IPA Annual Report

ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2000

The International Palaeontological Association (IPA), aims to promote and coordinate international cooperation in palaeontology and to encourage the integration and synthesis of all palaeontological knowledge.

Membership is open to individual palaeontologists.
Palaeontological societies are welcome to corporate membership.
Associate members are international organisations who seek cooperation with the IPA.

The IPA General Assembly meets every four years at the International Geological Congress where the Executive Committee is elected. The latter consists of President, 4 Vice-Presidents, Secretary-General, Treasurer, 2 Members-at-Large, the Past President and Past Secretary-General.

Officers for the period 1996-2002 are:

J. A. Talent (Australia)

W. von Koenigswald (Germany)
A. C. Riccardi (Argentina)
Jin Yu-gan (China)
A. Yu. Rozanov (Russia)

D. L. Bruton (Norway)

R. L. Kaesler (USA)

R. Lane (USA)

Chang Meemann (China)

Financial support from IUGS was withdrawn in 1990. The income of the association is derived from corporate membership (12 in 2000; 12 in 1999) at the rate of USD 7.50 per 100 members rising by increments of this sum for the next hundred and so on, and from a proportion (USD 25), of each individual subscription to the international journal of palaeontology and stratigraphy, Lethaia. In 2000 this amounted to USD 6,350 from 254 subscriptions (290 in 1999).

The new publishers of the journal, Taylor & Francis, now quote all prices in USD (not NKr.) and for 2000 the cost was USD 210 for institutional subcribers and USD 99 for individual subscribers. These prices include distribution of the printed version as well as free electronic access to the full text of the journal. According to JCRV 400-Sci (Journal Citation Reports-Science Edition of 08/16/99), Lethaia has an impact factor of 0,8.

Numbers of subscribers to Lethaia continue to fall and now stand at 760 (794 in 1999). The Lethaia Foundation see this as a global trend caused by reduction of library funding. Reduction in the numbers of palaeontologists or a generation shift where the personal library is no longer a priority, might explain the fall in Europe, Canada and Australia. It is a major task of the IPA committee to encourage more palaeontologists to subscribe to Lethaia and the forthcoming IPA web site might help this.

By-Law (3) of the constitution states: The Directory of Paleontologists of the World and Fossil Collections of the World, should be revised and new editions published every eight years. Sales af these are small (total income for 2000, USD 55) and it is now planned that IPA will publish them electronically (see below).

Individual members and corporate member organisations of IPA, are welcome to use the IPA logo when advertising meetings planned by them. The association considers applications for grants of USD 500 to cover the costs of initial planning. Normally it is expected that this sum will be repaid when the meeting is successfully concluded. Funding is usually made well in advance of the meetings. No funding was granted in 2000 but the following meeting, funded in 1999, was successfully held:

Geoscience 2000, organised by the Geological Society of London at the University of Manchester 17-20 April. Session "History of Biodiversity," organised by D.A.T. Harper (University of Copenhagen) and Michael J. Benton (University of Bristol).

A meeting of the IPA was held in Rio de Janiro, Brasil on August 11. 2000 from 13.00-14.00., and co-chaired by Professor A.C. Riccardi and Dr H.R. Lane. Apart from the chairmen, only two people attended!
An agenda was compiled by Dr Lane. Here it was reported that the IPA official meeting will be held in Sydney, Australia in July, 2002 during the first International Palaeontological Congress to be organised by the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists. The mandate of the present executive will continue until then.
It was also reported that the IUGS Executive has noted the drifing away of IPA from IUGS. Those attending the meeting concluded that it would be a mistake to loose contact with IUGS and that something should be done to have a closer cooperation between the two organisations.
Details were given of work in progress. Dr. Lane wished for someone to replace him as
leader of the project for Endangered Fossil Sites.

The Directory of Paleontologists became available on-line from 20. June, 2000 and currently contains records of more than 1300 palaeontologists. The directory is an indexed searchable database capable of displaying both contact information as well as more detailed, self-entered data for each palaeontologist. Users can access contact information (e-mail addresses, departmental and institutional addresses, web sites etc.) as well as research interests and specific taxonomic groups.

Work is in progress on compiling the Directory of Fossil Collections. This will be an indexed data base providing information about individual fossil collections, and the names of custodians. Details on types of collections, curation policy and loan regulations will also be available.

The IPA web site is hoped to be complete by the spring of 2001. This is expected to contain general information on the IPA (such as list of officers, rules and by-laws, annual report), as well as links to Lethaia, the directories, IPA-sponsored symposia, future meetings and other general palaeontological links.
All these databases are hosted on a Macintosh G4 server located in the offices of the Paleontological Institute of the University of Kansas. This work has been made possible by the untiring efforts of Roger L. Kaesler assisted by Michael Cormack.

The association wishes to acknowledge the efforts of the treasurer, Roger Kaesler, for his management of the enclosed accounts and to Mrs. Gerd Halvorsen of Taylor & Francis, for the Lethaia accounting.

It is hoped that in the near future, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will grant a tax-exempt status for IPA.
The IPA remains solvent thanks to the generosity of the Lethaia Foundation who will continue to support the association as long as sales of Lethaia permit.

In 2000 the IPA has:

Continued planning the first International Symposium of Palaeontology to be held in Sydney, Australia, in July, 2002.

Opened an electronic version of the Directory of Palaeontologists of the World.

Prepared an electronic version of the Directory of Fossil Collections.

Sponsored a one day session on 'Biodiversity' at the syposium: Geoscience 2000, Manchester, U.K.

David L. Bruton
Secretary-General

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