The proposal to organize a Symposium on circumstellar matter and extended atmo spheres in binary systems was first made by the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory to the Executive Committee of the International Astronomical Union in the summer of 1969. It received the support of the presidents of Commissions 29 (Stellar Spectra), 30 (Radial Velocities), 36 (Stellar Atmospheres), and 42 (Photometric Double Stars). Approval in principle was given by the Executive Committee almost immediately, and the Committee further suggested that the Symposium be officially designated the Struve Memorial Symposium. Final approval was given at the time of the 1970 General Assembly of the Union. when the dates of the Symposium were set for August or September, 1972. The Organizing Committee set up consisted of K. O. Wright (Chairman), A. H. Batten, K. -H. B6hm, A. A. Boyarchuk, G. Larsson-Leander, and M. Plavec. In addition, J. Sahade and F. B. Wood acted as advisory members. Local organization was entrusted to a committee consisting of A. H. Batten, E. K. Lee, and C. D. Scarfe. The final dates selected were September 6-12, 1972, and the Sym posium was held at the Island Hall Hotel, Parksville, B. C. , on Vancouver Island some 90 miles from Victoria. The Organizing Committee attempted to arrange a Symposium of the type in which no contributed papers would be presented and discussion would range as widely as possible over the field covered by the six invited review papers.

The International Astronomical Union Symposium No. 70 on Be and Shell Stars, the Merrill-McLaughlin Memorial Symposium, was held in Bass River (Cap Cod), Massachusetts, U. S. A. , from September 15th through 18th, 1975. Fifty-three astronomers from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Vatican attended and participated in the Symposium. This volume, which parallels the actual program closely, contains the papers presented at the Symposium plus most of the discussion following the papers. New observational techniques and fresh theoretical ideas have resulted over the past few years in a renewed interest in Be and shell stars. At IAU Symposium No. 51 on Extended Atmospheres and Circumstellar Matter in Spectroscopic Binary Sys tems, the Otto Struve Memorial Symposium, in Parksville, British Columbia, Canada, three years ago, a number of participants expressed the wish to organize a symposium on Be and shell stars. If we wish to identify an official 'Father of IAU Symposium No. 70', it would be Mirek Plavec who, in his capacity as President of IAU Commission 42 (Photometric Double Stars) requested and received the cooperation of Commissions 29 (Stellar Spectra) and 36 (Stellar Atmospheres), suggested an Organizing Committee, and wrote to the IAU General Secretary in 1973 requesting that the IAU Executive Committee approve the proposed confer ence as an IAU Symposium.

Interacting Binary Stars deals with the development, ideas, and problems in the study of interacting binary stars. The book consolidates the information that is scattered over many publications and papers and gives an account of important discoveries with relevant historical background. Chapters are devoted to the presentation and discussion of the different facets of the field, such as historical account of the development in the field of study of binary stars; the Roche equipotential surfaces; methods and techniques in space astronomy; and enumeration of binary star systems that are studied meticulously by scientists. Astronomers, astrophysicists, physicists, researchers, and students in related fields will find the book interesting.

IAU S240 focuses on recent advances across the broad field of binary star research.

Proceedings of the 69th Colloquium of the International Astronomical Union held in Bamberg, F.R.G., August 31-September 3, 1981

The proposal to organize a Symposium on circumstellar matter and extended atmo spheres in binary systems was first made by the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory to the Executive Committee of the International Astronomical Union in the summer of 1969. It received the support of the presidents of Commissions 29 (Stellar Spectra), 30 (Radial Velocities), 36 (Stellar Atmospheres), and 42 (Photometric Double Stars). Approval in principle was given by the Executive Committee almost immediately, and the Committee further suggested that the Symposium be officially designated the Struve Memorial Symposium. Final approval was given at the time of the 1970 General Assembly of the Union. when the dates of the Symposium were set for August or September, 1972. The Organizing Committee set up consisted of K. O. Wright (Chairman), A. H. Batten, K. -H. B6hm, A. A. Boyarchuk, G. Larsson-Leander, and M. Plavec. In addition, J. Sahade and F. B. Wood acted as advisory members. Local organization was entrusted to a committee consisting of A. H. Batten, E. K. Lee, and C. D. Scarfe. The final dates selected were September 6-12, 1972, and the Sym posium was held at the Island Hall Hotel, Parksville, B. C. , on Vancouver Island some 90 miles from Victoria. The Organizing Committee attempted to arrange a Symposium of the type in which no contributed papers would be presented and discussion would range as widely as possible over the field covered by the six invited review papers.

Professor Zdenek Kopal is sixty-seven this year even though his scientific activity, enthusiasm and springy step hardly betray the ad vancement in years. He carne to Manchester as Professor of Astronomy thirty years ago after a very fruitful association of fourteen years with the Harvard Observatory. Much impressed with the young man, Harlow Shapley, who with characteristic insight had recognised in Kopal the qualities that have since made him an outstanding leader in ec1ipsing binary research, had invited him over as a Research Associate. In the subsequent decade Kopal set about the task of introducing analytical rigour in the solution of orbit al elements that hitherto had depended ex c1usively on the semigraphical procedures introduced by Russell and exploited fully by Shapley. These first efforts stimulated publication of the first of his many books on ec1ipsing variables; the Introductian ta the Study of Ec/ipsing Variables summarized these iterative methods and remains a c1assic in this field. Soon after the appearance of this volume in print, Kopal gave a course on this subject for the graduate students at Harvard. I was one of those who had the opportunity to attend it and learn much on the need of care and precision in the practice of photoelectric photometry and the importance of exploiting such data to the fullest extent with methods of increasing resolving power.