PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2005 MIDYEAR COUNCIL MEETING

Abstract

The midyear meeting of the Council of the Paleontological Society (PS) was called to order by President David J. Bottjer at 8:10 a.m. on 31 March 2005, in the Peabody Auditorium of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, at Yale University. Council members William I. Ausich, Derek E. G. Briggs, Mark E. Patzkowsky, Roger D. K. Thomas, Anne L. Raymond, Lisa E. Park, Ann F. “Nancy” Budd, Tomasz K. Baumiller, Russell D. “Tim” White, Mark A. Wilson, Michael A. Gibson, Austin Hendy, and Andrew K. Rindsberg were present. President Bottjer warmly thanked Derek Briggs for making arrangements to hold this meeting at Yale. He reviewed the agenda and presented his report. Like all professional societies today, the PS is in a period of rapid change due to the electronic publishing revolution. The shift away from paper as the principal means of scholarly communication is affecting memberships and the ability to raise funds. The Society's journals are now available on a second electronic server, GeoScience World, which came online in March. This server, linked to GeoRef, looks terrific. It is going to be a very useful. But, it will affect the libraries' willingness to continue paper subscriptions, so it will affect the Society's business. Back issues of the Journal of Paleontology should be available online from J-Stor in May. BioOne and J-Stor are planning a link that will enable J-Stor to receive back issues of Paleobiology as they become available. The Society will need to sign an agreement, which looks appropriate, to permit this. These developments are good for the Society and its membership, but they are rapidly undermining the ‘dues for periodical publication’ business model on which the Society has operated since its founding. The pressures on scholarly journals to move to open access, which really means free access, …