Committee on Publications

General Description

  • Committee is standing.
  • Number of members is approximately fourteen. The members shall consist of 3 Council members (chosen from the Vice Presidents and Members at Large), a member of the Editorial Boards Committee, a member of the Board of Trustees, the President, the Publisher, and 4–6 at large members. The Secretary, Executive Director, AMS Staff Liaison, and Publisher are all ex officio members. The Secretary, AMS Staff Liaison, and Publisher are voting members of CPub. The Executive Director is a non-voting member.
  • Term is three years.

Principal Activities

The primary responsibility of the Committee on Publications (CPub) is to keep itself informed on matters of scholarly publishing and the AMS publishing program, including books, research journals, and member publications (Bulletin, Notices, and Abstracts). The main focus should be on matters of policy. When appropriate, the committee should recommend to Council changes in policy or other actions that might support and improve the AMS publication program and scholarly publishing more generally. Since policy recommendations formulated by CPub may require commitments of staff and other resources, CPub shall also recommend priorities for actions to the Council and the Board of Trustees.

CPub also has the responsibility for high-level oversight of the Society's publications and will review all aspects of the publication program on a continuing basis, reporting its findings to the Council along with possible recommendations. The committee will conduct detailed periodic reviews of certain activities in a three-year cycle, as follows:

 Year 1: AMS Book Program (beginning in 2018)
 Year 2: Primary Journals (Journal of the AMS, Mathematics of Computation, Proceedings of the AMS, Transactions of the AMS)
 Year 3: Member Journals (Abstracts of the AMS, Bulletin of the AMS, Notices of the AMS) and Other Journals (Electronic only, Translation, and Distributed)

The primary responsibility for Mathematical Reviews (MR) remains with the MR Editorial Committee. In the course of its work, however, CPub may occasionally find it expedient to consider matters that involve MR in a secondary way. In particular, the Committee should keep itself informed about the interplay of Mathematical Reviews and the rest of the Society's publications.

CPub should keep its attention fixed on long term policy questions, and the Committee as a whole should not allow itself to be diverted from this goal by getting involved with day to day operational details of the Society's publication program.

Miscellaneous Information

The Committee does its work by email, videoconference, and usually one face-to-face meeting a year.

Members are reimbursed for travel and incidental expenses that are not covered from some other source for attending these meetings. This committee has been designated at LEVEL P.

Note to the Chair

Committee chairs should be informed, at the beginning of each fiscal period, of the budget of their committees and cautioned to remain within the budget. Such items as travel reimbursement, accommodations, and meals for guests of any kind fall within these budgets.

For the purpose of archiving the committee activities, the Secretary maintains a central file system for archiving committee records. Committee Chairs are asked to submit committee records on a yearly basis. Chairs can submit material at their discretion, and some materials that they may wish to provide are meeting minutes, agenda, and emails. Confidential material should be noted, so that it can be handled in a confidential manner.

Authorization

  • Created by 01/11/93 Council. Approved by the Council 4/09/94. Updated 8/94; 5/95; 2/97; 2/00; 1/06; 8/09; 8/12; 11/13 Misc. Info, Note to Chair, membership; 7/22
  • 09 January 2018 Council, Item 4.7.2: Changed review cycle from a four-year rotation to a three-year rotation.

Past Members

Current and past Committee members