Executive Committee of the American Institute of Physics
Minutes of Meeting
Members Present: H. R. Crane – Chairman, J. A. Burton, W. W. Havens, Jr., Gerald Holton, E. Leonard Jossem, H. W. Koch, A. I. Mahan
Absent: G. A. Jeffrey
AIP Staff Present: H. William Koch, Director; Wallace Waterfall, Secretary; G. F. Gilbert, Treasurer; Lewis Slack, Assoc. Director for General Activities; R. H. Marks, Assoc. Dir. for Publishing & Information; Mary M. Johnson, Assistant to the Secretary
Chairman Crane called the meeting to order at 9:30 a.m.
A bound booklet containing statements on various subjects by staff officers and also background information for the meeting was distributed to all members of the Executive Committee before the meeting. The booklet as a whole is not being included in the minutes of this meeting but a copy will be filed with the official copy of the minutes. Some of the more pertinent statements from the booklet are included verbatim as attachments to these minutes.
1. Minutes
The Secretary reported that legal counsel had noted with some concern the statement made in the last minutes that the proceedings of Executive Committee and Governing Board meetings were henceforth to be tape recorded. The Secretary told legal counsel that the tapes were destroyed immediately after the minutes of a meeting were approved by reusing them. This satisfied legal counsel.
Upon motion made, seconded, and passed without dissent the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting of March 30, 1973, were approved as distributed.
2. General Financial Matters
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Result of IRS Audit Covering 1970
Gilbert recalled that he had previously reported that IRS had audited AIP for the year 1970 and we had received a letter from IRS saying that our report was accepted. A few weeks later we got another letter from IRS saying that they intended to audit AIP for 1971 and that the audit would begin on July 17. We have no idea why we are being audited again so soon except we have been told that IRS plans more frequent auditing of non-profit organizations.
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NSF Indirect Cost Rate – Proposal for 1972
Gilbert had distributed in the booklet a summary of NSF indirect cost rate calculations for the last five years and also some details of the calculation for 1972. Copies of both of these are attached to these minutes as Exhibit A. There was some discussion of our indirect cost rate and Gilbert pointed out that major changes will take place in 1974 because we will not have the NSF grants to bear a substantial part of our overhead. Changes in cost distribution will be necessary and these are now being studied.
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Receipt of SPS Trust Fund
At the last meeting Gilbert reported that five years had elapsed since the signing of the contract between AIP and Sigma Pi Sigma and the contract required that certain funds which have been held in trust by Sigma Pi Sigma should now be turned over to AIP. The funds amount to about $19,800 and the contract stipulates that they are to be used to stimulate and promote educational activities among students. Gilbert presented a copy of the Sigma Pi Sigma trustee account which is attached to these minutes as Exhibit B.
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Letter from New York City Tax Commission re Real Estate Taxes
In March 1972 the Secretary reported to the Executive Committee that we had been advised we were being put back on the New York City Real Estate Tax roll beginning January 1, 1972. Tax bills received indicate that our annual liability for real estate taxes might be approximately $58,000 per year. We took the matter up with our attorneys immediately and authorized them to start court action against the Tax Commission if that seemed to be the only recourse. Other approaches were to be tried first including a hearing before the Tax Commission. The end result is that we have regained our tax-exempt status and have received notice that our taxes for the year 1972-73 have been remitted. We understand that this decision of who is and who is not on the tax rolls is made annually and can be changed at any time. However, now that this particular hurdle has been crossed, we anticipate no further difficulties in the immediate future.
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Reprinting January and February 1973 Issues of JASA
The booklet of background material distributed before the meeting contained a memorandum dated May 29, 1973, from DiCaro to Gilbert explaining why an error was made in distributing back numbers of JASA which cost a considerable amount of money and depleted the entire inventory of some copies. A copy of that memorandum is attached as Exhibit C. Subsequent memoranda from DiCaro explained that a letter requesting members who had received extra copies to return them to us had been quite successful and more than 500 copies of each issue had been received. DiCaro still recommends that AIP reprint 2,000 copies of each of the issues in question and this, with the original cost of mailing, would represent a total cost to the Institute of approximately $7,094. The following motion was then made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that AIP assume the cost of reprinting approximately 2,000 copies of the January and February 1973 issues of JASA to replenish the inventory of those issues which were depleted because of an AIP error, and also that AIP assume the mailing and postage costs involved in the duplicate mailings.
During the discussion Burton pointed out that the cost of mailing and handling back issues had never been shown separately on any of the financial statements. Gilbert said that he would send Burton a copy of Lancaster Press monthly billing covering such mailings.
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Changes in Air Conditioning System
Waterfall reminded the Committee that, when we remodeled the old part of our building 15 years ago, Medallic Art made no objection to our having air intakes for our air conditioning system in the west wall of our building above their roof. Now that the Medallic Art building has been sold and wrecked and is expected to be replaced by a tall apartment building, our air intakes would be shut off. We employed our old architectural firm to study the situation and recommend what we should do. We no longer need the old steel fire escape in the back courtyard and therefore we can close off the air intakes in the west wall and use ducts into the old courtyard. Our original air conditioning units are 13 years old and that type is no longer made so we can no longer get repair parts for them. We have decided it will be the best policy to put in new air conditioning units at the same time the changes are made in the duct system. The total cost involved will be between $45,000 and $50,000 and, because a decision had to be made promptly, the Secretary said he had taken it upon himself to authorize the construction changes and the purchase of new equipment. Because it is a major expense, the Secretary said he believed it should be approved by the Executive Committee and the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that a capital expenditure of approximately $45,500 be authorized to purchase new air conditioning units and make changes in the building and duct work necessitated by the construction of a new building on the property formerly occupied by Medallic Art, with the understanding that this capital investment will be amortized over a 5-year period.
3. Separate Dues Billing for 1974
Gilbert explained that on June 7 he had sent a memorandum to Secretaries and Treasurers of all societies explaining the proposal for 1974 dues billing as developed by Martino in his memorandum of June 8. Copies of both of these memoranda are attached as Exhibits D and E.
Since the above memoranda it is understood that both OSA and ASA have decided that they want their society members billed separately also. This means that there would be separate dues billing for APS, AAPT, OSA, and ASA. Waterfall said that ASA had finally decided to go for separate dues billing because they believed it would speed up the processing of returns.
There was some discussion which indicated that there may be a number of details still to be worked out but Gilbert said he believed that the billing could go ahead on schedule and that the societies would be consulted about any details as they arose.
4. Production of Primary Journals and Secondary Services
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Status of Integration of Production
Marks said that the paper by Metzner and Herschman entitled “Integrating Primary and Secondary Journals: A Model for the Immediate Future” had been included in the booklet which was distributed to Executive Committee members purely as background information. It was a paper given at a recent meeting and is available to those who want copies. A copy is not attached to the minutes of this meeting.
Marks explained that the Information Division and the Publications Division were to be merged into a single division as soon as possible under the direction of Ken Metzner. The keyboarding of heads of articles so that they can be used both for journal production and for abstracting services makes them all part of the publishing operation and therefore the entire operation should be controlled under one head. For the information services we have been keyboarding both the heads and tails of articles but it appears that not much use is made of the tails except for journal production and it is less expensive to produce tails by typewriter composition if they are not to be reused for other purposes. Therefore we intend to discontinue the keyboarding of tails in 1974.
Marks explained that for PF and RMP we are experimenting with an organization which proposes to do the entire text by photocomposition and, as a byproduct, we may be able to get the heads tape from them for our uses. Executive Committee members expressed great interest in this development and requested that sample pages be sent to them when available.
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Status of Agreements with IEE for 1973 and 1974
In the booklet distributed to Executive Committee members before the meeting was a copy of a letter dated 22 June 1973 from Koch to Derek Barlow of INSPEC. This letter suggests a framework for an agreement between AIP and INSPEC. The letter had been discussed at some length when Barlow and his associates were over here and the letter bears a notation to the effect that the contents of the letter are agreeable to Barlow. A copy of the letter is attached as Exhibit F.
Koch discussed the proposed agreement at length and answered a large number of questions which were asked about it. Koch admitted that he thought we had reached agreement with IEE at several times in the past but we always ran into snags when it came to working out the details. The present proposed agreement must also be worked out in greater detail and it is possible that we may again encounter misunderstandings. If we can work out a formal agreement in line with the Koch letter to Barlow, it would appear that we will have something which is workable and which will be beneficial to both AIP and IEE. The proposed arrangement with IEE will strongly influence our financial plans for publishing in 1974 so we must come to a definite conclusion very soon.
Koch suggested the following motion which was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Executive Committee endorse the plan of cooperation in secondary services in physics between The Institution of Electrical Engineers and the American Institute of Physics as outlined in the 22 June 1973 letter of H. W. Koch to D. Barlow, with the understanding that a formal contract will be prepared covering the plan and submitted to the Executive Committee for approval.
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Financial Plans for Publishing in 1974
Marks proceeded to discuss his memorandum dated 28 June 1973 addressed to Koch which had been included in the booklet distributed prior to the meeting. He also discussed attachments I and II to the memorandum which gave estimates of income and expense for calendar year 1974 based on the proposed new organizational setup.
There were many questions and much discussion about the accuracy of the various figures. It was pointed out and Marks admitted that his estimate of income from sales of the new products in 1974 was about 45% higher than it would be in 1973. This sounds very optimistic but Marks believes there is a possibility of reaching that goal.
Considerable skepticism was expressed about various statements and figures in the income and expense estimates but it was pointed out that we are only in a position to make estimates at the present time. All we are asking now is for general approval of the setup proposed with the understanding that a complete and detailed budget will be presented to the Executive Committee at its December meeting when the entire 1974 budget for AIP will be brought up for discussion. The following motion was then made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Executive Committee (a) approve the organizational arrangements for the integration of primary and secondary services as proposed in Marks’ memorandum of 28 June 1973 to Koch; and (b) approve in principle the financial plans for 1974 for the products as proposed in the memorandum and its attachments, with the understanding that detailed budgets for 1974 for the various products will be presented to the Executive Committee for approval this fall; and (c) approve the specific 1974 subscription prices for various products as proposed in the memorandum. In taking the above action the Executive Committee made it clear that it was not approving charges to journals and Societies as proposed on Pages 2, 3, and 4 of Attachment I to the memorandum. The Committee considers this to be a change in cost accounting procedures and understands that the staff will obtain the agreement of Member Societies before instituting the changes proposed.
At this point the meeting recessed for luncheon from 12:40 until 1:25 p.m.
5. Proposals for Page Charges and Subscription Prices for 1974
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Marketing Experiences Including Subscription Numbers
Marks pointed out that the number of subscriptions to the various journals continued to decrease. Most recent figures show an average decrease of about 6% for calendar year 1972. Some journals have suffered much more than others. The subscription price seems to have little effect on the number of subscriptions. We had a major price increase in calendar year 1971 and the percentage loss in subscriptions was about what it had been in previous years. We believe that the continual decrease is caused by pressure on libraries to cut their expenses and so they do this by arranging to photocopy and by exchanges between libraries. Our only solution seems to be to increase the subscription price of our journals.
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Elimination of Backlog for AIP Journals
Marks referred to a memorandum from Metzner to Marks dated June 5, 1973, in which data were given on the backlog of unhonored pages (copy attached as Exhibit G). Marks pointed out that we faced a dilemma. If we allow too large a backlog to accumulate the effect is to encourage the establishment of competing journals but if we should work out some arrangement where there would be no backlog, there would be no encouragement to pay the publication charge and honoring would drop off. All the while we are trying to reduce costs in every way possible so that neither publication charges nor subscription prices will have to be increased more than absolutely necessary. Typewriter composition has effected a substantial saving and we can expect more savings from web-fed offset printing. We now send galley proofs to authors at considerable expense in both time and money. We are proposing to send page proofs only and this will mean another substantial saving. The editors seem to like the idea. Burton also explained that APS is adopting a new arrangement for PHYSICAL REVIEW – A so that an author can have professional composition and pay a publication charge of $70 per page or do the typewriter composition himself and pay only $35.
Burton complained that the proposed increase in subscription price of AIP-owned journals was much greater than the proposed increases for Society-owned journals. He proposed that the subscription price ranges of AIP-owned journals should be restudied. After some further discussion the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that member subscription prices for AIP-owned archive journals be increased an average of about 15% and that non-member subscription prices be increased an average of about 35%, with the understanding that the staff is authorized to make appropriate adjustments in air mail, back number, etc., prices.
MOVED, furthermore, that no commitments are to be made regarding elimination of or reduction of backlogs of unhonored pages until budgets for all the journals are adopted this fall.
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Increase in Advertising Rates for PHYSICS TODAY
Marks said he believed that advertising rates in PHYSICS TODAY should be increased 10% in 1974, assuming there are no legal objections. After brief discussion the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that advertising rates in PHYSICS TODAY be increased 10% effective January 1, 1974.
MOVED, furthermore, that all authorizations for price increases made at this meeting be contingent upon the staff’s receiving approval from the price commission for such increases if necessary.
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Soviet Translation Journals
Marks said he believed we were justified in increasing subscription prices on most of the Soviet translation journals because of increased costs and because of the increasing number of pages. He recommended specific prices and the following motion, incorporating the recommended prices, was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that 1974-75 subscription prices for AIP Soviet translation journals be as follows (current prices in parentheses):
JETP $160 (120) JETP Letters 70 (45) SJNP 140 (105) SPUS 75 (55) SPDO 80 (55) SPTP 135 (90) SA-AJ 95 (70) SPCR 75 (50) SPAC 70 (53) SPSS 155 (115) SPSE 155 (115) SJQE 75 (50) SJPN 75 (50) MOVED that the 1973-74 subscription price for the new translation journal “Chinese Physics” be $75.00.
6. Policy on Copying and Copyright Statement
The booklet distributed before the meeting contained a memorandum from Metzner to Marks dated 20 June 1973 concerning the statement contained in our journals regarding permission to copy. The wording of the statement differs from journal to journal and it seemed generally agreed that there should be a common policy and a common statement regarding permission to copy for all AIP-published journals.
Metzner’s letter contained several recommendations. None of the Executive Committee members appeared to agree with the proposed statement. Havens said that he liked the statement now being used in PR and recommended that it be used for all AIP-published journals.
The discussion became rather confusing and the only conclusion that could be drawn is that there is no agreement at present on what should be said in the journals about permission to copy. It was suggested that the AIP staff study the matter further and come up with some new suggestions.
7. AAAS Section Affiliation
Slack reminded the Committee that this subject had been discussed at the last meeting. Under the new AAAS organization, AIP will automatically be a member of AAAS Section B (Physics). We may also request membership in other AAAS sections and the AIP staff was asked to recommend which other sections we should ask to join. After consultation with others Slack said he recommended that we request membership in the following four sections:
- Astronomy (D)
- History & Philosophy of Science (L)
- Industrial Science (P)
- Information & Communication (T)
After brief discussion it was moved, seconded, and passed without dissent that AIP request membership in the four additional AAAS sections mentioned above.
8. Plans for Fall Corporate Associates Meeting
In the booklet distributed prior to the meeting was a letter prepared by Koch and intended to be sent to representatives of Corporate Associates and chairmen of graduate physics departments. A copy of this is attached as Exhibit H. Koch said he believed there was general agreement with the program proposed and suggested that two days during early October be selected.
9. Plans for Fall Meetings of Governing Board, Executive Committee, and Society Officers
Jossem, who had accepted the chairmanship of the meeting of Society Officers this fall (Assembly) said he had questioned a number of officers and Board members and had concluded that they would prefer an Assembly with a less rigid agenda and plenty of time for small group meetings. It appears this would take more than the half day first considered. It would be very difficult to squeeze the Assembly and both the Executive Committee and Governing Board meetings into one day. The schedule finally proposed would have the Executive Committee meet on the afternoon of November 15, the Assembly on the evening of November 15 and morning of November 16, and the Governing Board on the afternoon of November 16. It was suggested that it would be appropriate to have at the Assembly reports from the Long-Range Planning Committee and the Morse Committee.
10. Planning for Long-Term Programs at AIP
Koch said his comments on this subject were in his memorandum dated June 14, 1973, which had been distributed in the booklet (copy attached as Exhibit I). He said he would like comments from Executive Committee members when convenient.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:35 p.m.