Annual Report for SIGSAM
June 30, 1994

1. Publications:  SIGSAM is publishing the issues of the Bulletin
at a regular quarterly schedule.  The bulk of the pages is spent
on technical papers, which are of good quality.  I have contributed
a ``message from the chair'' in the past three issues.  The rest is made
up by conference announcements.  An issue facing SIGSAM is how
to distribute information to its members: in hardcopy in the Bulletin
or in softcopy on the computer network.

SIGSAM has also published the past 6 Proceedings for the International
Symposia on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation (ISSACs).  Publication
of the 1995 Proceedings is guaranteed.  I advise to establish a
member-Plus service for membership renewals that automatically offers
the purchase of those Proceedings to members on renewal.

2. Electronic services:  Gene Copperman, our treasure, has taken on
responsibility as SIGSAM's information director.  A link from
SIGSAM's directory on ACM.org to the directories under Gene's care
at Northeastern has been installed, and pertinent information is
now openly accessible.

3. Conferences:  SIGSAM is fully sponsoring the International Symposium
on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation (ISSAC '94) in Oxford in July 1994.
SIGSAM and SIGNUM are sponsoring ISSAC '95 in Montreal.  The Oxford
meeting is progressing smoothly, and the assembled program consists of
high quality papers.  The organization of the Montreal meeting is well
on its way.  In fact, a Call for Papers has been distributed already.
SIGSAM also endorsed the organization of an East Coast Computer Algebra
Day, held for the first time on May 14 at Drexel University.
SIGSAM is actively seeking to cooperate with more conferences, at least.
To this end, I feel that the approval of an "in cooperation" request with no
financial obligations SIGSAM and ACM should be left largely to the discretion
of the SIGSAM board.

4. International collaboration:  I have established communication with
the leaders of computer algebra societies in Germany and Japan.  On
October 12, 1993, I had a meeting with Johannes Grabmeier, the speaker
of the German Fachgruppe (Section) on Computer Algebra of the GI/DMV/GAMM.
We agreed to coordinate decisions of mutual interest, such as matters
of the ISSAC conference series and network services.  We hope to
establish cooperation on network services.  The German Fachgruppe also
provides such services already.  Kobayashi Hidetsune, the co-chair of the
Japanese Society for Symbolic and Algebraic Computation, has via email
agreed to participate in our deliberations on international matters.

5. Membership:  The membership of SIGSAM has declined in proportion to
the rest of the SIGs.  SIGSAM must become more attractive to the many
researchers abroad, some of whom view ACM as a US organization.
This is reinforced by subtle signs, such as the clause directed to
US government work on the copyright forms that we send out to persons
contributing papers to ISSAC Proceedings.  In the upcoming business
meeting at Oxford I will propose to change the Bylaws to an
``Open SIG.''  I also believe that international representation on
the executive board is an important step to making SIGSAM more attractive
outside North America.

6. Leadership development: I have attended both the Anaheim and Phoenix
SIG Chairs meeting.  The most useful information obtained was on
network services and electronic publishing.  We have also held a
meeting of the executive board in August 5, 1993, where the plan for
our activities for the next 2 years was discussed.

Appointments: Bulleting editor: Robert Grossman (reappointed)
              TOMS editorial board: Richard Zippel
              Information director: Gene Cooperman
              Education director: Bruce Char
              General chair for ISSAC '95: Stephen Watt
              Liaison to standards committee: unfilled

Submitted by
Erich Kaltofen
SIGSAM chair