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Special Session at JMM 2000

Jane Kister , Executive Editor of Mathematical Reviews, spoke on Mathematical Reviews at Sixty .
Jane Kister's talk It is now exactly 60 years since the first issue of Mathematical Reviews (MR) was published. In these introductory remarks, I will describe in broad outline the complex operation that MR has become today as it enters its seventh decade. MR is, as it always has been, a high-quality reviewing journal, but now over 50,000 reviews are published each year; MR is also a database of over 1.5 million items: and it is the foundation for MathSciNet, which has become an invaluable tool for every research mathematician. I will introduce some of the editors, past and present, and others who have contributed to the growth, development and quality of MR during the second half of the twentieth century. We, the current staff, expect to continue in that tradition in the twenty-first century.

V. Frederick Rickey, U.S. Military Academy and Bowling Green State University, spoke on The History of Mathematical Reviews, a Magnificent Monument to Mathematical Research .
For the past sixty years, Mathematical Reviews has served the mathematical community by providing accurate, fair, and timely reviews of all of the mathematical research published in the world. To bring out the fascinating history of this journal we will discuss its founding and development, praise its editors and staff for their endless efforts, look at how its policies and scope have changed, and laud its reviewers for their service to the community. This inside look will be based on documents in several archives.

Andrew Odlyzko , AT&T Labs - Research, spoke on The Next 60 Years of Mathematical Reviews .
Mathematical Reviews has been evolving from its beginning. The rate of change has accelerated significantly in the last decade, and is likely to increase yet more, as mathematical communication shifts much further towards rapid electronic means of dissemination. This talk will present some speculations on how scholarly publishing and abstracting journals may evolve. The key issue will be that the rapid pace of technological change does not match the slow rate at which human habits evolve.

Back to 60th Anniversary Home Page. Back to MR History.