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., Wilber V. Johnson, H. William Koch, A. I. Mahan
Absent: G. A. Jeffrey
Guest: Ralph A. Sawyer, former Chairman, joined the meeting for luncheon and the afternoon session.
AIP Staff Present: H. William Koch, Director; Wallace Waterfall, Secretary; G. F. Gilbert, Treasurer; Lewis Slack, Assoc. Director for General Activities; Robert H. Marks, Assoc. Dir. for Publishing & Information; Dorothy M. Lasky, Assistant to the Director; Mary M. Johnson, Assistant to the Secretary.
Chairman Crane called the meeting to order at 10:07 a.m.
1. Minutes
The Secretary reported that no corrections to the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting of June 14, 1971, had been received and, upon motion made and passed without dissent, they were approved as circulated.
2. Action of Property Committee on Space for Editorial
The Secretary pointed out that the situation with respect to space for the Editorial Section had been explained at the June 14 meeting of the Executive Committee and the Property Committee had been authorized to negotiate for the needed space and execute a lease. A lease has now been signed for the entire fifth floor in the building at 800 Second Avenue which is on the corner of 42nd Street. The lease will run from November 1, 1971, to October 31, 1976, and we have the privilege of subleasing. We will pay $90,000 per year, plus electricity, for approximately 14,700 square feet which is about $6.10 per square foot. This will give us approximately 2,000 square feet more than we have had in the Commerce and Honeywell Buildings for which we have been paying $100,000 per year. We can take occupancy of the new space any time after October 1. Some remodeling is now being done at the owner’s expense and we hope to be able to move in about the middle of October. The move is expected to cost about $8,000.
After brief discussion a motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent, approving the action taken by the Property Committee.
3. Ratification of Mail Ballot on “Soviet Journal of Quantum Electronics”
At the June 14 meeting of the Executive Committee the possibility of our translating a new Soviet physics journal was mentioned. Soon after that meeting the staff received further information about the journal and decided that immediate action should be taken to prepare for its translation. Accordingly, a letter ballot (Exhibit A) was sent to all members of the Executive Committee asking their approval and all members of the Committee responded approving the action proposed. By motion made, seconded, and passed without dissent, the mail ballot was confirmed.
4. Reciprocal Arrangements with IEE on Handling 1972 Journals
Our arrangements for handling subscriptions in the Americas for certain 1971 journals of The Institution of Electrical Engineers were explained at the June 14 meeting of the Executive Committee. Plans for 1972 were also discussed and the staff was authorized to complete the best possible arrangement for that calendar year. The Director described negotiations which have been going on since then both for the sale of IEE journals in the Americas by AIP and for the sale of products of our Current Information Program in Europe and elsewhere by IEE. He called attention to the letter from Waterfall to Gainsborough dated September 16, 1971, (Exhibit B) which spells out the arrangement proposed by AIP and which, we believe, will be accepted by IEE. It was pointed out that the 1971 arrangement has been profitable to AIP and we are certain that the 1972 arrangement will also be profitable. We have no idea what success IEE will have in selling our products in Europe but we have tried to make the proposition attractive enough so that they will make a real promotional effort.
Dayton pointed out that our arrangement for handling subscriptions to IEE journals in this country is beneficial to subscribers because it gets the journals to them faster. He suggested that we publicize this fact.
5. Long-Range Agreement on Cooperation Between AIP and IEE
Koch pointed out that the AIP staff had been working for about a year with the British trying to develop our long-range plan of cooperation which would involve not only journals but also other products of the Information Programs being developed by AIP and IEE. The negotiations have been difficult because IEE had a going product in “Physics Abstracts” and a substantial market for it and they were unable to see how they could gain in cooperating with us in the development of AIP products which might threaten their market for their products. Slowly they have come to appreciate our pre-eminent position in the area of primary physics literature and to realize that our intention in developing secondary capabilities and services could be a desirable supplement to their own. We have now been able to work out a Statement of Intent (Exhibit C) which has been signed by Gainsborough for IEE and the Director requested approval of the Executive Committee to sign the document for AIP. As the statement indicates, it is expected to be the forerunner of a contract or series of contracts which will spell out the details of future cooperation and, of course, such contracts will be brought to the Executive Committee for approval as they are prepared.
A number of questions were asked by Committee members and answered by Koch. He pointed out that Mr. Day of NSF had been kept informed about negotiations as they had progressed and he was in favor of the cooperative arrangements proposed. The following motion was then made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that the Director be authorized to sign the Statement of Intent as proposed.
6. Current Physics Information (CPI) Program
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Marketing by University Microfilms
Marks pointed out that a sales program and prices for Physics Information Division products for 1972 had been approved by the Executive Committee at its June 14 meeting. In furtherance of the program we have now concluded an agreement with University Microfilms to act as sales agent. This agreement is covered in detail by Marks’ letter of September 8, 1971, to Mr. Kettell of University Microfilms (Exhibit D). Marks mentioned that UM was particularly interested in our CPM because it should help them in selling their reader-printer machines. We have given UM an exclusive arrangement on CPM until December 31, 1971, and the continuation of the arrangement beyond that date will depend on their performance between now and the end of the year. AIP reserves the right to sell direct to customers and UM understands that they will receive a commission only on the sales they make.
Koch requested that details of various exclusive arrangements such as AIP is making with UM and with IEE not be publicized.
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Promotion
Marks explained that we have an extensive direct mail program under way which will go to the complete membership of AIP. There will be a full-page ad in the October PHYSICS TODAY and this will be followed by direct mail flyers on the individual products. Eastman Kodak has also indicated that they would like to have literature about our CPM which their salesmen can leave with potential customers as they make their calls to sell reader-printers.
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Schedule of Production
Marks then distributed a proposed production schedule for CPM, CPT, and SPIN (Exhibit E). The goal for 1973 is to have the January issue of each of these three products contain the same journal articles. This will not be possible for the January 1972 issues but it is desirable to have an issue of each of the three products come out during January so that subscribers and potential subscribers can visualize what the products will be. Accordingly, we propose to put out a sample issue of CPM on about January 7 which will contain articles appearing in December issues of AIP journals plus PHYSICAL REVIEW. To do this we believe royalties for the AIP journals involved we will request permission from APS to include PR without royalties. The following motion was then made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that royalties for AIP-owned journals be waived for the proposed sample December 1971 issue of CPM.
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Articles Submitted to “Science” and PHYSICS TODAY
The Director said that he wanted to give maximum publicity to the CPI products and he distributed copies of the manuscript of an article which had been submitted to “Science.” He said an article was also being planned for PHYSICS TODAY and he hoped there would be opportunities to publish articles in other magazines.
7. Financial Statement for Six Months Ended June 30, 1971, and Projection to December 31, 1971
The Treasurer reported that copies of the financial statements for six months ended June 30, 1971, had been mailed to all Board members late in August. (Copies of the statement and Mr. Gilbert’s covering letter are attached to these minutes for others who should have them, and a copy of each is attached to the official copy of these minutes as a matter of record.)
Gilbert then distributed a condensed statement (Exhibit F) showing the budget for 1971, actual income and expense figures through June 30, 1971, and a projection to the end of the year. He then discussed variances between budget and projection. AIP archive journals were budgeted to give a net income of $520,500 whereas they are projected to show a net income of only $477,500. Approximately $30,000 of this difference is due to the fact that we have switched JAP to typewriter composition and approximately $30,000 of typewriter composition for 1972 issues will be charged to JAP this year. Heretofore the cost of monotype composition has been billed separately for each issue by the printer but that would be difficult to do the way we plan to handle typewriter composition so we propose to charge typewriter composition to each journal as the job is finished regardless of the issue for which it is intended.
Gilbert also pointed out that one of the greatest variances is in the case of PHYSICS TODAY which we budgeted for a net expense of $31,950 for the year whereas we now project the net expense to be $83,700. Marks said we all recognized that PT had suffered a great loss of advertising income during the early part of 1971. He indicated that the situation now appears to be getting better and he believes it will be substantially better in 1972.
8. Acceptance of Proposed Indirect Cost Rate for 1970 by NSF
Gilbert recalled that, at the June 14 meeting, he had explained the new cost rate proposal for 1970 which had been submitted to NSF. He said that we have now received word from NSF that our proposed rate of 15.52% has been accepted as the final rate for 1970. They asked if we would accept this rate as a permanent rate but we declined with the expectation that we can justify a higher rate at the end of this year. They have given us a provisional rate of 17% and, at our request, they increased it to 18% to allow for increased computerized accounting costs. At present we are operating with five different rates covering 16 grants with varying time periods.
9. Status of Publication Charge Honoring – Guidelines for 1972 Budget
Marks said that the 1971 budgets for the various AIP archive journals had been based on the following publication charge honoring percentages:
| JAP | 85% |
| JCP | 85% |
| PF | 85% |
| RSI | 80% |
| JMP | 80% |
We have attempted to adhere to these honoring percentages and the results are that we have page backlogs and time delays as indicated in the following table:
| JCP | 1500 pages | 11 months delay |
| JMP | 460 pages | 9 months delay |
| PF | 200 pages | 6 months delay |
| RSI | 40 pages | 1 month delay |
| JAP | 300 pages | 5 months delay |
Marks said the staff would like to know what should be done, if anything, about the backlogs which will exist at the end of this year and what guidelines should be followed in setting up the 1972 budget.
There followed much discussion in which a variety of suggestions were made and explored. Dayton contended that having the same honoring percentage for all journals would be the easiest policy to defend to authors. Marks pointed out that RSI is the only one of the journals that carries advertising and he felt that increasing the honoring percentage might reduce the page content to the point where advertisers would be discouraged. Marks also pointed out that holding to 80% honoring on JMP had substantially reduced the size of the journal and insisting on a higher honoring percentage might just make it fade away. Koch suggested the possibility of a uniform time delay for all journals rather than a uniform honoring percentage. Havens suggested that study be given to the possibility of assigning a certain percentage of the subscription income of each journal to support unhonored page charges. There seemed to be some feeling that we may want to do something about the large backlogs which JCP and JMP have accumulated but Committee members seemed to agree that this might be taken care of later on some ad hoc basis and should not be a part of the guidelines for setting up the 1972 budget.
After some further discussion the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that 85% publication charge honoring be used as a guideline for setting up 1972 budgets for the journals under discussion except JMP for which 80% honoring should be used.
After passage of the above motion Burton suggested that the staff give further study to the backlog and honoring situation with the possibility that it may wish to present alternate recommendations at the time the 1972 budget is presented to the Executive Committee for consideration.
10. NBS Contract with AIP and ACS on “Journal of Physical & Chemical Reference Data”
Marks mentioned that, at the June 14 meeting, the staff had been authorized to sign an appropriate contract with ACS and NBS for the production and distribution of the proposed journal. He then distributed copies of Contract No. 1-35956 containing the details of the agreement which had been accepted by the three parties involved. (Copy of contract attached to official copy of minutes.)
Marks said that the editorial board is now complete with three members from each of the three organizations involved. Copy for the first issue has been set in type and it is expected to appear early in February. The journal will be published by direct mail and by ads in PT and “Chemical & Engineering News,” We expect a total of about 2,000 subscriptions but we have no idea how long it will take to reach that goal.
The meeting was adjourned for luncheon at 12:05 p.m. and reconvened at 1:00 p.m.
11. Presentation to Assembly of Society Officers of Budget Plan for Publishing Operations and Society-Member Programs
Koch called attention to a document on this subject which had previously been distributed to Committee members at the meeting. He said he would like to present this to Society officers at the coming Assembly with the objective of getting their approval of the budgeting philosophy involved and also of the proposed $1.00-per-member increase in the member assessment charge. At its last meeting the Executive Committee recommended that the Governing Board propose to the Societies an amendment to the AIP Constitution which would effect the $1.00 increase. Koch said he hoped that approval of his proposal by the Assembly of Society officers should help convince the Governing Board and the Member Societies that the By-Law change should be made.
There was much discussion of the proposal by Committee members. There seemed to be general approval of the philosophy of budgeting for journals and Society-member programs separately. There were several questions about why various items were included where they were in the attachment to the document. Dayton said that he felt the expenses of Education and Manpower should be separated since the activities are now separated and most of the future expense is to be on Manpower. He also felt that much more detail should be given about the expenses of the Society-member programs to justify them to Society officers. Koch mentioned that the large net income shown for publishing operations on the attachment was partly fallacious because we still have some commitment to publish the large backlog of unhonored pages which we will be carrying over to 1972.
The Chairman reminded the Committee that the only question before it now was whether it approved the presentation of the document by the Director to Society Officers at the coming Assembly. The following motion was then made, seconded, and passed with one dissenting vote (Mahan):
MOVED that presentation of the document to the Assembly by the Director be approved with the suggestion that additional information about Society-member programs be added to the attachment if possible.
12. Report of Pension Committee Decisions on Transfer of Funds from Bankers Trust Company to TIAA-CREF
At its meeting last December the Executive Committee authorized a change in the Institute’s pension plan involving transfer of funds from Bankers Trust Company to TIAA-CREF. The formal document covering the details of the change said that if the funds obtained from Bankers Trust Company were more than necessary to meet commitments to employees under the TIAA-CREF plan, the excess should be used to pay future member costs or in such other manner as the Pension Committee might decide. As of June 1, 1971, the Pension Committee authorized Bankers Trust to liquidate Funds A and B and the total received from the liquidation amounted to $525,790.25. $88,179.70 was needed to provide continuing benefits for employees who had already retired under the old plan. This left $437,610.55 for the 48 employees on the plan as of January 1, 1971. $343,918.34 was needed, according to TIAA-CREF calculations, to provide for these 48 employees the benefits which they had accrued under the old plan. This left an excess of $93,692.21 which the Pension Committee had authority to distribute in whatever manner seemed most equitable. After considering various alternatives, on advice of TIAA-CREF and AIP’s legal counsel, it was decided that this excess should be divided among and added to each member’s account in proportion to the member’s equity in the plan. The Pension Committee believes that each employee now on the plan should be satisfied with the decision made. By motion made, seconded, and passed without dissent, the Executive Committee approved of the action taken by the Pension Committee.
13. Administrative Review Committee
Following the example of last year, the Chairman said that he had appointed an Administrative Review Committee for the coming year with the recommendation that it review the performance and salaries of the administrative officers of the Institute some time before the end of the year and make such recommendations as seemed appropriate. The Committee will consist of J. A. Burton as chairman, with Michael Ference and Archie Mahan as the other members.
14. Status of NSF Grants for Information Program
Koch said that this item was included on the agenda because of a recommendation made at the June 14 meeting to the effect that all personnel of the Information Division should be advised in some appropriate manner that continuation of their employment might be dependent upon continuation of the grants from NSF which have financed the program so far. Koch then distributed copies of a letter which he had prepared, addressed to all members of the Physics Information Division staff, in which he believed the point had been clearly stated. Members of the Executive Committee complimented him on his letter and agreed that it made the point properly without spreading undue alarm.
15. Status of Revision of Subscription Fulfillment System
Gilbert reminded the Committee that, at its meeting on June 14, the staff had been authorized to proceed with the revision of the subscription fulfillment system at an estimated cost of approximately $100,000 with the provision that Society officers were to be advised of changes proposed and requested to furnish information about their societies’ requirements, with the understanding that developments would be reported to the Executive Committee at this meeting for any further action which might be necessary. Gilbert reported that Society Secretaries and Treasurers had been advised as recommended and questioned about their requirements. To date, replies have been received from only four of the ten Societies queried. APS has asked for information about the possibility of separate billing for dues and journal subscriptions for Aps members and also about AIP having a separate part of its staff which would devote full time to APS membership and subscription fulfillment matters. ASA has asked that the information contained on its special list be included in the master file. SAS and AAPM have indicated no additional requirements. AVS has no additional requirements but expressed hope that the master list might be used to prepare the Society directory.
Gilbert also reported that the revision of the system is approximately five weeks behind the projected schedule but the staff believes that time can be made up during the next several months. Members of the Committee recommended that Gilbert write to the Societies which have not replied and tell them that we assume they have no additional requirements unless we hear from them immediately.
16. Recognition of IUPAP General Assembly
Slack reported that the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics plans to celebrate its 50th anniversary by holding a general assembly in Washington between September 20 and 26, 1972. The National Academy of Sciences will be host to the meetings and an organizing committee is arranging some eight half-day sessions which will include invited review papers from the world’s outstanding authorities. Participation will approximate 800, with scientists and technical officials to be invited from industry, universities, and Government institutions. AIP proposes to try to arrange for participation of Corporate Associates and Society officers in this IUPAP assembly and forego our AIP annual Corporate Associates meeting and Assembly in the fall of 1972. NAS has set up a budget of approximately $120,000 for the IUPAP assembly and Koch is chairman of the finance committee. By letter addressed to the Secretary of the Institute, Koch has suggested a contribution of $5,000 from AIP and has expressed hope of receiving another $10,000 from Member Societies of the Institute. It is understood that significant contributions will be recognized in some manner in the program of the assembly.
After brief discussion the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that $5,000 be contributed toward support of the IUPAP assembly to be held in Washington, D.C., in September 1972, with the understanding that the contribution will be included in the 1972 budget of AIP.
The desirability of holding AIP meetings in Washington at the time of the IUPAP assembly was then discussed. Details of the Corporate Associates meeting will still have to be worked out but the Committee saw no problem in setting dates for meetings of the Executive Committee, Governing Board, and Assembly of Society Officers and the following motion was made, seconded, and passed without dissent:
MOVED that meetings be held in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1972 as follows:
- Executive Committee – September 19
- Governing Board – September 20
- Assembly of Society Officers – September 20
17. Review of Governing Board Agenda
The items on the Governing Board agenda were discussed briefly but no action was taken.
18. Future Meetings
Dates for future meetings were approved as follows:
| Executive Committee | Friday, December 10, 1971 | New York |
| Executive Committee | Wednesday, February 2, 1972 | San Francisco |
| Executive Committee | Friday, March 24, 1972 | New York |
| Annual Meeting | Saturday, March 25, 1972 (9:30-10:00) | New York |
| Governing Board | Saturday, March 25, 1972 | New York |
| Executive Committee | Tuesday, September 19, 1972 | Washington |
| Governing Board | Wednesday, September 20, 1972 | Washington |
| AIP Assembly | Wednesday, September 20, 1972 | Washington |
19. Other Business
The Secretary reported that the Institute had been notified that the Internal Revenue Service would make an audit of AIP books for the calendar year 1969. Similar notice has also been received by APS and ASA. No dates have yet been set for commencing the audit.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:40 p.m.