Dear Colleague,

I hate this letter as much as you will certainly do. However, being responsible for the publication of the proceedings of the symposium, I have ‘to bite the bullet.’

As you know from our recent telephone conversations, we are almost ready to hand in the more than 100 manuscripts of the symposium talks to the publisher; and at this moment, there are only a few contributions outstanding. However, without these remaining manuscripts, my coeditors and I are unable to prepare the index for the approx. 900 pages of this volume.

Please, understand that several hundred people from more than 40 nations have already paid $85 for the proceedings, and that we don't need an avalanche of justifiably nasty letters from all over the world. Also, please recall that we have a signed agreement with the publisher which, when broken by us, gives him the liberty to postpone the publication until convenient for him; and if the volumes do not appear this year, they will be almost obsolete. Finally, I must mention that I promised the National Science Foundation the publication of the proceedings in 1990. This promise was certainly considered when they decided on the travel grant award, from which you will receive a total of $600. I do not wish to withhold travel funds from manuscript delinquents; however, as you know, I will have to justify the distribution of the funds in the final report, and I have a tendency to be brutally frank and outspoken.