January 1974 Council Minutes
January l4, l974 COUNCIL MINUTES
The Council met on January l4, l974 at 2:00 PM in the Continental Parlors
l and 2 of the San Francisco Hilton Hotel. The following members were present:
H. Bass, P. Bateman, L. Bers, R. Bott, J. Bramble, F. Brauer, W. Browder, S.
Chern, P. Church, C. Curtis, S.Eilenberg, J. Feldman, R. Fossum, F. Gehring, M.
goldberg, M. Golomb, M. Gray, P. Halmos, O. Harrold, A. Householder, E.
Isaacson, J. Kelly, R. Kirby, A. Lachlan, L. Lorch, S. MacLane, A. Mattuck, E.
Moise, C. Morawetz, P. Mostert, B. Osofsky, F. Peterson, E. Pitcher, K. Ross,
J. Scanlon, J. Schwartz, R. Seeley, D. Stone, O. Taussky-Todd, H. Weinberger.
Present by invitation were R. Boas and C. Moler. Those alkso present were J.
Burlak, H. Daly, L. Durst, R. Hahn, G.L. Walker. The meeting was open and J.A.
Donaldson and Gordon G. Johnson had opportunity to address the Council.
The minutes of the Council of 2l August 1973 had been distributed by mail
and were approved.
A list of Presidential appointments is attached for information.
The minutes of the Executive Committee and the BT of December l-2, 1973
were received, have been separately distributed, and are attached to the record
copy of these minutes.
The Secretary communicated to the Director of the Johns Hopkins
University Press the fact that the Council had rescinded its recommendation to
terminate the agreement of the Society with the Press to cooperate in the
publication of the American Journal of Mathematics. The reply of the Director,
Harold E. Ingle, was received by the Council and is attached.
The council had requested the Editors of the Transactions and of the
PROCEEDINGS to produce a tabulation of the number of pages printed over the
last l0 years and to make annual projections of the number of pages to be
published. The report2 for the TRANSACTIONS prepared by Prof. Steve Armentrout
is attached. The projection of 5700 pages was established before the Trustees,
for financial reasons, requested the Editorial Committee to use the number 5600
to which the managing editor agreed. The tabulation of papers and pages in the
PROCEEDINGS for the past several years is attached. The Council received the
information and took no action.
The attention of the council was directed to the fact that the draft of
the budget for l974 that might have been adopted by the Trustees in December
of l973 envisaged a large deficit. The Society operated during the first half
of January l974 on a provisional budget while revisions in the budget were
accomplished. The revisions, which had been presented to various editorial
committees and to the EC, affected some of the scientific work of the Society.
For example, the number of pages in several journals was reduced by l0% or 20%
thus, saving on editorial and composition costs, cost of paper, and postage.
Reference may be made to the minutes of the EC/BT of December 1-2, 1973 for
more detail on the revision. The Liaison and Finance Committee reviewed the
revised proposed budget on January 2, 1974, and made further minor revisions
with the plan that the new budget go to the Trustees on January l5, l974.
The Council was informed that the Trustees proposed, as a money saving
procedure, that abstracts in the NOTICES ordinarily be printed from camera copy
prepared by authors on a blank of suitable design. Special provision is to be
made for typing abstracts not in suitable physical form in the Providence
office for a fee (order of magnitude $5.00). The Editors of the NOTICES agreed
to the procedure.
The question was raised whether there is a useful prupose in requiring
that a non-member contributing a ten-minute paper be "introduced" by a member.
There was no action.
The Council was informed of a law recently passed by the State of Florida
(a "sunshine" law) that might affect the Society. A principle statement is the
following:
Public funds shall not be used for dues or contributions to any
association, group or organization the records of which are not
open for inspection to any citizen of Florida.
The full text, including the definition of "records" and a covering letter are
attached to the minutes.
The composition of the Council and the BT of l974, as finally determined
by the election of October l973, is attached to these minutes. The tabulation
of the result of the election was requested at the meeting and is attached
also.
The Secretary drew attention to the minute of the Council business by
Mail dated Jan. 5, 1974, stating that C.S. Morawetz and I.M. Singer were
elected to the EC. President MacLane thanked the retiring members, W. Browder
and F. Gehring, for their services to the EC.
The Council set meetings on Sunday, May 12, 1974 in DeKalb and on
Wednesday, January 22, 1975, in Washington, D.C. It was noted that the Council
had previously agreed to have no meeting in August l974 if it could reasonably
be avoided, on account of the International Congress. It was agreed that the
issue could be reconsidered the Council meeting in DeKalb.
An AD HOC committee on Indexes had made two recommendations in a report
attached to item 6 of the minutes of the EC/BT of December l-2, 1973. One
concerned increasing the coverage asnd changing the method of production of
the Index of Mathematical Papers and, subject to a satisfactory definitive
budget, is to be carried out. The second recommendation was that the MR staff
produce a subject-classified current awareness journal as a byproduct of newly
existing bibliographic precedures in the office of MR.
Prof. F.W. Gehring described the new procedures in the MR office of
virtue of which it had become practical to prepare a subject classified index
of papers received. The written report of Lowell Schoenfeld, Chairman of the
Editorial Committee of CCMJ and NP, was read and is attached to these minutes.
Prof. Cleve Moler spoke for Comm.-Comm. He noted that a principal reason for
the change in the current awareness journal was financial and that the
increased coverage would be agreat advantage but that there is some loss in
timeliness. He recommended that the index begin immediately with l973 reviews.
He further recommended that the current awareness journal be cheap enough to be
available to individual subscribers.
Moler noted that Comm.-Comm. is reconsidering the classification scheme
(once known as the MOS scheme) with a view to updating it by adding new
categories and numbers, rewording descriptions to reflect ucrrent usage, and
subdividing bulkier classes, anticipating the needs of MR. He noted that the
recommendations offered by Schoenfeld envisage the use of only the first two
levels of the classification. Since the revisions apply only to the finer
portion of the classification, the Society would not be using the proposed
work and he wondered whether it should be done. He noted that there are other
interested parties, such as the Zentralblatt, who do use the full
classification and who might be interested in the revision.
There was a motion to approve the replacement of the Index of Mathematical
Papers by an index of papers reviewed by MR and to replace CCMJ by an index of
papers received by MR, with details to be left to suitable committees. The
motion passed.
The Council was aware that the report from Prof. Schoenfeld noted five
functions of CCMJ and NP that would not be covered by the new indexes but that,
it was recommended, should be continued in some other manner.
President Elect Lipman Bers took the chair. President MacLane then
presented a report of the Joint Projects Committee for Mathematics. He
explained that this was a planning committee of three representatives from the
MAA, three from the Society, and two observers from the SIAM, created by the
Presidents of AMS and MAA after an inital conference of the Presidents and
Secretaries. It had prepared a report, including a recommendation. The report
was studied by the EC/BT and may be found as attachment to item 2l of the
minutes of the EC/BT of December l-2, l973. The recommendation is section V
of the report and is reproduced here in entirety:
V. JPCM: The Joint Projects Committee in Mathematics:
Structure and Charge
Proposal:
