MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

PUBLICATION AND TIlE ENGIWRING socIETTl3’

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This article by 0. B. Schier, 11, Executive Director, The American So- ciety of Mechanical Engineers was presented at the Engineers Joint Council Conference on “Engineering Societies and their Literature Programs- Critical Review” in New York, N.Y. January 17-18, 1967. I t is reprinted from the May 1967 issue of “Mechanical Engineering.”

W E . AS MEFBERs OF THE LEADING engineering societies in this country, represent over a half mil- lion engineers, and administer annual budgets in excess of $30 million, approximately half of whch is expended for publications. An operation of this magnitude, therefore, demands a review of our lit- erature program+their nature, their evolution, their problems and their potential.

A survey was made of 18 engineering societies including the 12 constituent societies of Engineers Joint Council to provide an overview of their pub- lications programs. As nonprofit, educational or- ganizations their main objective and time-honored practice has been and is to serve the entire engi- neering profession-member, nonmember, educa- tion, government, and industry. Thls they have done by encouraging and aidmg the presentation, discussion, and publication of engineering subjects.

TYPES OF PUBLICATIONS

During the past 114 years four categories of pub- lications have evolved to provide this service,

namely, archve publications recording new think- ing, periodicals of timely interest, information re- trieval aids, and standards and codes.

The archive publications, known variously as Transactions, Journals, or Proceedings, were the first formal publications of all societies. They con- tained the constitution and by-laws, presidentia1 addresses, original technical papers with discus- sions, and even listings of members. These publica- tions, distributed to all members as part of their dues, adequately served the membership while it was few in number and composed largely of mature engineers of many years’ experience. As the mem- bership increased and new areas of technology de- veloped, the societies, early in the twentieth cen- tury, began grouping members into geographical and student sections or chapters, and into profes- sional divisions or technical activities to serve them more effectively. Rather than publish in the trans- actions an ever-increasing volume of news of these activities, various periodicals such as bulletins, newsletters, annual reports, student journals, and member journals were evolved.

The principal periodical, distributed monthly to

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MECHANICAL ENGINEERING PUBLICATION AND ENGINEERING SOCIETIES

Figure 1. 20 year growth in engineering societies publications.

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MECHANICAL ENGINEXRING PUBLICATION AND ENGINEERING SOCIETIES

members as part of dues, and identified either with the name of a discipline of engineering or the name of the society, contains not only news of activities, but also timely articles of general rather than per- manent interest, lectures, letters to the editor, cal- endars of meetings, book reviews, engineering ad- vertising, and other features of interest to the mem- bership. Income from the advertising helped not only to underwrite the rising cost of publishing transactions, but also permitted the enlargement of editorial staffs to edit the increased volume of con- tributed papers and to write special articles on a wide variety of engineering topics.

The identification of member interest with the established divisions of technology, coupled with the need to limit the cost of publishing and distri- buting transactions, resulted in several experi- ments. These were the grouping and publication of papers by divisional interest as sections of the transactions and the mimeographing of papers not accepted for transactions. Overall costs were ma- terially reduced, and members favored the receipt of only those papers relating to their expressed in- terests. The mimeographing of papers was not well received, however, by either members or authors. Lack of styling and poor quahty of reproduction made them difficult to read and the authors con- sidered the appearance as unprofessional.

With the advent of World War 11, shortages of paper necessitated further restrictions in publica- tion programs. Members of some societies agreed to forego the receipt of transactions for the duration of the war. Subsequently, many members admitted that they had not missed the transactions, while the remainder expressed willingness to receive it on subscription.

T H E INFORMATTON EXPLOSION

With the end of World War I1 in 1945, two major events accurred which had tremendous impact on the engineering societies: The G. I. bill of Rights and the technological explosion. The combination prompted a sharp increase in engineering graduates and, in turn, a marked increase in membership in the engineering societies. The technological explo- sion resulted in the formation of new divisions of t e c h c a l interest and a flood of technical material due largely to the declassification of technical de- velopments during the war, industry and govem- ment-sponsored research following the war, and the contributions of a greatly increased number of graduate students and educators endeavoring to comply with the so-called “publish or perish” policy of their institutions.

The computer, the modem genie, is responsible for many portions of the so-called “information ex- plosion.” It made possible and practical, myriad cal- culations which weren’t worth figuring out in “long- hand” since the answer would be obsolete by the time it was derived. Thus authors suddenly set out

to fill innumerable voids in many areas of technol- om*

Annual meetings of societies were no longer able to accommodate the papers awaiting presentation. Conferences, symposiums, congresses, and interna- tional meetings, often jointly sponsored by other societies, were developed. These conferences, held through the year, materially reduced the time b e tween the receipt of a paper, whether contributed or invited, and its presentation and publication. To facilitate discussion, a proceedings containing pa- pers of general as well as of permanent interest was published and distributed to the conferees prior to the conference, as part of the conference registra- tion fee. Copies were made available to others at prices ranging from $3 to $50 per copy, depending on the number of pages, the complexity of the pa- pers, and the method of printing. Some authors ob- ject to proceedings, for once a paper of permanent interest is published, it is seldom published in trans- actions because of the duplication of cost and the probability of a duplicate listing in publication in- dexes and other information retrieval forms. Cur- rently 12 societies are publishing proceedings in ad- I t ion to other types of archive publications.

Following the war, preprints, or separates, were again tried and are currently used by 15 societies to encourage discussion at meetings and conferences where proceedings are not provided. Originally printed by mimeograph or photo-offset from the manuscript, today many preprints are styled, with illustrations inserted in the body of the paper, then either typeset, if of transactions quality, or multi- lithed if they are only to be printed as separates. Preprints have a number of advantages. They are low in production cost because the print order is limited to from 300 to 700 copies per paper; they are available from stock for one year at a nominal cost of 50 cents to $1.50 per copy; members may select preprints in their area of interest as well as from other areas which have an interface with their interest; and they are used to invite selected authorities to present oral or written discussions when the papers is presented at a meeting or con- f erence.

Abstracts, either descriptive or informative, have come into use by 14 societies in recent years as a means of providing concise information pertinent to his current interests. Abstracts, or technical Igests, are published in the monthly periodicals of some societies and in separate volumes by other societies. Members of three of these societies may then use up to 20 coupons provided them annually at no cost to order preprints from their respective societies.

Access publications, such as publication catalogs, handbooks, product directories, and membership di- rectories are provided at no cost by ten societies, when requested by members. In addition, transla- tions of foreign publications, bibliographies, and

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critical reviews of articles and papers throughout the world, in specific areas of interest, are publish- ed by four societies.

For those ten societies which, since their incep- tion, have devoted considerable effort to the pre- paration of standards and codes, the publication and distribution of these materials had been and are a vital part of the services rendered to members and the engineering profession. Three societies realize between one-third and one-half of their total an- nual income from the sale of standards and codes, and t h s income completely underwrites the staff service to hundreds of committees manned by thou- sands of members. The societies and the engineer- ing profession are greatly indebted to industry, government, universities, and others for their gen- erous support of the work.

From the foregoing it is evident that the time and energy of a great many devoted people have been expended to solve many problems and to im- prove the standards of service provided by the pub- lications of the engineering profession. These mem- bers have given intelligent attention to determining how the output of publications meets the interest and demand of readers. Ten societies conduct sur- veys peridcally to determine member interest. Their efforts have evolved publications which en- able the member and nonmember alike to select, at minimum cost to themselves, that information which is related to his specific interest, and more importantly, to his immediate problems. It must be recognized that the engineer no longer has the time to digest all of the technical information published by his societies. His dues should provide periodicals of the society which will inform him, by means of technical digests or abstracts, of new developments and other pertinent information to keep him abreast of his profession. Beyond this he should be pre- pared to purchase sections of transactions, proceed- ings, standards, codes, and special publications.

PAGE GROWTH STATISTICS

The 18 societies participating in the survey have provided s o m e interesting statistics regarding growth as expressed in the number of pages of ma- terial published in the past 20 years.

From the chart it will be noted that in 1946, prior to the technological explosion, a total of 24,500 pages (of 8 in. X 11 in. size as contrasted to the earlier

6 in. X 9 in. size) were published. Ten years later; in 1956, published material had increased 180 per- cent to 68,500 pages with the greatest increases in pages occurring in preprints, abstracts, and pro- ceedings. By the end of 1966, published material had increased over 1946 more than sixfold, to 177,- 000 pages, with significant increases in pages occur- ing in transactions, preprints, abstracts and pro- ceedings.

The number of pages of material published in 1966 would have been considerably greater were it not for the effort of many members who, as authori- ties in many technical fields w i h n the scope of each society, serve as reviewers. Sixteen of the so- cieties surveyed utilize review boards of from two to four reviewers per paper. These reviewers follow long-established review precedures to insure that only papers of permanent interest and high quality that have not been published elsewhere appear in the transactions, journals, or proceedings of their societies.

The survey revealed that of the total papers pro- cessed in 1966, approximately 70 percent were con- tributed and 30 percent were invited. After evalua- tion by reviewers, an average of 61 percent of the contributed papers and 74 percent of the invited papers were accepted for presentation and publica- tion.

THE COST

The total cost incurred by the societies to publish 177,000 pages of information in 1966, excluding standards and codes, amounted to $13,500,000 or 45 percent of their combined annual budgets for last year. These costs, covering editorial, mechanical, promotion, distribution, administration, and over- head charges average $75 per page. Based on a com- bined membership of a half million members, the average cost per member is $27, which is in excess of the average dues paid per member. The survey revealed that only the periodicals and access publi- cations were provided at no additional cost to the members in all 18 societies. Ten societies provided abstracts free of charge while four provided pre- prints and transactions as part of dues. Proceedings were not free to members of any of the societies, but were either purchased or acquired as part of the conference registration fee.

GIBBS 81 COX, INC. NAVAL ARCHITECTS AND MARINE ENGINEERS

NEW YORK

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PUBLICATION AND ENGINEERING SOCIETIES MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Annual subscriptions to transactions vary in price from $3 to $10 for four to six issues of each section of the transactions and from $35 to $175 dollars for an entire set of transactions in bound volumes.

The cost of publishing transactions - currently $75 per page - continues to increase. Printing and paper costs have been increasing at the rate of 3% percent per year. Many papers contain considerable mathematics, complicated charts, and numerous il- lustrations, all of which have increased the length of papers by more than 50 percent. Simultaneously, with these increases, income from advertising in the journals, whch had partially underwritten the pub- lication of transactions, began to decline in the late 1950’s as the business press introduced new engi- neering magazines in selected areas of technology close to those covered in society journals.

To offset the loss of income and the rising costs, seven of the societies have established page charges for transactions papers which vary from $25 to $50 per page. Currently, receipts from those invoiced are averaging 85 percent. The invoice is submitted through the author to his employer only after his paper has been accepted for publication and set in galley form. The paper is published whether or not the charge is paid. This practice was established by scientific societies over 30 years ago. Their page charge today averages $75 per page. The National Science Foundation and other government agencies endorse their practice and accept the charge as a part of research development c o s t s, providing charges are also made to industry and education.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

With the current emphasis on indexing, key words, and information retrieval, it is interesting to note some of the developments of the past. Prof. J . B. J o h n of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., in 1884 originated the idea of a “Descriptive Index of Current Engineering Literature” and arranged for its publication by the Association of Engineering Societies. In 1895 the Index was ac- quired and published by the Engineering Magazine Company of New York and its successor, Industrial Management. Subsequently, in 1919, one of the Founder Societies acquired the Index and con- tinued its publication as the Engineering Index Sec- tion of the Journal of that society. In 1933 the in- dex was taken over by Engineering Index, Inc.

Foreign depositories of transactions were first established in 1927 as a service to the engineering profession in leading engineering universities in 26

countries throughout the world, and in 229 public libraries and universities in cities of one half million or more population throughout the United States. Today, four of the socities surveyed send their transactions to depositories and a fifth society will soon do so.

The Engineering Societies Library in the United Engineering Center is the key depository for techni- cal information. Publications of all engineering societies and the technical press here and abroad provide the basis for a broad and varied information retrieval service to the engineering profession. Since 1913, the Library has provided, at nominal cost, reprints, literature searches, translations, the loan of books, and more recently microfilms.

If the libraries and other depositories are to con- tinue as reference sources, the engineering societies have an obligation to protect the reference value of the depositories. To do so the societies must con- tinue to send them all archive material preferably in printed form. In addition, all archive material must be abstracted and indexed if the computers, which c a d the “information explosion,” are to retrieve it.

Currently, only two societies in the survey are utilizing computers for information retrieval, al- though several others are abstracting and indexing pertinent technical information.

THE FUTURE

The major problems whch continue to plague the societies are those of steadily rising costs and ever greater volume of technical material as new areas of technology develop. Greater use will there- fore be made of microfilm, abstracts, indexes, and preprints while the production and distribution of formal archive publications, such as transactions, journals, and proceedings, will be limited to sub- scribers and depositories. Advances in reproduc- tion techniques, the use of “cold type,” and the printing of limited quantities of each paper will reduce costs without sacrificing appearance or legibility.

From this review it should be evident that the engineering societies have provided and must con- tinue to provide publications of high quality to the engineering profession. The varied interests of en- gineers, the proliferation of t e c h c a l material, the limited demand for information in any given area, cannot be furnished by any other publisher than the engineering societies.

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