Re: Signing off

[Ross Street <ross.street@mq.edu.au>]

Dear Bob

Far away in time and distance from most of your readers Max Kelly, in Australia,
decided to make a mailing list of category theorists he knew from conferences;
I contributed some more people. The list was typed on a golfball IBM typewriter.
When we had a preprint or two (and once, a ``Christmas Letter''), we would photocopy
the list onto sheets of address labels, put the preprints in envelopes, and mail them
using the reliable postal system of the 1970s.

Once we sent the list itself around too. Mike Barr wrote or said to Max: ``What am I supposed
to do with this!'' Max explained what we did. However, by then, word processors were
around and Mike wanted an electronic version. We moved to that. The first word processor
our Macquarie Mathematics Department secretaries used was called ``OK editor'', not great.
Of course then in came email and work stations and personal computers and TeX, . . . ; you
know the story.

In 1990, you stepped in with prescient creations: a social medium for category theory
and one of the very first electronic mathematics journals.
What a debt our subject owes you!! You dedicated so much to running both magnificently.
So easy to say ``thank you'', and I do. However, with all the thanks flowing in, our joint
appreciation should be clear.

It is a hard act to follow. Luckily, JS has stepped forward and already managed to have
a replacement system up and running. I have full confidence that he will run it well, he
is so bright and energetic. Moreover, I told the little story in the first paragraph to express
my feeling of some satisfaction that the system has come to this far, distant land.

Surely now Bob, you will have a bit more time for research and other things.
You deserve it.

With best regards,
Ross

> On 27 Oct 2023, at 1:14 am, Bob Rosebrugh <rrosebru@mta.ca> wrote:
>
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> From March 1990 until recently it was my privilege to moderate the categories mailing list. For a couple of years it has been my intention to pass the list to a new moderator, but I was too slow to act. Changes to IT service at my former employer, Mount Allison University, abruptly made it impossible for me to continue running the list.
>
> Those changes were unexpected for me, but I have been away from the campus for over three years and was not aware. The IT staff at Mount Allison have always been very supportive of the list and I thank them for their more than three decades of generous assistance.
>
> It is a reassuring pleasure to know that the list is now in the capable hands of JS Lemay who kindly accepted the invitation to revive it. I am very grateful. Moreover, there is no one better suited to the role and our community is fortunate to have him moderating. I am also very happy that the new home of the list is Macquarie.
>
> Best wishes to everyone. I am hoping to see many of you in the not distant future,
> Bob Rosebrugh
>



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