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40th IUPAC COUNCIL Meeting
Berlin, Germany: 13-14
August 1999


Report of Secretary General

The Bylaws say that the Secretary General shall be responsible for carrying out "the business of the Union..." Currently this business includes major items such as the organization and management of our scientific work, which will be discussed at length in later agenda items. Here I would like to concentrate on giving you a summary report of the activities in our Secretariat.

At the time of the last General Assembly, we had recently decided to move the Secretariat following the retirement of Mo Williams. John W. Jost had become the new Executive Director, but the bulk of the routine business was still being conducted in the Secretariat at Oxford. At that time the Officers were quite optimistic that the transition would go well and that an effective Secretariat would soon be established in Research Triangle Park (RTP). Our optimism was well placed; the new Secretariat has been even more successful than we anticipated! For a number of months after the closing of the Oxford office in October 1998, Dr. Jost carried the entire burden of the Secretariat almost alone, but he has now recruited three very able staff members and is planning to recruit a fourth. Dr. Fabienne Meyers has been largely responsible for developing and maintaining the IUPAC World Wide Web site [www.iupac.org] and is now also handling the administration of scientific projects in conjunction with the Divisions and the Project Committee. Dr. Alan J. Senzel is responsible for managing and editing all printed publications, primarily Pure and Applied Chemistry and Chemistry International. Ms. Linda Y. Tapp, as Administrative Assistant, handles a myriad of activities. The fourth staff member will be responsible for dealing with PAC and CI subscribers as IUPAC takes over direct management of its publications.

Administrative Functions. Dr. Jost has reorganized the basic administrative functions of the Secretariat to take advantage of computer automation and has outsourced a number of functions that had been labor-intensive in-house activities at Oxford. The database of more than 1000 members of all IUPAC bodies is now on the Web site, where it is continually updated. This database will be expanded to include IUPAC Fellows, a group that will grow significantly in future years. Scientific projects under the new project-driven system will be tracked in an integrated computer system from initial proposal through review, approval, funding, progress and completion, together with relevant fiscal data. Extensive use of e-mail, along with creation of list-servers, permits rapid and inexpensive communication with virtually all members of IUPAC bodies, with IUPAC Fellows, and with our NAOs.

The important daily banking functions, including issuance of foreign exchange checks, have been moved from Merrill Lynch, where they were handled indirectly with a subsidiary bank, to the Wachovia Bank. This is a large bank that is particularly strong in southeastern United States and has a branch at RTP with a foreign exchange department. Service is now rapid, efficient and almost flawless. Accounting is carried out by a local accounting firm, and this arrangement has also proved to be very good. The Secretariat can now accept any major credit card for purchases. This capability is increasingly used for payment of small fees (e.g., for Associated Organizations and individual Affiliate Members) and for purchase of such items as individual copies of special issues of PAC. Large-volume document copying is handled by a local printing firm with excellent overnight service. All of these changes have resulted in more rapid service at a lower cost, thus freeing financial resources to improve the Union's scientific programs and its public relations.

Web Site. Priority has been given to establishment of a comprehensive World Wide Web site. While the Secretariat was in Oxford, the Royal Society of Chemistry had generously allowed IUPAC to establish a temporary presence on its web site, and that was carried out with very limited resources. At RTP the IUPAC site, with its own domain name (www.iupac.org) is housed on the SunSITE at the University of North Carolina, with mirror sites in the UK, Germany and Japan. The site contains a vast array of information about IUPAC - general news about the Union, all information that is in the IUPAC Handbook (but continually updated), contents and selected documents from PAC, the complete text from CI, a current Conference Calendar, information about IUPAC projects and project submission forms, application for Affiliate Membership, and much additional material. The site is designed with minimum graphics to permit rapid communication over normal telephone lines and to allow less than state-of-the-art computers, thereby facilitating worldwide access.

The web site serves as the principal source of information for members of IUPAC bodies, but it is increasingly being configured as the public face of IUPAC. Many aids permit rapid navigation from one part of the site to another and to links with other sites. Use of the site has increased dramatically in the last year, from approximately 3000 "adjusted hits" in March 1998 to more than 16,000 in February 1999. Statistics indicate that each visitor to the site now views an average of six pages.

Publications. The Bureau approved the termination of the contract with our official publisher, Blackwell Science, at the end of 1999. From January 1, 2000 the Union will act as its own publisher. The reasons for this change and the significant potential advantages of the new arrangement will be described in detail in the report later by the Committee on Printed and Electronic Publications. However, by mutual agreement with Blackwell, IUPAC took over all responsibility for publication of Chemistry International in January 1999. We have contracted with a Production Editor and a Printer/Distributor to handle the functions previously carried out by Blackwell. This arrangement is working very well, with a significant decrease in the time required for production and more flexibility in dealing with "last-minute" news. Production, which had fallen behind schedule last year, is now current, with printing and distribution by the beginning of the month of issue. Costs have also decreased.

 


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