Report from Richard Shore, March 5, 2001

Information about the Reviews Office for the ASL Council and Proposals for Restructuring

Since the start of the ASL, reviewing books and articles in logic has been a major service to our members and the scholarly community at large. First, under the direction of Alonzo Church, the goal was to review everything published in logic (even retroactively). Eventually this became both infeasible and financially impossible. In the late 70's, the large and expensive reviews section of the JSL was cut back dramatically, in order to keep the ASL from going bankrupt. The nature of the undertaking was changed, the structure and function of the editorial board for reviews was revised and we began reviewing only selected items. The office at this time and with the new format was ably lead by Herb Enderton who went from being an assistant to Alonzo Church to being the Coordinating Editor for Reviews. In this capacity, Enderton solicits reviews suggested by other Editors for Reviews, solicits reviews on his own initiative, edits reviews, and type-sets the reviews. He maintained high standards for reviews and they continued to serve an important role. (In the past he also did a number of tasks unrelated to reviews. These activities have been or are being transferred to other staff.)

For some years now, the Reviews Office has been expensive and relatively unproductive. The salary costs for the office (the coordinating editor and a part time assistant) are about $70,000. Of course there are other publication costs as well for printing etc. Note that we published, for example, only about ninety pages of reviews in 2000. The Executive Committee has made a number of attempts to ameliorate the situation without any substantial success. We have once again reached a difficult financial situation. The Association has in recent years initiated several major new publishing ventures (The BSL, Perspectives and LNL series) as well as new commitments to supporting meetings and graduate students. These have all been important and worthwhile projects that we hope to continue. Unfortunately they also cost money. We are now in a situation where the projection for the next couple of years involve substantial deficits. Thus the costs of the Reviews Office is once more a serious problem for the Association. We believe that it is once again time to restructure.

We must first state that we have no intention of eliminating the publication of reviews. They have been, and will continue to be, an important aspect of our work and for many of our members the most valuable items in our journals. Secondly, we hope to maintain the high standards that have been in place under both Church and Enderton. We believe, however, that we can accomplish these goals in a much more cost effective manner.

Our proposal is to close the Reviews Office (and so terminate the employment of the Coordinating Editor for Reviews and his assistant). In its place, we propose to appoint a volunteer Managing Editor for Reviews analogous to the existing Managing Editor (for papers) of the BSL. We also intend to expand the number and responsibilities of the other Editors for Reviews (who already serve as volunteers like the editors of the JSL and BSL). The work needed for each review is more than that needed for articles and this will entail putting support staff in place to help the new editors function relatively easily. We envision the typesetting being done by the current office of typesetting which already handles both the JSL and the rest of the BSL. Additional staff support will be needed for correspondence (including physically handling the books and articles received and sent out) and record keeping of various sorts. There are realistic possibilities for incorporating these tasks into those of existing personnel at either the typesetting or business offices (by extending the hours worked by some of the part time staff) that would overall enhance the efficiency of our operations. Of course, we will lose some things provided by Enderton in this change. For example, Enderton now copy edits the reviews to a very high standard. We can only ask the volunteer Review editors to maintain the same level of editing, that for example, we expect of articles in the Bulletin. This will entail some loss of uniformity and style but should be acceptable. Savings are hard to predict exactly but at least $50,000 per year seems likely.

As for timing, Enderton's current appointment ends January 1, 2002. There will be a need for a significant transition period for the new editors to plan and implement their procedures. For technical and other reasons it seems best to have the change-over take place with a new volume of the Bulletin. Thus the current Reviews Office should have the responsibility for all reviews appearing through the December 2002 issue. As these are due at the printer in October, we suggest closing the Reviews Office as of October 31, 2002. (This entails extending Enderton's appointment until that date which seems consistent with the powers the Council has under the Constitution.) In order for the new system to be in place and functioning in time to take over whatever work in progress remains and to have started its own work, we suggest creating and filling a new position of Managing Editor for Reviews staring at the latest in June 2002 with appropriate preparations beginning considerably before that date. To make the appointment consistent with our usual ones, we suggest creating the position as of January 1, 2002. We do not intend that the new Managing Editor (whenever he is formally appointed during 2002) should have authority over the current Coordinating Editor as far as the preparations of the reviews intended for publication in 2002 are concerned. We would however expect that the two of them will coordinate the transition to the new system and facilitate the transfer of material in progress.

Formal Motions for the Council:

1. Close the current Reviews Office and so terminate the employment of the Coordinating Editor for Reviews and his assistant as of October 31, 2002. Eliminate the position of Coordinating Editor for Reviews and the ex-officio membership on various committees of the Association now attached to it.

2. Create a new position of Managing Editor for Reviews as of January 1, 2002. This position will be one on the Editorial Board and so, as specified in the Constitution, its holder will be appointed by the Council and will be a member of the Council. The Managing Editor for Reviews will also be an ex-officio member of the Publications Committee. The term of office will be three years and will ordinarily be renewable for at most one additional term.