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Perpetual Care Trust Fund for AGU's Electronic Archive
AGU recognizes that it has a responsibility to the scientific community to assure that its publications are available in the future. Without the careful protection and upgrading of the files developed for AGU's electronic publications, there could be a hiatus in the archive of the body of knowledge. The costs associated with the maintenance of the electronic archive will be a continuing obligation of the Union, for which the Union must provide endowment to guarantee availability of AGU's publications regardless of the Union's future financial position.
To assure that AGU has the financial resources to maintain an archive of the material included in its electronic publications, to refresh these files on a regular basis, and to migrate the material in the archive to new formats and media as the technology for electronic publishing changes, a trust fund for perpetual care has been established. Initially, the principal for this trust fund came from revenues generated by page charges and special service fees. Beginning in 2002, authors were asked to donate to this fund. As a result, the Perpetual Care Trust Fund has two parts — one that is donor-restricted and one that is Council-restricted. The donor-restricted part is permanently restricted, as defined by accounting principles, for the purpose of maintaining the archive . The income and principle in the Council-restricted part will be used before any income from the donor-restricted part is used. This approach provides the greatest legal protection for the monies intended for the perpetual care of the archive.
Monies in the trust fund are invested in the same manner as the long-term endowment of the Union. The principal of the fund will be protected so that it can continue to create income needed in the future. In the long run, it is expected that only the income from the fund will be used to cover the expenses of maintaining and migrating the archive.
The income generated by this trust fund will be allowed to accumulate in such a way that more than one year's income can be called upon for the major expense of a migration to a new format. The expenses that would be covered by the trust fund will be charged to a specific project in AGU's accounting records. Thus, it will be possible to know precisely the amount of revenue to that should be withdrawn from the trust fund each year for the covered archival functions.
[Council December 1996; revised May 2004.]