I supported) that it was important to continue placing major
emphasis on refereeing. The reason given was that many universities were still in the process of
establishing formal computer
science programs and the presence of a highly respected literature, particularly in JACM and
CACM, was an important factor in having these programs
accepted. Indeed, three of the
courses noted in the 1968 report
by ACM’s Curriculum Com-
mittee on Computer Science,
listed JACM or CACM in 38 of
78 references (49%).
Today, with a majority of the
membership coming from practitioners rather than academics,
this argument no longer holds
the same force.
This anniversary issue offers a
time for retrospect and a time
for prospect. Retrospect means
remembering all the colleagues,
friends, and excitement of those
heady days. As for prospects,
anyone who reads Moshe Vardi’s
account of the comprehensive
research and imaginative
thought that has driven the
deliberations about the future
course for CACM (see p. 44),
will know the publication is in
very good hands indeed. c
CALVIN C. (KELLY) GOTLIEB
( ccg@cs.toronto.edu) is currently Professor
Emeritus in Computer Science at the
University of Toronto.
© 2008 ACM 0001-0782/08/0100 $5.00
GERARD SALTON
EIC YEARS JANUARY1966–DECEMBER1968
THE POWER OF PRINT
Excerpted from “Toward a Publications Policy for ACM,” Communications, Jan. 1966.
“With the present issue I am taking on a new responsibility as editor of the Communi-
cations of the ACM. I hope that my inexperience, when compared with the impressive
performance of my predecessors, will not become too obvious to most of you, and that
you will continue to consider the Communications as a primary source for learning what
is new in the field and as an interesting opportunity for the publication and dissemina-
tion of your own work.
... One of the encouraging thoughts for an
incoming editor of a technical journal is the often
heard assertion that editors may shortly see their
burdens considerably lightened. Indeed, it is said
that the job of a technical editor may one day be
abolished altogether: in an era in which consoles
may soon be found in every bedroom, technical
journals and their editors may be replaced by a
system of universal, personalized dissemination
of information, and editors will, I suspect, be the
first to welcome such a development. But this day
is not yet, and my own feeling is that some form
of printed record of technical material is likely to
remain with us for a long time to come.
Even if an editor is thus temporarily kept from
premature retirement, it is still necessary for him
to face the question whether it is safe, or appropriate to relax, and to let things go on as heretofore, or whether on the contrary, he should take
notice of those developments in automatic information handling which are likely to affect the
publishing process. Such a question is particularly
germane in the ACM context, since the most
important changes in information dissemination
and retrieval are directly caused by certain novel
uses of computers.” c
