not to be taken as a term referring to the book itself
As Faldage says, a book title refers to a single book, no matter how many plurals there may be in it. We would not say "Little Women are a book by Louisa May Alcott". (You can't hear the quotation marks so I didn't write them). When the conference itself is being talked about, as in "The proceedings were chaired by the eminent professor" then (to me) plural is clearly correct. The matter of interest is when "proceedings" (a plural word) is used as shorthand to mean a report (singular) of the proceedings. "Please pass me those/that proceedings, the red one".
If my brain were faster than my mouth I would probably avoid the issue by rephrasing, for example with "that copy of the proceedings". Left to itself, my mouth would use the plural form as it sounds less awkward - "Please pass me those proceedings, the red one".
Rod
