How to Re-Member ?

Like many mathematicians, I belong to a number of professional societies and subscribe to lots of their journals and other magazines. Here I apply mathematics to the decisions about renewals, continuing the agenda begun in Campbell [2008] of applying mathematics to mundane daily life. Renewalof a membershipor subscriptionusually presents choices about length for the renewal. Although I am favorably disposed toward the societies-some of which I have belonged to for more than 40 years-and wish them success and enhancement of their revenues, competing claims on my finances stimulate me to consider how to optimize (from my point of view) renewal choices. Optimization of multi-year subscription pricing from the viewpoint of the publisher was treated with a simple model by Dudley [1993], who
• surveyed the practices of 39 magazines,
• concluded that "mathematics does not enter into the rate-setting,"
• suggested that failure to apply simple mathematics in such an ordinary and common setting casts doubt on the value of emphasizing applications in teaching mathematics, and
• concluded that "emphasis on applications is certainly useless and perhaps harmful. . . [so] it is better to present mathematics to students as a glorious adventure for the mind."