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PAM 2005 Mathematics Roundtable: Minutes

Held Tuesday, June 7, 2005.
Moderators: Michael Golden (goldenm@umkc.edu) and Nisa Bakkalbasi (nisa.bakkalbasi@purchase.edu).

Agenda:

  1. Speakers:
    • Dana Roth, Chemistry Librarian, Millikan Library, Caltech: trends in the cost/page and cost/page/impact factor for important mathematics journals.
    • Carol Hutchins, Head Librarian, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU: relationship between computer science and modern applied mathematics.
    • Terry Ehling, Director of Electronic Publishing, Cornell University: retrodigitization initiatives for serial math literature and the impact of these efforts on Project Euclid.
  2. Roundtable Discussion

Minutes:

Introductions and thanks to SIAM

Dana Roth: Cost/Page and Cost/Page Impact Factor

ISI Journal Citation Report
- Tr. Am. Math Soc # of Cites
- Bull Am Math Soc Impact factor

Historical impact factor data
Mathematics literature slower to be cited
Wiley & Springer only "commercial" journals on list

Cost per page comparison
- AMS 30cents/page
Former Academic 60cents/page
- Other commercial $1.00/page overpriced?

Cost/page/IF
- Need to normalize the numbers

Need to give faculty more data to work with - in addition to just how much the journal costs

Question: Shouldn’t you compare like type of journals instead of just all math?

Terry Elling: Retro-digitization of math literature and impact on Project Euclid.

Brief Recap on Euclid: Library project began in 2000 groan from Mellon. Revenue neutral by 2006 (goal) Can get aggregation or single titles. Publisher driven model. Mathematicians still value paper. Smaller publishers reluctant to give up paper. 67% is open access (anything older than 5 years is free.)

Revenues: $7K 2 years ago and over $300K today. (UD)

Subscribers fees and publishers. Older math lit along shelf life. Actively supporting retro conversion with publishers.

JSTOR plan to have a recipical agreement - happen with Annals with in next month.

World Digital Math Library: 75 million pages of older math lit to be digitized. Cost will be $75 million. Business plan being formulated. George Moore may help fund. Will involve all publishers. 50% of current reference to pre-1990 papers. 25% to pre-1980 articles. Other current digitization projects planned to be folded into World Digital Math Library. Open Access. Grant funded. MSRI Central Org. Agency.

Carol Hutchins

Relationship between computer science and modern applied mathematics. "What is applied mathematics and what is its relation to computing?" Peter Lax, NYU, won the Abel Prize for 2005 "The Flowering of Applied Mathematics in America" SIAM Review 31(4)

US National Academy of Science Interview Project- Ingrid Daubechies, Princeton Univ., http://www7.nationalacademies.org/interviews/daubechies.html. She sees her work as a translation job. She believes there is no such field as applied mathematics. Mathematical thinking is the same whether pure or applied.

Cohen JE (2004) Mathematics Is Biology's Next Microscope, Only Better; Biology Is Mathematics' Next Physics, Only Better. PLoS Biol 2(12): e439. A list of contributions of mathematics to biology.

Discussion Questions:

Cross cutting grants

Information Commons

  • Aimed to serve undergrads, not that helpful for grads.
  • What does it mean for disciplinary based collections?

Applied Mathematicians don’t all publish in just mathematical journals.

As mathematics librarians, we have to be prepared to help scientists from other disciplines to get access to mathematics.

Can’t only look at JCR, it is just a tool.

Have to know the difference between the different fields. Can’t compare different fields with impact factors. Such a fields as mathematics and computer science? Computational science and engineering?

Should societies start new journals?

  • better than commercial publishers currently doing it.
  • If societies don’t, Elsevier will.
  • Should they be print and electronic or electronic only?

Who has money to add new journals?

AMS decision not to distribute useage stats on their journals because it leads to bad decisions.

Cost per use.

Parker Ladwig, Mathematics Library at Notre Dame, has a forthcoming article on use stats and half life.

Page last updated: July 5, 2005