Brief History of the Division: Part I

[See also Brief History of the Division: Part II and About Jack Weigel.]

I will begin this note with an apology to those veteran members of the PAM Division who have already had to endure one or more oral presentations by me on the subject of the Division's history. Our current Chair, Marlene Cummins, has requested that I put a summary of the history into written form. This seems worth doing, if only to avoid even more oral presentations in the future!

The origins of the PAM Division may be traced to the year 1964, when a questionnaire was distributed worldwide to astronomy librarians by Mme. Genevieve Feuillebois, Librarian at the Paris Observatory. Mme. Feuillebois was intent upon establishing an astronomy librarians' subsection of the International Federation of Library Associations, and she succeeded. The "Observatory Librarians and Astronomical Societies Subsection" of I.F.L.A. was approved at the 1965 I.F.L.A. Conference in Helsinki, and the first meeting of the subsection itself was held at the 1966 I.F.L.A. Conference in The Hague. Mme. Feuillebois was naturally named as President of the Subsection. Her fellow officers were mostly Europeans, but she asked me to serve as Vice-President, apparently for no better reason than that I had answered her questionnaire twice - once on behalf of Columbia University and once for the University of Michigan.

For a couple of years the vice-presidential position required (fortunately) no work at all. Then one day a letter arrived from Mme. Feuillebois, announcing that the 1967 I.F.L.A. Conference was scheduled for Toronto and that I was totally responsible for organizing and conducting the Subsection's meeting there. After surviving an initial wave of panic, I managed to put together a small meeting that featured Grace Foley (Kitt Peak National Observatory), L. Paul Boucher (Dominion Observatory, Ottawa), and Cicely Breslin (Hayden Planetarium) as speakers. Amazingly, 33 persons, including the incumbent Presidents of S.L.A. and A.L.A. were in attendance. In the general discussion that followed the prepared talks, there was a clear consensus that North American astronomy librarians needed to have a way of meeting more frequently than the I.F.L.A. conferences that happened very occasionally to be in our part of the world. Both the A.L.A. and S.L.A. representatives eagerly showed interest in our group, and we eventually opted to meet in an informal fashion at each future S.L.A. Conference. S.L.A. offered us free meeting space and the right to have our meetings listed in the official conference programs. The astronomy librarians thus met at each of the S.L.A. conferences from 1968 thru 1970 and 1972.

There was a lucky conjunction of meetings at the 1972 S.L.A. Conference in Boston. In addition to the astronomy librarians' gathering, there was a meeting of mathematics librarians sponsored by the Sci-Tech Division. The assembled mathematics librarians seemed just as interested as the astronomy librarians in establishing a series of regular, annual meetings. It was from this convergence of interests that the concept of a combined group of astronomy, mathematics, and physics librarians flowed. Initially, the idea was to establish the new group as a Section of the Science-Technology Division, but Frank McKenna, then Executive Director of S.L.A., strongly encouraged an attempt at forming a separate Division. At the October, 1972 meeting of the S.L.A. Executive Board, creation of the Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics Provisional Division was approved.

At the 1973 S.L.A. Conference in Pittsburgh a substantial set of meetings was sponsored by the PAM Division. Also, the first regular slate of divisional officers was selected (much to the relief of the undersigned, who was by this time more than ready to be put out to pasture) ; they were Allen Wynne, Chair; Christine Bain, Chair-Elect; Jean Martin, Secretary; and Berle Reiter, Treasurer.

It was Allen Wynne who saw to it that a division newsletter was launched and continued on a regular, reliable basis; the first issue was dated September, 1973. It was also Allen who pressed forward a strong drive to build our membership numbers. (The "provisional" status was good for an initial period of only two years. Although provisional status was potentially renewable, it was highly desirable for us to acquire as soon as possible the minimum of 100 members needed to qualify for regular status.) Both of these wise moves were absolutely crucial for the future existence and prosperity of the Division.

In addition to the first slate of officers cited above, one more early PAM member deserves special mention - Marion Kreiter. From the days of the informal astronomy librarians' group on to her recent retirement - and even beyond - Marion has made numerous contributions to the work of various committees and special projects of the division. Although she never aspired to be Chair, Marion has done at least as much as any of the other most-active members to keep the division in business.

This concludes the history of the PAM Division up to its formation as an official unit of S.L.A. I hope that it will be possible to present another chapter or two to bring the story up to the present.

[See Brief History of the Division: Part II.]

PAM Practices Manual Editor: Kristine Fowler, fowler@math.umn.edu

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Page last updated: August 4, 2004