Letters

We read with great interest Simon Mitton’s article “We Are Publishing Too Many Conference Proceedings” (The Scientist, Feb. 20, 1989, page 9). The author has to be congratulated on his analysis of the situation. No doubt., those in the publication business would agree that proceedings of conferences of marginal interest with numerous uninvited, often unrelated, and frequently unreviewed papers have. spoiled the name “Proceedings,” giving it the connotation of a second-class publication irrelevant to the advancement of science. In fact, we understand that some librarians are told by their supervisors to delete systematically and indiscriminately all proceedings volumes from the lists of potential acquisitions, thereby decreasing the dissemination of those proceedings that genuinely contribute to the free communication of science. The problem starts with the quality of the conference organizer and the approach he or she is taking in putting the meeting program together. A “Call for Papers” may be a good approach for meetings of an exploratory nature, where the players of the game” are unknown to the organizer. It constitutes, however, no guarantee that the meeting program—and hence the resulting volume—will be of a uniformly high standard. Quality control to some point in the process is essential, and the earlier it takes place, the better. Unfortunately, it seems that the forces of the free market to which commercial publication is subjected do not necessarily lead to a fair selection process, particularly if the decisions about acquisition of proceedings volumes are not made by scientists themselves. In order to arrive at reasonable decisions regarding the purchase of proceedings volumes, the institutional market needs a label for the product other than simply “Conference Proceedings.” But how would one qualify a volume that corresponds to most of the criteria that Mitton enumerates for the “best type of conference book,” a volume resulting from an educational meeting on a timely subject in which the invited contributions are of high value, original, coherently structured, and presented by a selection of scientists having an excellent scientific reputation? So far, we have not been able to come up with a better term than “Proceedings”! Since the NATO Scientific Affairs Division and the well-known NATO ASI Series are mentioned in Mitton’s article, it is worth pointing out that—in accordance with the criteria put forward—most of the volumes resulting from the NATO Advanced Study Institutes and the NATO Advanced Workshops Program fall exactly into the category of “best type of conference book.” The reason is that the selection for funding of the meeting, a process assisted by panels of scientific experts, is already based on the justification and established need to hold a meeting on the topic, the timeliness of the subject, and the coherence of the presentation, as well as the quality and the small size of the faculty proposed to present the program. Not only are all papers invited papers, but also even the participants are selected by the meeting director to guarantee an exchange of scientific/technical information on a high level. Moreover, the editors are given clear information and suggestions on how to prepare and organize the publication and how to guide the authors in the preparation of their manuscripts. For the above reasons, the majority of NATO ASI Series volumes are considered textbooks—or coherent state-of-the-art reviews in the subject area, a fact that is confirmed by the increasing adoption of the volumes for classroom use. Clearly, this is the type of proceedings any sponsoring organization and publishing house would find worth publishing. The fact that it is difficult to avoid publication of “bad” proceedings suggests that librarians should use to advantage their experience and knowledge about the origin of the conference proceedings that they consider selecting. CRAIG SINCLAIR. Director, ARW Programme NATO Scientific Affairs Division Brussels, Belgium Crystal Clarification In a recent issue (The Scientist, May 29, 1989, page 12), my article entitled” ‘Quasicrystal’ Investigation Is Mounting” reported on the remarkable discovery of nearly perfect quasicrystals, as announced by several different experimental groups at a March workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. The artide should also have included the experiments by AR. Kortan and H.S. Chen (AT&T), who independently obtained similar results and reported them at the March APS meeting, which was held shortly after the workshop. PAUL J. STEINHARDT Department of Physics University of Pennsylvania Phi ladeiphia, Pa

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