Public Information Service.

Last spring, James W. Carr, executive secretary of the James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association, was invited to be chairman of the local committee on public information for the Indianapolis meeting. Fortunately for the Association, he accepted this invitation. The members of the Indianapolis Public Relations Society became a committee of 36 communication experts to help him set the stage locally for this complex operation. Another fortunate happening soon occurred. Joseph E. Palmer, field secretary of the James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association, agreed to help arrange all radio and television programs for the meeting. This team of 40, including my secretary, Lillian A. Hughes, and myself, went into action in mid-September after various preliminaries had been cleared during the summer months. This early start was possible because information needed by us in Richmond came through so quickly from Mr. Carr and his group. Preliminary announcements of the meeting were sent out widely early in the fall to newspapers, broadcasting stations, scientific journals, trade journals, and high school and college weeklies. School principals in Indiana, editors of Chambers of Commerce publications, heads of scientific and civic organizations in Indianapolis, AAAS members in the area, and others were asked to help in letting midwestern folks know that the 124th meeting of the AAAS was to be in their territory during the last week of December. Never before in my 20 years with this department has one of its annual conventions had such favorable and widespread premeeting publicitythanks to friends of the Association in Indiana. Secretaries and program chairmen of the 17 AAAS sections meeting in Indianapolis and those of the 75 participating societies and officers of theAssociation cooperated splendidly with us. At the same time that titles of papers and the names of their authors were sent to Raymond L. Taylor for inclusion in the General Program-Directory, duplicate copies were forwarded to this department. Thus, we were able to write to practi-