Annual Report 2012: FY July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012
Publications Pipeline Committee
The function of the Publications Pipeline Committee is to collect geoscience books and journals from those who no longer need them and to forward these resources to overseas universities and libraries. Most of the material distributed is from retired and deceased geoscientists and downsized company libraries. The books and journals are cataloged, boxed, stored and distributed when a need for them is identified. These books and journals are sent to overseas universities and other libraries that require these resources with the assistance of companies with overseas operations. When necessary, the committee applies to the AAPG Foundation for funding to ship these materials.
Goals
The Committee’s primary goal is to be a “pipeline” of donated geo-technical publications to requesting and qualified overseas universities. Inherent in this is an efficient process for intake, inventory, and shipping. In order to meet this goal the Committee obtains sponsors for shipments.
The Committee encounters ongoing logistics challenges that are often reactive to the timing of generous donors and sponsors of shipments. Therefore we have no set timetable for sending a certain tonnage but are on track to increase the number of shipments in 2012. We continue to make good progress in identifying recipient universities, and in most cases finding sponsors for shipments to new countries. In order to minimize storage costs we strive to match incoming and outgoing volumes.
Activities Update
We have held eleven Committee meetings in Houston since our last Annual Report and in addition we have had work sessions at the warehouse to sort, box, and prepare material for inventorying.
Over the past 12 months we have received 16 donations of material totaling 170 35-pound boxes.
Since the Committee’s 2010-2011 report, more than five tons of books and journals have been inventoried and shipped to new recipients. The first was the University of West Indies in Trinidad & Tobago, a shipment sponsored by BHP Billiton. Curtis Archie, President of the Geological Society of T&T, represented AAPG at the handover ceremony on October 18 in Port-of-Spain. The second shipment was to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology in Ghana, sponsored by Tullow.
Currently we are preparing to ship six pallets to universities in Liberia, four pallets to Viet Nam and four pallets to China, and have outstanding requests from universities in several other countries including Nigeria, Thailand and Indonesia.
We note with pride that we are fast approaching our 100-ton milestone, which, when achieved, we plan to celebrate with an “open house” at our Houston home base.
Other News
The Committee would like to gratefully acknowledge the approval, on November 7, 2011, of a $6,000 grant from the AAPG Foundation to help underwrite the unexpected increase in the rental of the Committee’s publications storage facilities in Houston. This allowed us to sign a new lease on our existing facilities for the next three years.
During the past year, the Committee received some beneficial publicity. Articles highlighting and promoting the Committee’s activities were published in the monthly newsletter of the Kansas Geological Society and in the UK-based GEO ExPro magazine.
Additional volunteers needed
We have an ongoing need for two separate kinds of additional volunteers in Houston: (1) prospective new committee members to participate in our monthly work session/ meetings, and (2) to work as volunteers in the warehouse moving boxes, assist in inventory process, palletize in preparation for shipment.
Jon Blickwede, Chair
Committee members: Jon Frederic Blickwede (chair), Martin Macdermott Cassidy, Charles A. Caughey, David Drowley, Janet B Heagy, Stephen Ernest Laubach, Claudio Dario Manzolillo, William A. Morgan, Amy Cara Moss-Russell, Raymond Paul Sorenson, Frederick M. Wall, and Gerrit Wind