AMS Publications Commission meeting

I have recently returned from the AMS Publications Commission meeting. Nearly all Chief Editors of all the AMS journals were present, as were the Publications staff, Chief Editorial Assistants, and the director of Publications Commission Dave Jorgensen.

The main issues at the Publications Commission meeting were the high costs of color figures in AMS journals, the long time between when a manuscript is accepted by the editor and when it appears in print, and the declining number of submissions in most of the journals. Some evidence suggests that these concerns are related. The Publications Commission is resolved to reducing the cost of color figures to authors, reducing the time to publication to a goal of 120 days (the Director of Publications bet the Publications Commissioner that we would be averaging less than 160 days by June 2009), all while maintaining the high editorial standards and publication quality that the AMS offers.

More from the Publication Commission meeting in future posts.