Career at the American Institute of Physics (AIP)
AIP was an interesting challenge for Bill in that it was his first involvement with a business
operation, as contrasted to a research laboratory. Not only was it business , it was also a heavily
political business as can be seen from its institutional relationships. AIP is a federation of 10
member societies in the various sub-disciplines of physics. In some respects these societies were
competitive with each other as well as competitive with AIP. It was AIP's role to serve the
societies so that they could devote themselves to their sciences while AIP did all of the
administrative work such as publishing, public relations, marketing, and meeting arrangements
for the societies and their members.
Because it was a new challenge for which he had better be prepared, Bill spent the months from
September to December, 1966, right after he had committed himself to the job, by visiting the
Society staffs in Washington, the National Science Foundation, and the National Academy of
Science in order to learn their operations and finding out where AIP fit in. The NSF was
particularly important in that they were willing to finance information programs at AIP once a
commendable proposal for programs at AIP was submitted to them. The fact that AIP published
30 % of the research articles of the world in physics meant that NSF could safely invest and
hope to improve the handling of the research literature in physics.
It took Bill and his staff about the first six months of his tenure to submit an acceptable proposal.
NSF responded enthusiastically by providing $1 million per year for 5 years, from 1967 to 1972.
With that money AIP was able to hire 40 extra staff persons and undertake the conversion of AIP
from being an old line publisher and printer that used hot-metal type-set plates and letter-press
printing to a modern computer-based photocomposition publisher.
The other initial effort undertaken by Bill was to reorganize the AIP staff so that all of its
individual programs did not require his own personal attention. Therefore, he arranged for the
formation of a Management committee consisting of himself as chairman, Lew Slack in charge
of Educational programs Jerry Gilbert as Treasurer and a new man from McGraw Hill
publishing Company, Bob Marks, in charge of Publishing programs. Each of the members of the
Management committee had their own responsibilities and worked well as the member of a
team.
AlP Management Committee: (l to r) Koch, Slack, Marks, Lasky, Gilbert, Waterfall - 1973
Good Wishes for Koch's Tenth Anniversary at AlP - John A. Wheeler, January 4, 1976
The conversion of AIP into a computerized operation and the availability of a team of good
managers made it possible to manage the operation effectively as it grew from a staff of 160
persons in 1967 located in one location, New York City, to 550 in 1987 located in three
locations: New York City, Woodbury (LI), and Washington (DC), when Bill retired. The details
of how AIP grew with its many challenges are given in a separate report entitled "The Story of
the American Institute of Physics (1967 - 1987)". The report was prepared by Bill Koch for the
AIP Executive commttee and was dated December 1988.
In order to provide the reader a sense of the excitement, involvement, and esprit de corps of Bill
with his staff in various years, several examples described in the report follow:
- International copyright agreements in 1973 and 1974-
- In 1973, there was failure in reaching agreement with the Institution of Electrical Engineers
(IEE) -
IEE in London was the publisher of SCIENCE ABSTRACTS journals that contained abstracts in
physics of which 30% were lifted directly from AIP and AIP-Society owned journals. The IEE announced their production through a contractor of the SCIENCE ABSTRACTS journals,
including PHYSICS ABSTRACTS, by computer-based photo-composition techniques. Because
AIP and IEE were moving technologically in the same direction and at the same time, it seemed
appropriate that the two organizations cooperate in the production of one tape and one on-line
service of abstracts in physics. Koch proposed a week-long meeting in 1973 in London to which
he took five others from AIP including a lawyer (Robert Lawther). The purpose of the visit was
to discuss the various alternatives including a partnership effort on PHYSICS ABSTRACTS.
Although the first three days were encouraging it was evident after the fifth day that IEE had had
no intention of allowing AIP to become a partner in PHYSICS ABSTRACTS or even in a
combined service replacing PA. They had no intention also of acknowledging the copyright
ownership of abstracts from AIP journals. They have been intransigent until the 1990's about
their abuse of AIP copyrights of abstracts, that make on-line services possible.
- In 1974, there was success in reaching agreement with the Soviets -
A contrast with the IEE was AIP relations with the Soviets. AIP had been publishing the cover-
to-cover translations of 19 Soviet research journals and they had been making cover-to-cover
copies of all 57 or so AIP and Society journals without explicit permission. However, in 1974,
the Soviets signed the International Copyright Convention. Bill immediately went to Moscow
with Bob Marks to come to some agreements with them regarding the mutual honoring of
copyrights. During the first day of their arrival word came to Bob that his wife had died. With
the help of the representative of the Mc Graw Hill Publishing Co. in Moscow, Bob was able to
make plane reservations and return to New York immediately. During the remainder of the
week, Bill was able to come to agreement with the Soviets and was invited to speak at a Board
Meeting of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. They agreed to stop making wholesale copies of
our journals and we agreed to pay them for the rights to make translations of their journals.
- In 1976, AIP held its first AIP Corporate Associates Meeting at an Industrial Laboratory -
AIP had conducted an annual scientific conference at which excellent reviews of the scientific
progress in physics were presented in 2 days of invited lectures. Beginning in 1976, the Meetings
have been held in industrial laboratories. That year the General Motors Research Laboratories
was the host. Initally, the meetings were well attended because they provided a means for
physicists in one laboratory to visit even a competitive lab. The talks have always been of high
caliber. Synapses of the annual-meeting talks have appeared ever since in PHYSICS TODAY.
- In 1977, International Agreement was obtained for the use of the Physics and Astronomy
Classification System developed by AIP -
After much research with hierarchical and faceted classification schemes to organize the world
literature in physics, AIP Advisory Committees recommended the use of hierarchical schemes.
International agreement on this scheme was first achieved in 1977 by ICSTI (International
Council of Scientific and Technical Information). The agreement was based on AIP's PACS
scheme of 1977. PACS has been updated annually since 1977 and has been essential for
producing journal indexes at AIP.
- In 1977, the former Waldemar Cancer Research Institute building in Woodbury, Long Island
was purchased as a publishing production facility for AIP.
This was a building with two floors, each 18,000 square feet, in a T-shaped configuration on 11
« acres of land. After considerable renovation, the building was occupied for the first time in the
fall of 1977. Its attractiveness made it easy to hire new staff and was a great success in
improving employee morale.
- In 1978, AIP reached agreement with the Germans -
An advance in the production and use of abstracts for physicists was made in 1977 when the
West German Government announced that their German-language publication
PHYSIKALISCHE BERICHTE was to be replaced by an English-language equivalent. When
that announcement was made, Bill Koch went to Karlsruhe in February 1978 to propose
arrangements with a German Agency that were similar to those proposed in earlier years to the
publishers of PHYSICS ABSTRACTS. The Germans agreed to purchase a tape of AIP and
member Socity journal abstracts twice per month, to acknowledge and protect AIP's copyright to
those abstracts, and to produce printed and on-line services called PHYSICS BRIEFS.
- In March 17, 1979, an IRS law suit was dismissed in favor of AIP -
In 1977, an IRS auditor concluded that AIP should lose its tax exemption as a "charitable,
educational, and scientific" institution. However, on appeal, the IRS ruling was reversed after
several years of great concern, not only among AIP circles, but also among all other Scientific
Society circles.
- In May 1979, Bill visited China with a Group of 20 Publishers -
Four months after the Red Guard had caused ten years of chaos at Chinese universities, 20 US
publishers visited Beijing, Shanghai, Canton, and Hong Kong. During this trip, Bill was able to
meet with the Presidents of Beijing and Fudan Universities and see their respective laboratories
and libraries. He found particularly interesting catalogues listing all AIP and Society journals at
very low prices and without the permission of the owners of the copyrights of those journals. Bill
was also able to reach agreement with the publishers of their Chinese physics journals to allow
AIP to pick out selected articles from their journals and to publish regularly a selected-article
journal called CHINESE JOURNAL OF PHYSICS.
- On December 10, 1981, AIP won a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) vote on
establishing a union at Woodbury -
In the spring of 1981, a large number of new employees were hired during a short time period,
because of the loss of more than 60% of the New York City employees who refused to move
with their jobs out to Woodbury. The new employees began at relatively low salaries. There was
great dissatisfaction among those new employees, many of whom were in their first career jobs,
when they compared their salaries with the Long Island labor market salaries. The dissatisfaction
was so great that they were eagerly receptive to a proposal to create a labor union at AIP by the
Typographers Union at Newsday, the large Long Island newspaper. As a result, the National
Labor Relations Board called for a union vote on December 10, 1981. Preceding that vote were
many in-hours and out-of-hours meetings by Bill Koch, particularly, with groups of employees to
try to clarify AIP policy. The vote took place and was favorable to AIP for almost all of the
employees.
- In March 1986, AIP initiated an electronic magazine called Pi-Net -
This system made six different databases available on-line. The databases were similar to some
of the sections of PHYSICS TODAY. They were: 1. Job Opportunities; 2. Meetings programs
and schedules; 3. Advance Abstracts; 4. Article Titles after publication; 5. Announcements and
Press Releases; and 6. On-line ordering system for books, journals, copies of journal articles, and
other AIP and Society products and services. Bill Koch wrote an editorial describing the system
in PHYSICS TODAY, May 1986, p.144, entitled Physicists On-Line with Pi-Net. This system
has now been substantially expanded at the AIP web site and is accessible through Internet at
http://www.aip.org. This Web Site provides access to all AIP and Member Society programsand
publications.
- On March 31, 1987, Bill Koch retired from AIP after 20 years on the job -
A day's symposium was arranged to commemorate Bill's retirement. At this meeting, Don
Kerst, Norman Ramsey, Dick Crane, and Bill Havens spoke. The Board met after the special
meeting. Bill spoke at the latter meeting and thanked the speakers and the staff for a great
personal experience at working and growing with AIP. In particular, Bill thanked the other three
younger men of his Management Committee for their contributions for almost the entire 20
years of his tenure at AIP and for being such good personal friends in the process.
Good Wishes at Retirement - Frederick Seitz, March 12, 1987
Good Wishes at Retirement - D. Allan Bromley, March 18, 1987
Good Wishes at Retirement - G. S. Goldhaber, March 23, 1987
Good Wishes at Retirement - Management Committee, March 1987
Painting presented to Bill at his retirement party on March 29, 1987
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