Dear Reader,

this is our Summer issue. As usual, you will find news about the IMU and the regular column "IMU on the Web".
In the September issue, you will find some highlights from the main International Congresses of this Summer.
I wish you a good vacation.

Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel
Editor

Construction of slates for elections.
In response to a resolution of the 2002 IMU General Assembly, the IMU Executive Committee is proposing that in future slates for elections will formed by Nominating Committees. One Nominating Committee will propose the slates for the Executive Committee of IMU, the Commission of Development and Exchanges and the International Commission of the History of Mathematics. A second Nominating Committee will propose the slate for the Executive Committee of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction.
The two Nominating Committees have similar structures. However the proposed procedures for ICMI also envision that the election for the ICMI Executive Committee will be made by the ICMI General Assembly, rather than by the IMU General Assembly as at present. A suitable transitional arrangement is also proposed.
Until presented to the General Assembly in 2006, the Nominating Committees will be operated informally as advisory bodies to the IMU Executive Committee.
Experience gained can be incorporated into a formal proposal for a change in Statutes at the 15th IMU General Assembly in 2006.

Christopher A. Reed writes in the Chronicle of Higher education (Chronicle Review, February 20, 2004):
"It used to be publish or perish. Now it is publish and perish. Academic science and medicine are drowning in a sea of publications. They have developed journal-publishing culture that threatens to engulf them. Library budgets can't keep up. The peer-review system is overloaded. Researchers feel overwhelmed ..... "; for more see
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=a5jy9pagwlezr86x489mrxjub1henyo

At http://www.ceic.math.ca/News/index.shtml , Michael Doob offers the Opinion that Bundling and Consortia Purchasing of Journals carries significant dangers to our ability, that is of we academics, to influence our universities' library holdings.

The world digital mathematics library (WDML):

The world mathematical community has embraced the goal of ensuring the future of the mathematical literature by aiming to digitise the complete mathematical research literature and making it readily available for at most reasonable tolls. A recent meeting "New Developments in Electronic Publishing of Mathematics" held at KTH, Stockholm in association with ECM 2004 inter alia agreed to develop and promulgate minimum standards for the many new digitisation projects that will add to present efforts.

Responding to a mandate of the General Assembly of ICM2002, the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) has recently constituted a Developing Countries Strategy Group (DCSG) with a mandate to oversee an increase of IMU activity in support of mathematics and mathematicians in the developing world. IMU has also provided the group with part-time staff support, based at the International Center of Theoretical Physics in Trieste. Members of the DCSG are Michèle Artigue (Université de Paris 7, ICMI), Herbert Clemens (Ohio State University, IMU/CDE), Hajer Bahouri (Université de Tunis, IMU/CDE), S.G. Dani (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, IMU/CDE), Jean-Pierre Gossez (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Lê Dung Trang (Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics), Jacob Palis (Instituto de Matematica Pura e Aplicada, IMU/Executive Committee), Ragni Piene (University of Oslo, IMU/Executive Committee), and John M. Ball (University of Oxford, IMU President). The committee is chaired by Herbert Clemens.

The initial agenda of the DCSG includes support of mathematics development in Africa and a role in coordinating the work of several groups currently contributing to that development, fund-raising to increase the resources available to support the work of mathematicians in developing countries, and the establishing of an international database of mathematicians and mathematical programs and activities in the developing world. The group will also have a role in coordinating an expanded travel grants program to ICM2006 in Madrid, Spain, for mathematicians from developing and economically disadvantaged countries.

The International Mathematical Union wishes to honor mathematician Henri Cartan on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Renowned for his fundamental contributions to several mathematical areas, Cartan was President of the IMU from 1967 to 1970.