Executive Committee of the American Institute of Physics
Minutes of Meeting
Members Present: H. R. Crane – Chairman, Joseph A. Burton, I. E. Dayton, W. W. Havens, Jr., G. A. Jeffrey, Wilbur V. Johnson, H. William Koch, A. I. Mahan
AIP Staff Present: H. William Koch, Director; Wallace Waterfall, Secretary; G. F. Gilbert, Treasurer; Lewis Slack, Associate Director for General Activities; Robert H. Marks, Associate Director for Publishing and Information; Dorothy M. Lasky, Assistant to the Director; Mary M. Johnson, Assistant to the Secretary
Chairman Crane called the meeting to order at 9:32 a.m.
1. Minutes
Upon motion made and passed without dissent, the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting of March 19, 1971, were approved as distributed.
2. AIP Organizational Changes
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New Organization Chart
The Director called attention to the new AIP organization chart which had been distributed to all members of the Committee present. The new organization chart becomes effective July 1. A copy of the chart is attached to the minutes of this meeting as Exhibit A.
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Reorganization Within General Activities Branch
Slack explained that some reorganization was being made within the General Activities Branch partly in response to suggestions which had been made by the Society-Member Programs Review Committee and partly because of Strassenburg’s resignation as Director of the Education and Manpower Division and the availability of Raymond Sears to take charge of the work in the manpower area. Strassenburg has been persuaded to continue as Director of the Education Division and practically all of his work will be supported by NSF grants. Sears will be in charge of the Manpower Division and will be assisted by Mrs. Porter who will split her time between the History Division and the Manpower Division. APS has provided $38,500 for the manpower work which Sears is doing and has agreed that Sears should also assume responsibility for directing the Manpower Division.
Donald McCormick has been employed as Director of the Public Information Division which will be divided into a Press Relations Section with Audrey Armstrong as Director of Press Relations and a Promotion Section which McCormick will head temporarily. Part of the work of the Promotion Section will be to prepare programs for promotion of the new products developed by the Physics Information Division and it is expected this promotion work can be charged to one of the NSF Physics Information Division grants.
Slack also distributed two sheets (attached as Exhibit B) which show the budgets adopted for the various divisions of the General Activities Branch for 1971 and also estimates of the probable 1971 expenditures of the divisions as a result of the reorganization being made. Slack explained that the figures on the sheets do not include the Education grants totaling about $170,000, the History Division grants of about $70,000, nor the APS contribution for Sears’ activities in the Manpower Division. The total expenditure of AIP funds for the various divisions in the General Activities Branch is expected to be close to the 1971 budget for the Branch and therefore no revision of the Branch’s budget is being requested at this time.
There were a number of questions and some discussion but no action was requested and none was taken.
3. Physics Information Division Products & Prices
The Director recalled that, at the March 19 meeting, the Committee had approved in principle the proposed program for merchandising various products of the Information Division, beginning in 1972, with the understanding that further details and selling prices would be presented to the Executive Committee at its June meeting for discussion and approval. The Director then referred to the documents which had been distributed (copies attached as Exhibit C) which describe the new products which AIP proposed to merchandise beginning in January 1972 and the prices proposed for those products.
Much discussion followed and a number of questions were asked. The Director said he needed Executive Committee approval of the proposed program and of the prices so that the products could be included in the "Journal and Membership Information" booklet for 1972 which will go to press some time during July. It is expected that most of the costs of promoting these products incurred in 1971 can be charged to NSF grant GN-865 and that NSF will grant additional funds for calendar year 1972 which will take care of any deficit which may develop in production and sale of the products during that year. The Director said that the estimates indicate the possibility that the products will be self-supporting in 1972 and, of course, the longer-range expectation is that the products will produce substantial net income for both AIP and the Member Societies.
Havens pointed out that, in approving the proposed program and prices, the Committee was committing AIP to an expenditure of approximately $277,000 in 1972 with hope of offsetting income from sales and subsidy from NSF if there is a deficit. He then introduced the following motion which was seconded by Dayton and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Committee approve the sales program and prices proposed for Physics Information Division products for 1972 contingent on agreement by the National Science Foundation to underwrite any losses which may occur in that year.
4. NSF Grant Termination Costs
At its February meeting the Executive Committee had asked the staff to determine what would be the cost of terminating the activities of the Physics Information Division if continuing NSF support should be withdrawn suddenly. The Secretary said that he and the Treasurer had been requested to prepare a statement on the subject which was distributed and is attached to these minutes as Exhibit D. Waterfall then proceeded to discuss the report, calling attention to the fact that there are many different circumstances under which termination might be necessary and an estimate of costs at this time cannot be very accurate. The purpose of the report is to give an indication of the possible order of magnitude of the costs.
It was pointed out that one of the major possible cost items has to do with obligations to Division personnel. Havens asked whether people employed by the Division had been advised that their continued employment was dependent on continuing support from NSF or other sources. Koch replied that he did not believe such a statement had been made in writing to all employees but he agreed that the matter should be investigated and that it would be a good idea to have such a statement on record.
5. Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data
Marks recalled that, at the Executive Committee meeting of March 19 and the Governing Board meeting of March 20, the possibility of the subject journal had been discussed with the understanding that the staff would work out an agreement with the National Bureau of Standards and the American Chemical Society for presentation to the Executive Committee at the current meeting. He then distributed the proposal which is attached to these minutes as Exhibit E. The ACS board of directors has approved it and the NBS had requested the procurement division of the Department of Commerce to prepare an appropriate contract to cover the project. It may be several months before the formal contract is received but the AIP staff now needs authorization to sign such a contract if it is in suitable agreement with the proposal made.
There followed brief discussion in which Marks assured the Committee that the proposed journal was almost sure to be financially successful. Following the discussion the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the staff be authorized to sign an appropriate contract with ACS and NBS for the production and distribution of the subject journal as proposed.
6. Arrangements for Handling IEE and IOP Journals for 1972
At its meeting on July 10, 1970, the Executive Committee approved arrangements with the Institution of Electrical Engineers and The Institute of Physics (both of London) whereby we would handle subscriptions to certain of their journals in the Americas and would be given a discount from the established selling prices for our efforts. Both arrangements were for calendar year 1971 only. IEE is now giving us a discount of 20% on PHYSICS ABSTRACTS and CURRENT PAPERS IN PHYSICS. IOP is giving us a discount of 15% on a group of their journals. IEE and IOP ship their journals in bulk to New York and it is AIP’s responsibility to handle subscription fulfillment, local distribution costs, and the cost of promotion. From these arrangements AIP is budgeted to net $58,450 from IEE journals and $9,750 from IOP journals in 1971.
The Secretary reported that the staff has started negotiations with both IEE and IOP regarding handling their journals in calendar year 1972. IOP has agreed to a 20% discount on their journals for that year but has not yet given us the subscription prices. IEE has given us subscription prices for 1972 but has indicated that they want to revise the discount rates downward with some special incentive to encourage us to promote increased circulation. We expect to be able to conclude arrangements with both organizations before the middle of July so that we can get all of their journals in our "Journal and Membership Information" booklet for 1972. We do not now know exactly what kind of deal we can negotiate with IEE and IOP but the staff would like to have authorization to conclude the best deal possible.
There was brief discussion of our relations with the two British organizations and particularly of our continuing efforts to work out some kind of long-range deal with IEE on a joint information program. We believe it is to our mutual advantage to work out some long-range deal which may eventually include arrangements for the handling of journals but we must now conclude some arrangement for the handling of 1972 journals. The following motion was then made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the staff be authorized to complete the best possible arrangement with IEE and IOP for the distribution of their journals in the Americas during the 1972 calendar year.
7. Subscription Prices for 1972
Marks pointed out that we have substantially raised the non-member subscription prices for Institute-owned journals in 1971 and the staff recommended that 1971 prices be continued through 1972 with some minor changes in air mail prices to take care of increased air mail costs. One exception is PHYSICS TODAY where we believe the subscription price should be increased from $7.00 to $9.00. We believe that the price for members of Affiliated Societies should remain at $3.50. PT is budgeted for a net loss of $31,950 in 1971. It has approximately 7,000 non-member subscriptions and increasing the non-member rate by $2.00 should help to balance the budget for 1972. The following motion was then made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the staff be authorized to increase the subscription price of PHYSICS TODAY as proposed for 1972 and make such adjustments in foreign rates and back number prices of other journals as seem to be appropriate.
8. Status of AIP Archive Journals
Marks reported that all AIP journals are essentially on schedule so far as time of publication is concerned. All of the publications are being switched to offset printing as fast as is practicable in order to reduce costs. The first quarter financial statement showed a substantial drop in number of subscriptions but subsequent monthly reports indicate this was a timing situation and we expect that, by the end of the year, the number of subscriptions will not be more than 6% lower than what they were at the end of 1970. We understand that all organizations have suffered a loss in subscriptions which is believed to be attributable to the general economic situation. The 1971 budget for our journals was based on 85% honoring. We plan to hold honoring close to that rate but are accumulating a substantial backlog of unhonored pages. The backlog is such that unhonored pages now being received cannot be published until about the dates shown in the following table, assuming we hold our present policy into 1972:
JCP | October 1972 |
JMP | July 1972 |
JAP | March 1972 |
RSI | October 1971 |
Koch said he believed the present backlog is undesirable and the staff has been studying ways in which it could be reduced. Publishing all of the present backlog during 1971 is one way which would cost us about $96,000. Another way is to arbitrarily change the honoring criteria from 85% to 75% which is estimated to cost about $120,000 in 1971 and the present backlog of some of the journals would still be carried over into 1972. In response to a question Koch replied that authors are being told when their papers are accepted what the probable delay will be.
It was pointed out that our 1971 budget contemplates a net income from archive journals of $520,000 with the expectation that we will put $150,000 of that into a Publication Reserve which we badly need. A much better picture of our 1971 journal finances will be available after we get the statement for the first half of the year and it might be better to wait until then before making any decision about the current backlogs.
Dayton suggested that, if the purpose of our delay policy was to force honoring, we should stick to the policy until complaints from authors made some change mandatory. Havens felt that no change should be made in the honoring policy at least until the next meeting of the Executive Committee in September. Crane said it would be helpful if we could get some information as to how many authors were withdrawing their papers from AIP publications and publishing them elsewhere because of the delay. Burton suggested that some study should be given to the form which authors are asked to sign indicating whether or not they will pay publication charges. Some change in the form might be desirable to make it a little more painful for the author to request publication of his article where he is unable to pay the publication charge. The Secretary was requested to send a copy of the form with these minutes (attached as Exhibit F) so that all who receive them may have an opportunity to study it.
No action was taken regarding the current backlog of papers and it appeared to be the consensus that no change should be made in our present policy before the next meeting of the Executive Committee in September.
9. Advertising Rates for PT and RSI for 1972
Marks pointed out that sales of advertising in PT had been budgeted at $429,000 for 555 paid advertising pages. Indications now are that we may fall short of the total number of ad pages by 5 or 10%. Because of existing contracts the full effect of a rate increase appears slowly and the effects of the increase which we instituted last year are just now beginning to be felt. He expressed the opinion that advertising rates should be increased further from $950 a page to $1,045, effective in 1972, with the timing to be at the discretion of the staff.
Marks also recommended an increase in the advertising rate for RSI from $300 per page to $340 per page, effective in 1972, the timing to be at the discretion of the staff. He pointed out that RSI has relatively small advertising income compared to PT but he believes the circulation justifies a higher rate than we have at present. Rates for fractional pages would be adjusted accordingly in the case of both journals. Increasing advertising rates may be expected to result in some reduction in the total number of pages sold but the increase in rates should result in some increase in net income.
The following motion was then made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the staff be authorized to increase the advertising rates for PT and RSI as proposed.
Havens criticized the attitude of "gloom and doom" which pervade the pages in recent issues of PT. AIP’s concern for unemployment of physicists and for lack of research funds has been amply publicized and further dwelling on it might serve to drive more advertisers away. Havens said that the amount of money being spent in physics now is more than it was three years ago and this point should be brought out in PT to help convince advertisers that there is still a substantial market for their products among physicists.
10. Microfiche Editions of Journals
Marks said that the Optical Society and Acoustical Society had expressed interest in offering microfiche editions of their journals to their members who might be willing to pay an extra price for them in order to reduce journal storage problems. The microfiche editions could be a byproduct of the Current Physics Microfilm program. Present estimates indicate that JASA in microfiche would cost from $9.00 to $11.00 per year depending upon the quantity produced. For JOSA the cost would be from $6.00 to $7.50 per year depending on quantity. This information is being given to the Societies. Marks expressed the opinion that, as the Current Microfilm program develops, it may be possible to furnish microfiche editions of journals at substantially less cost.
11. New NSF Indirect Cost Rate Proposal
Gilbert called attention to his memorandum dated June 14, 1971, to members of the AIP Executive Committee in which he explained the new indirect cost rate proposal which had been submitted to NSF (copy attached as Exhibit G). He said that, on a recent visit to Washington, he had called on NSF to see whether they had any questions about his proposal. He found that the NSF man who has worked on the AIP indirect cost rate in the past and understands our complexities is no longer there and so it may be some time before we get action on our proposal.
12. Revision of Subscription Fulfillment System
Gilbert read from a memorandum prepared by Martino and DiCaro which had been distributed to all Executive Committee members and which is attached as Exhibit H. He said it was proposed to design a system which would be open-ended and could accommodate many more journals and combinations and also other information which the Societies might wish to include about their members and about non-member subscribers. If the proposed $100,000 expenditure is authorized, the cost would be capitalized and amortized over a few years as was done before when the present system was set up. The first step would be to question the Societies about what information they would like to have included in the system and then we could estimate the cost of the various services which each Society might want from the system. It is important that the revision of the system be started soon because our growth rate is such that we anticipate major problems if a new system is not in operation by the late summer of 1972 when we must start our 1973 billing.
Johnson expressed concern about authorizing such a large expenditure without making sure that the basic system being proposed is the right one. Burton expressed the opinion that we may be trying to accommodate too many Societies and too many journals in a single billing. APS is large enough and complex enough that it might be best for it to have a separate billing. He said there are several reasons why APS might be interested in a separate billing and would like to have costs on it. Gilbert replied that separate billings could be done easily enough with proper programming but would involve substantial additional cost to the Societies. Dayton questioned whether Society officers could respond intelligently about what they would like to have the system include without some estimate of the probable costs. Gilbert replied that it would be difficult to make any estimate of costs until we determine how many of the Societies wanted the same kind of information.
At this point the meeting adjourned for luncheon at 12:18 and reconvened at 2:00 p.m.
Continuing the discussion, the Chairman said he had hoped the issue of separate billing could be separated from the issue of whether the present system should be revised to take care of the extra load. Gilbert said that the immediate problem has to do with restructuring of the coding system. Assuming we wish to adopt proposal No. 1 to have the new system in operation in time for 1973 billing, we should first hire and start indoctrinating the three additional programmers needed and we should start getting information from the Societies about what information they should like to have the system include if costs are acceptable. We can then make some estimate of the probable costs of the various services which the Societies may want. By the time of the fall Assembly we should have much better knowledge of what is wanted and what the probable costs may be.
Havens indicated that APS was not thinking of pulling out of the AIP computer system. He said he believed it was necessary to improve the computer capability for subscription handling and accounting and that the Committee should authorize what is needed to start examining the system in detail so that specific recommendations can be made. He agreed that the fall meeting would be an appropriate time to arrive at a final decision as to what the system should include. He then made the following motion which was seconded and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the staff be authorized to proceed with the revision of the subscription fulfillment system as proposed in Alternative No. 1 at an estimated cost of $100,000, that Society officers be advised of the changes proposed and requested to furnish information promptly about their Societies' requirements of the system, and that developments be reported to the Executive Committee in September for any further action which may be necessary.
13. Member Assessment Charge
The Director referred to the paper on this subject which had been distributed to all members of the Executive Committee and is attached to these minutes as Exhibit I. He emphasized the fact that most of the money now used for AIP general activities comes from the net income of Institute-owned journals. We plan to have the journals continue to have a net income but this will vary substantially from year to year depending on economic conditions and the general activities should have a fairly steady source of support. Although raising the member assessment charge from $1.00 to $2.00 or $3.00 would by no means cover the cost of the general activities, it would help to furnish steady support from Society members who benefit most from the services.
Then followed a number of comments and questions. Johnson asked whether additional funds could be raised by charging members a subscription price for PT. He was told that this had once been tried with the result that many Society members did not subscribe, the reduced circulation made the magazine less attractive to advertisers, and the magazine lost its effectiveness as a means of communication with all AIP members.
Crane pointed out that, as the member assessment charge is increased to help pay for general activities, the Societies may become more critical of the activities and want them tailored to their own specific needs. Waterfall said that all Societies are not equally interested in all AIP general activities. Some have little or no interest in the Placement Service and little interest in the physics education programs because they do little to improve training in the specialty of the Society. Burton said that increasing the member assessment charge would make it less probable that some Societies would be willing to provide special funds for special services such as the contribution APS made to augment the Placement Service. Mahan said the Optical Society had just come through a difficult year financially and he understood other Societies were also having financial difficulties. He said he believed his Society would not take a favorable view toward increased member assessment charges at the present time. Dayton said that AAPT had just increased its budget to provide for taking over some of the education activities from the AIP Education Division and from the Commission on College Physics.
After some further discussion of the problems involved in trying to provide for an increase in the member assessment charge to $2.00 as soon as possible with provision to increase it further at some later date, it was the conclusion that any action now should be limited to increasing the charge from $1.00 to $2.00 and the following motion was made, seconded, and passed with five in favor of the motion and two abstentions (Mahan and Johnson):
MOVED that the Executive Committee recommend that the Governing Board propose to the Member Societies that the AIP Constitution be amended to increase the annual dues which each Member Society pays to the Institute from $1.00 per member to $2.00 per member, the increase to be effective the year after adoption by the required number of Societies.
14. Nominating Committee Recommendation on Expansion of Executive Committee
The Secretary read the following excerpt from the report of the last Nominating Committee dated March 4, 1971:
“Our committee recommends that the Executive Committee examine the question of amending Article XIV, Section 1, of the AIP Constitution to expand the Executive Committee from the present limitation of six members. The number of Societies that are members of AIP has increased substantially since that constitutional provision was made, and it seems desirable to maintain more comprehensive Society representation on the Executive Committee. We do not wish to make any definitive recommendations on this matter, but a suggestion that might be considered is to enlarge the Executive Committee to nine members: two each from the larger Societies, and one from each of the five smaller Societies.”
The present Bylaws state that the Executive Committee shall be composed of the Chairman and six other members of the Board of whom at least four shall be Board members elected by Member Societies. The principal executive officer of the Institute is an additional member of the Executive Committee without vote.
The Secretary said he had explored several ways in which the Executive Committee might be expanded. The suggestion of the Nominating Committee would actually result in an Executive Committee with eleven members, counting the Chairman and the Director. That is a possibility but it results in a rather large Executive Committee. Another possibility would be to have two representatives on the Executive Committee for all Societies having over 10,000 members and one for Societies having between 2,000 and 10,000 members. This would result in an Executive Committee having a total membership of nine because the Society of Rheology and the American Crystallographic Association do not yet have 2,000 members. Another suggestion was that all Societies should have at least occasional representation on the Executive Committee and one or two memberships might be rotated among the smaller Societies.
It was suggested that it might be appropriate to appoint a committee of the Executive Committee to give further study to the various possibilities but this did not meet with favor. It appeared to be the consensus that the present Executive Committee is of about the right size, that the present Bylaws permit sufficient flexibility so that the smaller Societies can have representation on the Executive Committee if that seems appropriate, and no action was taken by the Executive Committee on the Nominating Committee’s recommendation.
15. Lease of New Space for Publications Division
The Secretary reminded the Committee that the Publications Division is now housed in two separate spaces outside the Institute headquarters at a total rental cost of approximately $102,000 per year. The total space involved is about 12,000 square feet and leases on both spaces expire on October 31 of this year. We want to get both parts of the Publications Division together and must finalize arrangements soon. We thought at one time that we would like to house all of the Publications Division and the Physics Information Division in one large space but that does not now seem feasible. Our lease on the Physics Information Division space does not expire until 1978 and we would have difficulty subletting it without a loss. The real estate situation in New York City is now such that it is an excellent time to be renting space. We have a number of attractive possibilities. One of these is a floor in a first-class building at Second Avenue and 42nd Street which contains approximately 15,000 square feet and can be rented, we believe, at $6.00 per square foot. This would mean we can get approximately 3,000 feet more than we now have for less money than we are now paying. We propose to lease for a period of five years with the privilege of subleasing. In March of 1970 the Executive Committee authorized the Property Committee to negotiate a lease for space for the Publications Division and the Property Committee would like to have similar authorization now. The following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Property Committee be authorized to negotiate and execute a lease for the Publications Division as proposed.
16. Third John T. Tate International Award
The John T. Tate Award was established in 1961 to recognize distinguished service to physics on an international level and is intended primarily for foreign nationals. The award consists of a gold medal, a certificate, and a cash award of $1,000.00. The first award was to Paul Rosbaud in 1961 and the second to H. W. Thompson in 1966. The Secretary pointed out it was the original intention that the award should be given at intervals of about three to five years and it has now been five years since the last award. Expenses in connection with the award are taken from a special fund established for the purpose and that fund, all invested, amounted to $18,171 as of the end of last calendar year. After brief discussion the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Chairman appoint a committee to recommend a candidate or candidates for the next John T. Tate Award to the Governing Board at its fall meeting.
17. Replacement on Governing Board of R. B. Lindsay by John C. Johnson
The Secretary reported that, after having served 15 years on the Governing Board and 12 years on the Executive Committee, R. Bruce Lindsay had submitted his resignation as a member of the Board. As provided in the Bylaws, the Secretary notified the Acoustical Society of Lindsay’s resignation and the Acoustical Society has named John C. Johnson, the Society’s present President, to serve out Lindsay’s term on the Board to the annual meeting of 1974.
In view of Lindsay’s long service to the Institute, it was the consensus that it would be appropriate for the Board to adopt a motion of appreciation and the Chairman instructed the Secretary to prepare such a motion for presentation to the Board at its fall meeting.
18. Future Meetings
The Secretary reported that September 23 and 24 have been chosen as the dates for the Corporate Associates meeting and the Assembly. If we follow the custom of past years, we would have an Executive Committee meeting on September 22 and a Governing Board meeting on the afternoon of September 24. The Secretary said that, unless there were objections, the staff would proceed to plan Executive Committee and Governing Board meetings accordingly and the length of the Executive Committee meeting on September 22 would either be all day or just in the afternoon depending on how much material is on the agenda. There were no objections.
Several Committee members expressed interest in knowing the probable date for the December meeting of the Executive Committee. The Secretary explained that is the meeting at which next year’s budget should be adopted and we usually try to set it as late as possible so that our next year’s budget can be based upon the most accurate figures for the current year. We will try to set the date early enough in December to try to avoid the travel difficulties around the Christmas Holidays and we will announce a specific date in September.
The Director stated that discussions at luncheon had indicated the desirability of getting the various material to be discussed at Executive Committee meetings in the hands of Executive Committee members before the meetings. He promised that an effort would be made to mail material so it would reach Committee members in adequate time or at least have it in their hotel rooms the evening before meetings.
19. Other Business
The Director mentioned that the Russians are starting some new journals in the area of physics which AIP may wish to publish as translations. The Executive Committee will be requested to give specific authorization if we decided we should like to publish some of these.
Marks reported that the Conference Proceedings Series is starting to gain momentum. One volume has been produced and we have commitments from five other conferences to be held in 1971.
Burton raised a question about several possible options for APS student members and Koch replied that he would be glad to discuss the matter with him separately.
Havens called attention to the fact that the June issue of PT, which purported to give some highlights of 40 years of AIP history, did not even mention the name of at least one individual who deserved mention. Koch said he agreed there had been unfortunate omissions. He said he would like to talk to Havens about it later.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:27 p.m.