March 19, 1971

Executive Committee of the American Institute of Physics

Minutes of Meeting

Members Present: R. A. Sawyer – Chairman, Joseph A. Burton, H. R. Crane, W. W. Havens, Jr., H. William Koch, R. B. Lindsay, Mary E. Warga

Absent: Ronald Geballe

AIP Staff Present: H. William Koch, Wallace Waterfall, Lewis Slack, G. F. Gilbert, Robert H. Marks, Dorothy M. Lasky, Mary M. Johnson

Chairman Sawyer called the meeting to order at 2:00 p.m.

1. Minutes

Upon motion made and passed without dissent, the minutes of the February 3, 1971, meeting of the Executive Committee were approved as distributed.

2. Reports of AIP Journal Editors

Marks stated that reports for calendar year 1970 had been received from all AIP journal editors except JMP and that the reports were available for anyone who wished to see them. In response to a question from Havens, Marks said that there was a current backlog of something over 2,000 unhonored pages. We budgeted 3,934 unhonored pages for the year in all AIP-owned journals and publishing delays now vary from two months to nine months, depending on the journal. Authors are being told that there will be at least a delay of so many months and no promise is given about when unhonored pages will be published. An article will appear in the April issue of PHYSICS TODAY explaining the situation. Koch indicated that the situation would be reviewed before the June meeting of the Executive Committee and, if the financial situation seems to warrant it, the staff may recommend an increase in unhonored page budgets.

Havens said he believed JCP had become unreasonably large and he thought it should be divided into two or more parts. Koch said the matter of subdivision was now being discussed with the Editor.

3. Proposed Sales Program and Prices for Products of NISPA

Marks mentioned that proposed NISPA products had been discussed briefly at the February 3, 1971, meeting of the Executive Committee and that samples of them had been displayed at the exhibit connected with the APS-AAPT meeting in February. He then proceeded to describe the current status of these products. Six-month indexes for JCP and APL were prepared and published using the SPIN tape and year-end indexes prepared by the same method will soon be available. The next step we propose will be to prepare titles, abstracts, and citations and references for JAP using the SPIN tap and photocompose them for the regular issues of the journal. The Publications Division will buy these services from the Information Division at competitive costs.

  1. PAPA (Preview Abstracts in Physics and Astronomy)

    Marks explained that we propose to start this journal in January 1972. The plan is to invite all authors of papers accepted for publication in AIP and Society journals to submit typed abstracts of their papers for advance publication in PAPA. The typed abstracts as submitted by authors will be used as camera-copy for offset printing of the journal. We propose to issue the journal as a monthly at a subscription price of approximately $30 per year.

  2. Current Physics Microfilm

    Using page proofs of AIP and Society journals, we propose to prepare a microfilm containing all articles published in all journal issues appearing in a one-month period and lease these to subscribers at a price of approximately $2,650 per year. Coupled with this would be an issue of CURRENT PHYSICS TITLES furnishing an index and keyed to articles on the microfilm. We believe we could get about 100 subscriptions to the microfilm for a total of $265,000 and that our net income from this could be about $60,000. We believe that the libraries which will lease the microfilm are now subscribing to more than one copy of each of our journals. One condition of the lease would be that they would not discontinue more than one subscription to each journal and we propose to credit to each journal an amount equal to one annual subscription to cover this loss to the journal. This has been included in our cost estimates on the current microfilm project. It is recognized that some libraries may wish to use the current microfilm to produce hard copies of certain articles which they will wish to sell. A licensing arrangement can be worked out which would permit them to do so on a royalty basis but we do not contemplate such licensing to begin with.

    Marks also mentioned the sample bibliographies which had been exhibited at the APS-AAPT meeting and said we believe these can be produced profitably from the SPIN tape and sold in connection with various topical conferences.

    After some discussion the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:

    MOVED that the Executive Committee (1) approve in principle the program to merchandise, beginning in January 1972, “Preview Abstracts in Physics and Astronomy,” “Current Physics Microfilm,” “Current Physics Titles,” and bibliographies and (2) authorize the inclusion of AIP journals in the foregoing NISPA products and (3) authorize the staff to contact the Societies whose journals are published by AIP to request their permission to include their journals in the proposed NISPA products, all of the foregoing with the understanding that complete details and prices will be submitted for the approval of the Executive Committee at its June meeting.

4. GAO Audit of Information Program

Koch reported that the General Accounting Office auditors had completed their “administrative” audit of our Information Program after spending approximately eleven months with us and that we had been shown a preliminary draft of their report. We believe it contains many statements which are contrary to the facts and have so advised them. We understand that the final report will soon be submitted to NSF and that we will receive a request from NSF to respond to those parts of the report which concern AIP. Also we understand that, eventually, the GAO report will be submitted to Congress with NSF and AIP responses. Koch said he did not anticipate any real problems because we believe we can show that our handling of the project has been completely in accord with our agreements with NSF.

5. Authorization for 1970 Amortization of Subscription Fulfillment Changeover Account

Gilbert distributed copies of a memorandum (attached as Exhibit A) in which he requested authorization to provide a 1970 amortization of the subject account in the amount of $14,981.74. It was moved, seconded, and carried without dissent that the requested authorization be granted.

6. Postal Rate Increases

Gilbert distributed copies of a memorandum (attached as Exhibit B) explaining the implications of proposed postal rate increases. He said that the new first class rate is expected to go into effect on May 1 or May 15 of this year. The rate will go from 6 cents to 8 cents for first class mail and from 10 cents to 11 cents for air mail. We are now trying to calculate what effect this will have on our 1971 budget and should have better information at the time of the June meeting. The effect of the proposed increases in the second class rates is indicated in the attachment.

7. Proposal from SPS to Reduce Charge for PHYSICS TODAY

Slack explained that about a year ago the dues of Society of Physics Students members were raised to $5.00 per year and it was agreed that $3.00 of this should be credited to PT for the student’s subscription. Students usually join SPS some time during a calendar year rather than at the beginning and the SPS office has insisted that we send new members back issues of PT to the beginning of the calendar year. This represents what we believe is an unnecessary expense. SPS management also contends that it is unfair to credit as much as $3.00 of each student’s dues to the PT subscription and has requested that this be reduced. After some discussion it was the consensus of the Committee that the amount credited to PT is an internal matter and that we should consider the matter later when and if budget changes are made. It was also agreed that furnishing back numbers of PT to students was not justified and the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:

MOVED that the giving of back issues of PT to SPS members should be discontinued as of July 1, 1971, and that they should receive PT from the time they are recorded as members of SPS until they cease to be members.

8. Report on Publication Charge Accounts Receivable

Gilbert distributed a memorandum (attached as Exhibit C) showing that accounts receivable for publication charges and reprint sales amounted to $1,139,275 as of December 31, 1970. Although the amount seems large the attachment shows that it is not out of line with the previous years. The Treasurer’s persistence in attempting to collect on these accounts is evidently paying off. The attachment also shows the accounts receivable with respect to each publication. Our writeoffs have been very small over the years but Gilbert said he intended to seek the advice of our auditors on whether a reserve should be set up to cover bad accounts.

9. Review of Governing Board Agenda

The Executive Committee reviewed the agenda for the Governing Board meeting to take place on the following day and, after discussing the various items, took the following actions:

  1. Recommended that the Governing Board elect the American Geophysical Union as an Affiliated Society.

  2. Recommended that the Governing Board set the financial handling charge at 5/8 of 1% for 1972.

  3. Recommended that the Governing Board approve the proposal that AIP, ACS and NBS co-sponsor a new publication, “Journal of Chemical and Physical Reference Data.”

10. Other Business

  1. Havens said he had been receiving a lot of letters from members asking why APS and AIP were not doing something in Washington to let Government agencies and Congressional committees know about the plight of physics and physicists. We are being urged to undertake some program of educating the public on the value of physics to the future welfare of the country with the hope that this will result in favorable Congressional action. It was pointed out that our tax status precludes our making any direct efforts to influence legislation but it is permissible for us to supply information on invitation. Havens said he would like to see some proposal from the AIP staff on how this educational program should be undertaken.

  2. Waterfall said the staff had not forgotten Havens’ request at the last meeting that information be developed on the cost to AIP of terminating NSF grant projects if funds were suddenly stopped. We hope to have estimates ready for the June meeting.

  3. Koch referred to the recommendations made by the Executive Review Committee at the meeting of December 11, 1970, and said he had suggested a change to Burton, the Chairman of the Committee. Burton said his Committee concurred with the change suggested and made the following motion which was seconded and carried without dissent:

    MOVED that the salary of Robert H. Marks be increased from $27,000 per year to $30,000 per year, effective May 1, 1971.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:40 p.m.