Introducing the Journals of the Mathematical Society

The Mathematical Society of Japan (MSJ) issues several journals, including the Journal of the Mathematical Society of Japan (JMSJ), an English journal founded in 1948 which covers a wide range of mathematics. Sūgaku is a Japanese quarterly founded in 1947, the year after the Society was established under its present name; it carries expository articles (written with nonspecialists in mind), feature articles, book reviews, and so on. The JMSJ and Sūgaku are free to Society members; Sūgaku, which is published for the MSJ by Iwanami Shoten, is also available for purchase. The Japanese Journal of Mathematics (JJM), founded in 1924, is the oldest Japanese mathematical journal continuously published in a Western language; a new series initiated in 2006 specializes in reviews of highly creative research and includes the Takagi Lectures. Advanced Studies in Pure Mathematics (ASPM) was launched in 1983; it carries reports and articles from major research meetings, such as the MSJ’s international research meetings. MSJ Memoirs and its Japanese counterpart Sūgaku Memoāru are monographs which explain new currents in mathematics. Submissions to all of these journals are reviewed by experts and the high quality of the articles they publish is widely recognized, both in Japan and internationally.

The State of Web Publication and Sales

JMSJ is accessible online through J-STAGE and Project Euclid. Work is in progress to place Sūgaku and JJM online free of charge under JST’s Journal@rchive project. Also, English translations of many of Sūgaku’s expository articles have been published by the American Mathematical Society in the journal Sugaku Expositions. ASPM, MSJ Memoirs, and Sūgaku Memoāru are on sale from the Mathematical Society of Japan. Outside Japan, ASPM is distributed by the American Mathematical Society and MSJ Memoirs is distributed by both the latter and World Scientific Publishing Co.