SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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With the introduction of the Recording
Secretary position the minutes of the EC
meetings became a very comprehensive
record of all of the activities of the Union.
This was achieved by including the minutes
or reports of each committee, including the
STD, and each Division, as appendices to
the EC minutes. This procedure continues
today. Each set of minutes is now very
voluminous but this is currently offset by
the facility of collecting, preparing and
distributing the material electronically. The
minutes are made available electronically by
displaying them on the IUVSTA’s Web page
in Adobe Acrobat PDF
format. They are located in a “members only”
area of the website. This area is accessible
only to persons who are appropriately
associated with the Union, notably Officers,
Councillors, Alternate Councillors, Members
of Standing and Divisional Committees, and
appropriate representatives of the National
Vacuum Societies which are members of
IUVSTA. Access is restricted by a password,
obtainable through the Secretary General.
During the 1983-86 triennium, following
the term of office of J. L. Robins, the
private secretary of the Secretary General
(M. J. Higatsberger) prepared the minutes.
Subsequent to this, the position of Recording
Secretary has been held by J. S. Colligon (GB)
1986-89, J. H. Leck (GB) 1989-98, R. J. Reid
(GB) 1998-2004, D. Sykes (GB) 2004-2016.
At the end of his period as President,
H. Jahrreiss (D) advised the Union that he
had been storing a large quantity of archival
material relating to the IUVSTA in his office
in Cologne but as he was about to retire the
Union should find a permanent site for its
Archives. J. Dupont (B) undertook to find
appropriate storage space within Belgium,
which he did in 1994. As a consequence, the
IUVSTA Archives are now at “Ecole Royale
Militaire”, 30, Avenue de la Renaissance,
1000-Brussels, Belgium.
The initial entries were compiled by
H. Jahrreiss (D), who was Secretary
General (1974-1983) and President
(1986-1989). These covered the acti­
vities of the Union from its inception
until 1995, with special emphasis on his
periods of office (1974-1989). Historical
documents on the former IOVST and its
conversion to IUVSTA were provided by
H. Adam (D).
Previously, N. Walter had produced three
rolls of microfilm containing replicas of
early documents of the Union from material
generated, received and held during
the period whilst the IUVSTA Secretariat
was at The Institute of Physics in London
(1972-1980). He delivered these to the
then Secretary General during a meeting
held in East Germany, but because of the
prevailing political situation, microfilm could
not be safely taken from that country to
the West. The microfilm was stored at the
Physikalische Gesellschaft der Deutschen
Demokratischen Republik for many years.
After the reunification of Germany, these
three rolls of microfilm were added to the
Archives in Brussels.
Subsequently, additional material has been
added to the Archives by: J. S. Colligon (GB),
who served as Recording Secretary (1986-
1989) and Secretary General (1989-1998);
J. L. Robins (AUS) who was Recording
Secretary (1980-1983) and President
(1995-1998); W. D. Westwood (USA) who
was Secretary General (1999-2004); and
M-G. Barthés-Labrousse who was President
(2001-2004). From this date hard copy
archiving at “Ecole Royale Militaire” has been
stopped and documents are now archived in
electronic form by the Secretary General.