IS-MPMI President Eugene Nester convened the meeting with Board Members Barry Rolfe (President-Elect), Linda Thomashow (Treasurer), Jan Leach, and Alan Collmer at the APS Press head offices. Steven Nelson and Corie Dacus of APS Press also participated, and Sally Leong (Secretary) joined the group in the evening. Other Board Members, Michael Daniels and Ulla Bonas, communicated issues for discussion by letter.
The purpose of the meeting was to deal with a number of issues relating to the development and future of the Society, its relationship with the American Phytopathological Society (APS) and APS Press in the publishing of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (MPMI), and the planning of the biennial meetings. Highlights of the meeting follow.
The core activity of the Society has been the organization of the biennial meetings that have been held at Briefeld (1982), Ithaca (1984), Montreal (1986), Acapulco (1988), Interlaken (1990), Seattle (1992), and Edinburgh (1994). Publication of MPMI began in 1988, and in 1990 the Society became incorporated. Both of these events involved legal and financial relationships with APS Press.
Business Executive Steve Nelson explained that all activities provided through the St. Paul office are nonprofit and services generally include publication and membership services for the four scientific societies (with the following March 1995 memberships): APS (5,000), The American Society of Cereal Chemists (4,500), The American Society of Brewing Chemists (750), and IS-MPMI (416).
There are a total of 60 employees and there is also a small office in Leuven, Belgium. An office for the Pacific Rim is in the planning stage. APS Press currently charges IS-MPMI $6 annually per member for services, which include publication and mailing of newsletters, membership directories, and meeting announcements, administration ofthe legal and financial responsibilities of the Society, and a developing series of Internet services.
MPMI is currently published bimonthly and is subscribed to by 244 libraries, 97 IS-MPMI members, and 1,141 nonmembers. Because of printing and mailing expenses, the average cost of $100 per member for an annual subscription yields a net loss that must be offset by library subscriptions. Electronic publishing is more cost-effective. The titles and abstracts of MPMI articles will be available on the Internet soon.
Beginning in 1996, full text of the journal will be available through IS-MPMI NET on the Internet. This service and an appropriate fee schedule are being developed. MPMI operated at a deficit until 1993, but has made a surplus since then, yielding IS-MPMI a 2% royalty for the past two years. At an evening follow-up meeting, the Board voted to continue the current arrangement with APS and APS Press regarding the publication of MPMI.
The Board made several decisions regarding MPMI: (i) The handling fee will be increased to $150 for up to six pages and an attempt will be made to decrease color figure charges (the cost and quality of MPMI color prints was seen as an advantage of MPMI over many other journals). (ii) The Editor-in-Chief will now be a full member of the Board, since any issues affecting MPMI finances, such as switching to a monthly publication schedule, must go to the Board. (iii) The publication schedule will remain bimonthly until the flow of manuscripts justify increased frequency. (iv) Potential areas for expanded coverage by MPMI include molecular ecology, biotechnology, and chemical biology.
As decided at the Edinburgh meeting, the 1996 meeting will be held in Knoxville, Tennessee, with Gary Stacey as Chair of the Organizing Committee. There was considerable discussion concerning potential changes in the nature and format of the Proceedings. These included publication of unrefereed abstracts and or selected longer papers in MPMI, publication in MPMI of a 15- 20 page overview of significant points of the meeting, referenced with appropriate abstract citations, or distribution of the complete text or selected abstracts on IS-MPMI- NET.
No significant change will be made for the Knoxville meeting, but further membership input will be sought on this issue for future meetings. Future activities of the Society were discussed. It was decided that the IS-MPMI Newsletter needed to be published more frequently. IS-MPMI should develop a membership brochure and further define and advertise its identity as an international group joined by an interdisciplinary pursuit of a very active biological frontier with relevance to critical world problems.
As suggested by Michael Daniels, IS-MPMI could use the Internet to provide technical outreach to scientists in developing countries. Various other means of outreach, including subsidized participation in biennial meetings, were discussed. The importance of maintaining the true international character of IS-MPMI was also considered. For example, permitting European members to pay dues and subscription costs with Eurochecks through the Belgian office would be helpful.
Several changes in the structure and operation of the Board were made or initiated. First, it was discovered that there was an open position because of the retirement of two Board members. In accordance with the results of the last election, Ben Lugtenberg was invited to join the Board.
Second, the Editor-in-Chief of MPMI will now be a full member of the Board. Third, a rotation scheme for Board membership, with appropriately coordinated terms of appointment, was discussed and will be developed by the next meeting; the revised by-laws will also reflect more accurately the duties of the officers. Fourth, an operations manual, including biennial meeting arrangements, will be developed.
The next board meeting is currently scheduled during the Knoxville meeting in July 1996.