Carol Hutchins
hutchins@nyu.edu

The PAM Board has approved a $2,000 donation to relief for the flood devastated library of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague. The facility lies in the Karlin section of the city where some of the heaviest damage took place. This particular library, named for the mathematician Vaclav Hlavaty, is said to be the most prominent collection of its kind in the Czech Republic. The collections were submerged for three days.

I am coordinating communication about ways to make material donations. Other active parties to this effort are Jim Maxwell (AMS), David Morton (UT Austin, on leave at Charles University) as well as several Czech mathematicians employed in the U.S. Our contact on the faculty is Dr. Vladimir Soucek, Vice-Dean.

More details, photographs, and links to the library's "wants" can be found at http://faculty.washington.edu/~kulich/flood/library.html or http://www.mff.cuni.cz/to.en/fakulta/lib/voda/pryc.htm.

We intend to call upon major relevant publishers to lend aid as well.

Update: Thu, 24 Oct 2002
Our Division donation was wired last week; it has been received and acknowledged. The extract below is from Prof David Morton, and he refers specifically to our grant.

"Various offers are emerging. AK Peters, Ltd. publishers has responded. A prof in Zurich donates a large run of one of the Springer series. I've contacted Don Albers of MAA, but not heard back yet.

I understand that JSTOR access for the Charles Univ (in the large) is being arranged."