| Description | Present at the meeting; Professor N Kurti in the chair; Dr G R C Davis; Professor A Goodwin; Professor M M Gowing; Lord Hinton; Sir David Martin; Professor J S Rowlinson; Sir John Summerson; Sir Robert Somerville; Dame Veronica Wedgwood
Mr N H Robinson, Mr H M G Baillie, and Mr C P Cook in attendance
1. Apologies for absence from Mr R H Ellis, Profesor R V Jones, Mr M W Leonard and Professor W D M Paton
2. Lord Hinton, Dame Veronica Wedgwood and Professor Gowing were congratulated on their recent distinctions
3. Minutes of meeting of 7 January 1975 agreed and signed
4. Proposed Reconstitution of the Commitee Considerd and discussed the Commissions's circulated proposals and AGREED ' to recommend to the two parent bodies;
4.1 That the Committee had now clearly fulfilled the purpose for which it had been set up, namely to promote a wider and more general concern for the preservation of scientific and technological records. When it had started its activities in 1966 these records were tending to be treated with indifference and even neglect. But their iimportance had now demonstrably become at least as well recognised and as firmly established as that of any other class of record. In view of this the Committee in its present form, and with its existing terms of reference, should now be dissolved.
4.2 That the functions that would be served by setting up a new coordinating committee with a wider composition and fresh terms of reference were less clear. On further investigtion they might well be thought capable of achievement through existing bodies such as the British Records Association or by informal contacts. If, after undertaking such investigation, the Commission resolved to set p a committee of this different type under its own auspices, it wold invite the Royal Society to be represented on it. But the mechanism of a Joint Committee would no longer seem appropriate.'
5. Guide to the MS Papers of British Scientists 1600-1940
' Circulated minutes of the editorial sub-committee's meeting of 17 February 1976 approved. Having regard to the resignation of Dr Maddison as editor, and the inability of Mr Craig to undertake the completion of the final stages of the work, it was AGREED that the Guide shold be offered to the Commission for inclusion, with approporiate acknowledgements, in particular to Sir Harold Hartley, in its new series of 'Guides to Sources for British History'. The Secretary was instructed to write to Dr Maddison and Mr Craig expressing the Committee's gratitude for their work, and in the case of Dr Maddison its sympathy for the domestic reasons that had obliged him to relinquish the post of editor. '
6. Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre
Centre's circulated report on work done in last three years considered, approved, its achievements noted with satisfaction, and Professor Gowing and her staff at the Centre congratulated. AGREED that ' upon the dissolution of the Joint Committee, the Centre's management committee should become answerable solely to the Royal Society, from which it could be expected that the Centre would now derive the major part of its funds. The Commission's offer to continue to provide reprographic and other services on the same basis that it gives these to other undertakings of this type, in return for the right to receive and give a limited distribution to copies of their reports, was accepted with gratitude.'
7. Professor Kurti thanked for his activities under his chairmanship. Professor Kurti expressed his thanks for the support he had received.
8. Committee adjourned 'sine die' at 4.20 pm |