IEEE Magnetics Society Newsletter

June 1998

Volume 35. No. 2 ISSN 1059-8340

Richard Dee and John Nyenhuis, Editors

Table of Contents:

• Message from the President of the IEEE Magnetics Society
• Letter to the Editors
• About the Newsletter
• IEEE Magnetics Society Distinguished Lecturers
• Nominations Sought for Achievement Award
• Call for Nominations for 1999-2001 ADCOM
• TMRC '98 to be Held in Boulder, Colorado USA
• MMM '98 to be held in Miami, Florida USA
• Conference Calendar

Message from the President of the IEEE Magnetics Society

Dan Stancil

Data Storage Systems Center

Carnegie Mellon University

stancil@cmu.edu

Every Society is reviewed once every five years by the Technical Activities Board (TAB) of the IEEE. The Magnetics Society had its latest review last February. This is a very valuable exercise, and provides a good opportunity for the Society to thoughtfully review its own activities and directions. I learned a lot about the Magnetics Society in the process, and gained a new appreciation for many of our activities. In this column, I would like to tell you about two aspects of the Society that I think are particularly noteworthy: financial health, and publications.

Some of you may recall that the Society experienced a significant drop in net worth during 1993 and 1994. This was caused by unexpectedly low revenues from conferences and the Transactions, coupled with significant losses from the Translation Journal on Magnetics in Japan (TJMJ) before its discontinuation. To be able to provide the necessary financial backing to our conferences and Transactions, we need to maintain a net worth comparable to our annual budget expenses. This provides enough flexibility to accommodate the fluctuations in cash flow that result from unexpected delays in closing conference books and variations in conference and publication costs. In 1994, our net worth dropped to about one fifth of our expenses. To correct this situation, the Society responded by reducing expenditures and increasing revenues where practical. Among the more significant actions taken by the Society was moving the 96 INTERMAG conference from its scheduled location in Budapest to Seattle to minimize the financial risk. Although unpleasant at the time, I am pleased to report that these actions along with a bull stock market have enabled the Society to return to financial health. At the close of 1997 the net worth of the Society was once again approaching the level of our annual budget. As a result, we now have the financial strength to take reasonable risks associated with new initiatives such as electronic publishing. I would like to express my appreciation to the Finance Committee Chairman, Gordon Fish, and the leadership of the Administrative Committee for helping us recover this financial strength. However, revenue forecasts for the next several years show only modest net gains, so a general spirit of fiscal conservatism should continue.

Second, I would like to tell you some of the things that I have learned about the quality and value of the Transactions on Magnetics (T-MAG). I'm sure you already know that it is the archival journal of choice for the data storage industry. But did you know that in 1996 it was the second most cited journal published by the IEEE (after the Journal of Quantum Electronics)! To be fair, this is partly because we publish the largest number of articles, so we are also interested in the average number of citations per published article. An estimate of this is given by the journal impact factor. Only 28 of the 71 IEEE transactions, journals, and letters ranked higher than T-MAG in 1996. (These statistics are from Journal Citation Reports, 1996 Science Edition, filtered by Engineering, Electrical and Electronic.) Another metric of interest to authors is the average time from submission to publication. The IEEE periodically samples the July issue to obtain an estimate of this time. In 1995, the average time from submission to publication for T-MAG was 85 weeks. In 1997, this time was reduced to 51 weeks giving a two-year improvement of 34 weeks. Although we would like to see this reduced further to about 35 weeks, the improvement is impressive, and the performance is significantly better than the IEEE average of about 78 weeks in 1997. Chief Editor Ron Goldfarb and the Associate Editors are to be congratulated for this significant improvement.

Since a large fraction of the papers we publish are associated with conferences, questions are occasionally raised about whether the quality of T-MAG is comparable to those transactions that undergo a more traditional review process. In answer to these questions, the data presented above show that the Transactions on Magnetics is one of the most valued journals published by the IEEE.

Letter to the Editors

Editor:

I read in the February 1998 issue of the Newsletter that the paper version of the Newsletter will be discontinued after 1998. I understand that, thereafter, the Newsletter will only be published on the web.

I may be a bit old fashioned, but I think the world is going "web crazy" and this decision is more fashionable than wise. I was told that the decision was made to save about ten thousand bucks a year. I believe that this is false savings and that the intangible price to the Society will be much greater.

The Newsletter in its present format is a very attractive, available, and informative instrument of the Magnetics Society. It is prominently displayed in my office. Students and visitors often notice it when they visit. I distribute my copy to members of my group and it is often an important factor in motivating them to join the Magnetics Society. In short, it is very good PR for our Society.

I believe that there are many members like me who appreciate the Newsletter in its present format and wish to retain the tradition of a paper copy which is mailed to members.

Of course, I have some strong personal attachments to this format. As some of the "senior" members may remember, in the beginning the Newsletter was a well written and informative instrument, but it was mimeographed (the technology at the time) and not of the highest printed quality. I served as Newsletter editor from 1972 until 1976 and was fortunate to enlist the Graphics Design Department at Colorado State to "spruce up" the masthead a bit and produce a professional printed document. The format has improved and evolved even more since those days. The Newsletter is now a very professional, well produced, attractive, and informative document which serves the Society extremely well, in my opinion. I, for one, would hate to see our Newsletter go away as a victim of "web crazy" fashionability!

Many of us access the web through fast links with direct network connections, and I can click on these sites as easily as anyone. But then again, many of us don't have this fast access to the web. And, as many of us experience daily, this "fast access" is not always fast. Present problems with slow modems, web traffic jams, and the profusion of web material best left undescribed are just the beginning of problems yet to come. While I agree that, on the whole, the web is a good thing, I would rather FIND my Newsletter as a nice surprise in my mailbox rather than fight the web to extract it. And then again, I would rather READ my Newsletter sitting in a comfortable chair by the fire (or pool!). I have to sit at the computer too much already!

I wonder how others feel?

Carl Patton
Colorado State University

Response from the editors:
Thank you for your letter. The ADCOM of the IEEE Magnetics Society voted at the January meeting to discontinue the paper version of the Newsletter. This decision was based primarily on financial issues. The added cost to print and to mail the paper newsletter to the approximately 3500 subscribers costs in excess of $10,000 per year. Whether or not there is a paper version, the web version of the newsletter will continue. Comments from other readers are welcome and the sentiments will be transmitted to the ADCOM.

About the Newsletter

The objective of the IEEE Magnetics Society Newsletter is to publicize activities, conferences, workshops and other information of interest to the Society membership and technical people in the general area of applied magnetics. Copy is solicited from the Magnetics Society membership, organizers of conferences, officers of the Society and local chapters and other individuals with relevant material. The Magnetics Society Newsletter will be published four times a year.

In 1998, the paper version of the Newsletter will be sent to members of the IEEE Magnetics Society and the electronic version, which includes the contents of the paper version plus additional information, is on the Magnetics Society Web Page. Commencing in 1999, the paper version of the Newsletter will be discontinued and the Newsletter will only be published only on the Web at www.ieee.org/society/mag

Please send contributions to one of the co-editors:

The IEEE Magnetics Society Newsletter is published by the Magnetics Society of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Headquarters of the IEEE is 345 East 47th Street, New York, NY 10017-2394, $1.00 per year (included in Society fee) for each member of the Magnetic Society. Printed in USA. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to IEEE Magnetics Society Newsletter, IEEE, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854-4150.

IEEE Magnetics Society Distinuished Lecturers

Prof. David Jiles and Prof. Shmuel Shtrikman are completing their assignments as distinguished lecturers for 1997-1998. For 1998, there will be three distinguished lecturers: Prof. Giorgio Bertotti, Dr. Gordon F. Hughes and Prof. Robert L. White. Titles of their talks and contact information are listed below. Links to abstracts can be found at the IEEE Magnetics Society Web page at http://yara.ecn.purdue.edu/~smag/distlect/distlect.html
Please contact the speaker if you would like a presentation to be made to your organization.

1997-1998 Distinguished Lecturers