for JMP and PF because the price per page of those journals to the subscriber is already relatively high and the present member subscription price covers the projected cost per subscription for printing, mailing, and subscription fulfillment. Also, the proposed non-member subscription price for RSI is not double the member price because a large fraction of the non-member subscribers are individuals and we wish to maintain the individual circulation to hold the substantial advertising revenue which is based largely on circulation.
The Secretary then discussed subscription prices for PHYSICS TODAY which for many years has had a member subscription price of $2.00 and a non-member price of $4.00. The printing and distribution cost of PT is now about $3.00 per subscription and there are approximately 6,500 non-member subscribers. There are only about 180 member subscriptions at the $2.00 price. Increasing the non-member subscription price to $7.00 should give additional income of $19,500.00. It was proposed that the member subscription price of PT be raised to $3.50 and the non-member price to $7.00.
It was suggested that, if the Committee approved of the proposed prices, the staff should be authorized to make appropriate changes in foreign and back number prices. This started a discussion about foreign subscription prices in which it was pointed out that publication charges are seldom paid on articles submitted by foreign authors and therefore it would be reasonable to have foreign subscription prices substantially higher than domestic prices. After further discussion the following motion was made by Mr. Havens, seconded by Mr. Sachs, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the subscription prices proposed above for 1970 be adopted but with the understanding that foreign subscription prices for both member and non-member subscribers will be set 50% higher than domestic prices, plus the present differential for transportation costs.
After passing the above motion, several members of the Committee urged that the reason for the high foreign differential should be publicized by a story in PHYSICS TODAY or otherwise. (It is understood that the above action does not apply to PT which has no publication charge.)
7. Microforms
The Secretary called attention to the discussion on this subject at the March 21, 1969, meeting of the Executive Committee. At that meeting the Committee approved a proposed plan whereby AIP would market microform copies of AIP and Society journals and authorized the staff to proceed with negotiations with the understanding that details would be presented to the Committee for final decision. Negotiations have now been completed and a copy of Mr. Wolfe’s memorandum of June 10, 1969, was distributed outlining the details. (Copy attached.)
The staff wishes to include prices on microfilms of AIP journals in the “Journal and Membership Information” booklet for 1970 which goes to press at the end of June and, the Secretary said, copies of the Wolfe proposal had been sent to all Member Societies so that they could take action before the end of June if they wanted microfilms of their journals included in the 1970 booklet. After brief discussion the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the proposal made in Mr. Wolfe’s memorandum be accepted and that microfilm editions of AIP journals be offered for sale in the 1970 “Journal and Membership Information” booklet.
8. Consultants for Converting Accounting to Computer
Mr. Gilbert recalled that, at the March 21 meeting of the Committee, the staff had been authorized to commit up to $10,000 for assistance in computerizing accounting activities. Since then some seven different firms have been contacted and written proposals have been received from three of them. Mr. Gilbert said that members of our staff and our auditors had been present during discussions with representatives of the consulting firms and the unanimous first choice was R. H. Management Associates, Inc. Mr. Gilbert distributed copies of the written proposal made by that firm in which it was estimated that the total cost would be between $14,000 and $17,000.00. At Mr. Gilbert’s request the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the staff be authorized to engage the services of R. H. Management Associates, Inc. to assist us in computerizing our accounting activities at a cost not to exceed $17,000.00.
9. Status of Employee Savings Plan
The Treasurer recalled that this subject was last discussed at the Executive Committee meeting of June 7, 1968, at which time it was reported that IRS had turned down our proposed plan because of an unpublished regulation applicable to 501(c)3 organizations. He reported that our legal counsel was continuing efforts to secure IRS approval and the Executive Committee authorized the staff to put the employee savings plan into effect as of the first quarter following approval by the Internal Revenue Service.
The Treasurer said we had just received word from legal counsel that an AIME plan which carried wording somewhat different from ours had just been approved by IRS. We are getting a copy of the AIME plan; our legal counsel will change the wording of our plan accordingly and resubmit it to IRS. We are hoping for approval and will put the plan into effect as soon as it is approved. We are very anxious to put the plan into effect because our employees have expressed enthusiasm for it and we believe it will help substantially in building morale. Our last estimate was that the plan would cost AIP approximately $13,000 per year.
10. Space Situation
The Secretary reported that the Property Committee is still working on long-range plans for space but nothing attractive has come to light to date. The present cost of mortgage money makes undertaking of a major building program unattractive. We are now working on our shorter range space problems. Our space situation is the tightest in the Editorial Section where we have 55 people in rented space on Third Avenue where the lease expires on October 30, 1971. There is no room for additional people in the present space. The present lease cannot be renewed so we must find new space for the entire section before October 1971. By rearranging some of the groups in our headquarters building we hope to find enough space here to house the “Physical Review” group of the Editorial Section and thus take care of the situation until 1971. By then we have promise of space large enough to house our entire Editorial Section in the building across the street where our Information Division is now housed.
In our efforts to find other space for the Editorial Section we have learned that desirable office space in the whole New York area is very scarce and renting at unbelievably high figures. When space does become available it must be picked up quickly. In case it does become necessary to rent a small amount of space within the next year, the Secretary requested that the Executive Committee give the Property Committee authority to rent up to 5,000 square feet of office space. The Property Committee consists of Chairman Sawyer, Havens, Zemansky, Koch, and Waterfall. The following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Property Committee be authorized to rent up to 5,000 square feet of office space if necessary within the next year.
During discussion of the space situation Mr. Sachs suggested that the Property Committee should keep in mind the possibility of moving all or part of the Institute’s operations to another part of the country. Mr. Havens said that the Property Committee had been considering all sorts of possibilities and would welcome any suggestions.
11. Appointments
The Director pointed out that Dwight Gray’s term on the Advisory Board of the Office of Critical Tables of NRC expires on June 30 and we would like to propose Franz Alt as a replacement. The Director also suggested that A. W. K. Metzner be named to replace David Biesel on several USASI sectional committees having to do with publishing matters. Mr. Ballard said he understood that the NRC Advisory Board was being discontinued. It was pointed out that the Chairman and Director have authority to make such committee appointments and the appointments in question were left to them.
The meeting was adjourned for luncheon at 11:50 a.m. and reconvened at 1:35 p.m.
12. JAP Supplements
Mr. Havens requested and was granted permission to return to a subject which had bothered him during discussion of the revision of the 1969 budget. He called attention to Pages 6 and 7 of the revised budget which showed that publishing papers from the Magnetism and Superconductivity Conferences actually represented an expense to the Institute. He said he felt that ad hoc groups organizing conferences on special subjects performed a worthwhile function but he felt that a continuing group such as the one which holds a conference on magnetism every year is actually performing a function of an operating society and should finance its operations completely including the publication of its proceedings. He mentioned that Mr. Wolfe and probably others of the AIP staff spend a substantial amount of time in helping organize such conferences and he believes the groups should pay for that time as well as for the publication of the proceedings. It was suggested that including such material in JAP is beneficial to the journal and helps increase the number of subscribers. Mr. Havens said he doubted this because he felt only a small percentage of the subscribers actually wanted this extra material. After some further discussion the following motion was made by Mr. Havens, seconded by Mr. Sachs, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Chairman appoint a subcommittee of the Executive Committee to study the publication of such conference proceedings in AIP journals and make recommendations to the next meeting of the Committee.
13. Abstract Charge
The Director pointed out that it had been decided at the February meeting of the Executive Committee that member subscriptions to “Physics Abstracts” should not be subsidized with AIP funds after the current calendar year. The subsidy had come from funds collected on the abstract charge of $10.00 per article published in Institute and Society journals. The Director said he had been considering changing the name from Abstract Charge to Article Charge with the idea that the funds so collected might be used in connection with some phase of the AIP Information Program. However, the Information Program has not yet reached a point where we know just how the funds would be used and, therefore, it might be well to discontinue the abstract charge altogether and reinstate the charge under some other name when we have a better picture of exactly how it will be used and what will be its magnitude. He mentioned he had queried the Societies about publishing costs related to the number of articles rather than the number of pages, such as indexing, and had received answers from some of them.
Mr. Havens said that APS wanted to continue the charge as an article charge of some kind and that the Society could well use the money in publishing abstracts of PR articles in PRL. Mr. Waterfall said that the Acoustical Society would also like to continue the charge as an article charge and use the money to help finance the cumulative indexes of JASA.
It was generally agreed that it would be unwise to discontinue the charge at the end of this year if it appears that it will be necessary to start some article charge within a year or two and it was also agreed that it would be confusing to discontinue the charge on AIP journals and continue it on some Society journals. The following motion was finally made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Chairman appoint a subcommittee to develop the concept of an article charge with the understanding that its recommendations will be made to the Executive Committee later this year so that such a charge may be put into effect by January 1, 1970.
In response to the above motion the Chairman appointed a subcommittee consisting of Messrs. Koch, Havens, Sawyer, and Waterfall.
14. Services to the Societies
The Director recalled that, at various meetings, we had discussed the services which the Institute performs for Member Societies and their members and questions had been raised about who pays for such services and how much. He said he believed it would be appropriate to have a full discussion of this subject at the Assembly of Society Officers this fall and he asked whether the Executive Committee approved of such a discussion. After comments by various Executive Committee members it appeared to be the consensus that such a discussion would be appropriate but it was suggested that the general philosophy should be developed in detail by the AIP staff and discussed with the Executive Committee before it is presented at the Assembly of Society Officers.
15. Status of Information Proposal to NSF
The Director recalled that a lengthy status report on the Information Program had been given at the Governing Board meeting on March 22. Since then we have completed what we call our draft proposal to NSF, dated May 14, 1969, in which we request substantial funds for a 3-year extension of the Program beginning in March 1970. The Advisory Committee and NSF program officers have reacted favorably to the draft which will be reviewed in detail by NSF during the summer and then presented to the National Science Board the middle of November. We plan to send copies of the final proposal to members of the Executive Committee and would like them to examine it and give us any ideas they may have at the fall meeting of the Committee.
Mr. Lindsay asked whether it was planned that the Physics Information Program should be self-supporting after it becomes operational. The Director said NSF had been impressed by the way AIP made its translation program self-supporting and had expressed confidence that it could do so with an information program. He said NSF regards our program as a model and has promised to give it high priority.
16. Move of Visiting Scientists Program to Stony Brook
Mr. Slack reported that, after discussion with Mark Zemansky who now handles the administration of this program, it had been agreed that it would be wise to move the administration of the program to Stony Brook where the Education and Manpower Division is now located. Mr. George Appleton who will be located out there by July 1, 1969, will be willing to take it on and it is proposed to make the move on July 1 when the new grant goes into effect.
Mr. Ballard asked about the cost of the program and Mr. Slack replied that the cost would exceed the amount granted by NSF by about $1,800 this year and this deficit would be made up by AIP and AAPT on a fifty-fifty basis.
17. Next Meeting
The Director reported that it was planned to hold the next meeting of the Executive Committee on Monday, September 29, either morning or afternoon, in connection with the Corporate Associates and Society Officers Assembly.
18. Other Business
Mr. Lindsay reported that, at the meeting of the Advisory Committee on History and Philosophy of Physics, there was considerable discussion of the name of the Physics History Division. Members of the Advisory Committee want it made clear that the interests of the Division encompass the philosophy and sociology of physics as well as the history of physics. Mr. Lindsay suggested that the whole operation be renamed “The Niels Bohr Center” to include the library as well as the other activities and personnel of the Division. Mr. Koch said he objected to renaming the Division and that he would like to discuss the matter with the Advisory Committee.
The Director said he had received an inquiry from the Australian Institute of Physics about the attendance of members of that organization at meetings of AIP Member Societies. The Australians would like to publish a statement to their members that they will be welcome to attend meetings of AIP Societies and are invited to do so. The Director said he had written to the Secretaries of the AIP Societies asking for reciprocal agreements and all had approved except APS who felt that nothing need be done since physicists from all countries are always welcome at APS meetings. It was pointed out that all Societies have registration fees for their own members and many of them have special regulations about presentation of papers. It was the consensus that Mr. Koch should advise the Australians that they will be welcome at meetings of AIP Societies with the understanding that they will be charged such registration fees as the Societies charge their members.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:50 p.m.