Vol. 26 No. 1
August 1998
ISSN 1063-9136

The Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics Division gratefully acknowledges the financial support for this Bulletin issue provided by INSPEC

Contents

1. Message from the Chair
3. Treasurer's Report
3. Message from the Editor
4. Business MeetingMinutes
5. PAM-wide Roundtable
6. Physics Roundtable
6. Mathematics Roundtable
7. Vendor Update
9. PAM Board and Staff List
9. Astronomy Roundtable
12. PAMnet News

Message From the Chair

Brenda Corbin
bgc@sicon.usno.navy.mil

PAM is in great shape! We have a very healthy financial balance, 214 active members, and even more important is the collective talent, experience and enthusiasm of our group. The adjective vibrant (pulsating with life, vigor or activity- Webster's 3rd International Dictionary) is the word that keeps coming to my mind as I think of PAM.

The PAM sessions at Indianapolis were successful and well-attended. SLA has confirmed that we had 96 PAM members registered at the conference which means that close to half of our division attended. I think this is an incredible record and further evidence of the high level of activity in PAM. Thanks to Liz Bryson who organized the program, and all of the moderators and speakers at the PAM sessions who made it such a success.

I am impressed by the number of non-PAM members who attend our sessions and give positive comments about their content and usefulness. The same is true for the large number of non-PAM members who participate in PAMnet and comment on its great value. As Chair, I hope to encourage some of these non-PAM participants to become members and add their talents to our division.

One of the important services PAM offers is the PAM homepage (http://pantheon.yale.edu/~stern/index.html). Greg Youngen has recently updated the physics section. In the near future, the astronomy, math and computer science sections will be updated by Pete Banholzer, Deborah Kegel and Carol Hutchins respectively. These are the members of our Networking Committee, with David Stern (our webmaster and listowner) serving as Chair.

In planning for the 1999 annual conference, I have asked Nancy Anderson to be the moderator of the PAM-Wide Roundtable. If I remember my PAM history correctly, Nancy was the person who first suggested we should have such a session, and was moderator of the first one held in 1993. At that time it was felt that we did not have enough time for PAM members to come together as a group to discuss issues and concerns the division might have. This roundtable has been a very welcome addition to our annual meeting, and I am pleased Nancy will moderate the 1999 session of her "brainchild".

Thanks certainly go to our Past-Chair Liz Bryson who brought great energy, enthusiasm and communication to the office. Also, our gratitude goes to Pam Yorks, our Past-Treasurer, who on the very difficult role of interpreting all of the new financial rules mandated by SLA as a result of the IRS audit.

Thanks to all of the PAM members who served on the various PAM committees and did so much to contribute to our group.

A big welcome to our two new officers, Molly White (Chair-elect) and Kris Fowler (Treasurer). I look forward to working with the PAM Board, and indeed, all PAM members during the next year.

Let's all work together to make sure that "vibrant" continues to describe our division in the future.

TREASURER'S REPORT

MID-YEAR FINANCIAL STATEMENT

1/1/98 through 5/31/98

----------------------------

PAM DIVISION CHECKING ACCOUNT

Opening Balance, 1/1/98 $703.81

INCOME

Dues Allotment $1,763.00

Meeting Income 500.00

Sponsorship 8,825.00

----------

TOTAL INCOME $11,088.00

EXPENSES

Bank Charges $12.01

Bulletin 505.50

Meetings 200.00

Misc. 57.50

Postage & Supplies 39.91

---------

TOTAL EXPENSES $814.92

TOTAL INCOME/EXPENSE $10,273.08

Closing Balance, 5/31/98 $10,976.89

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PAM DIVISION SAVINGS ACCOUNT

Opening Balance, 1/1/98 $4,976.47

INCOME

Interest 192.80

-------

TOTAL INCOME $192.80

EXPENSES 0.00

------

TOTAL EXPENSES 0.00

Closing Balance, 5/31/98 $5,169.27

Submitted by:

Pamela Yorks, Treasurer, 6/1/98

Message from the Editor

The PAM Bulletin is published by the Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics Division of the Special Libraries Association. The Bulletin is issued four times a year: August, November, February and May. Articles should be submitted in ASCII format (preferred) to the Bulletin Editor:

Laurel Kristick
Oregon State University
121 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97333
(541) 737-7276
kristicl@ucs.orst.edu

Deadline for Next Issue:

October 16, 1998

Subscription Information

Subscriptions are free to PAM members and retired PAM members. Claims for missing issues will be honored within six months for an address in Continental North America or within 12 months for all other addresses.

Subscription requests and claims are handled by the Assistant Editor:

Cynthia Holt
University of Manitoba
Science Library
211 Machray Hall
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2
CANADA
holt@cc.umanitoba.ca

PAM Business Meeting

Submitted by
Jane Holmquist, Secretary
jane@astro.princeton.edu

PAM Business Meeting
Tuesday, 9th June 1998
7:30-8:45 a.m. Indianapolis IN
Minutes

The P-A-M business meeting began with breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Liz Bryson, Chair, thanked the American Physical Society (APS) for sponsoring the breakfast, as well as the American Mathematical Society (AMS) for sponsoring the Division's membership directory. APS representatives Mina Chung, Kathy Davenport, Charlie Muller and Bob Thurston, and AMS representatives Annette Emerson, Wendy Bucci, Bert Tepaski-King were introduced. The SLA Board proctor was Richard Hulser, the current Cabinet Chair-Elect of the Special Libraries Association.

After the current board members were introduced and thanked, it was noted by Jane Holmquist, Secretary, that both the 1997 business meeting minutes http://osu.orst.edu/~kristicl/pambull/25-1/busmin.htm and board meeting minutes

http://osu.orst.edu/~kristicl/pambull/25-1/board.htm were approved and published in the August 1997 P-A-M Bulletin. Pam Yorks, Treasurer, noted that 1997 Annual Financial Statement of the Division http://www.orst.edu~kristicl/pambull/25-4/treasurer.htm was published in the May 1998 P-A-M Bulletin and distributed a copy of the Division's Mid-year Financial Statement through 5/31/98. Pam also noted that she has revised the Treasurer's section of the Policies and Procedures Manual but these have not yet been incorporated into the Web version.

Committee Reports:

Liz Bryson thanked everyone who served on P-A-M committees this year.

Dorothy Manderscheid, archivist, reminded members to submit archival materials to her at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. Marlene Cummins will clarify what is appropriate and the official retention policy for paper and e-mail documents.

Nancy Anderson and Joanne Goode (on behalf of Nancy Curtis and Pat Viele of the Government Relations Committee) reported that John Crosby at SLA was an excellent source of information and encouraged librarians to stay abreast of pending copyright and other library-related legislation and contact their legislators to vote appropriately.

Brenda Corbin (on behalf of Jeanette Regan, chair of the International Relations Committee) reported on a meeting of librarians held in Canberra, Australia in February 1998 and spoke of their efforts to form an informal network of P-A-M librarians in Asia and the Pacific Rim. She also thanked the P-A-M Division and SLA for their support of the LISA III meeting held in the Canary Islands in April 1998.

Kris Fowler, chair of the Membership Committee, reported that the American Mathematical Society had sponsored the annual publication and distribution of the P-A-M Membership Directory. Membership now stands at 213. Eighteen-twenty members had volunteered to serve as mentors this year, and matches have been established with four new members. The possibility of serving as a mentor during the conference week only was discussed. The committee is working on a brochure for recruiting new members. The committee corrected existing PAM brochures to reflect new division URLs, and posted information on joining PAM on PAM's website (http://www.sla.org/division/dpam/join.ht).

Rich Hunt (on behalf of Michael Leach, chair of the Professional Development Committee) reported that their survey had revealed the licensing of electronic journals is a current topic of high interest among our members and could be submitted as a proposal for an official Continuing Education course at SLA next year.

Judy Matthews (on behalf of Barbara Chu, chair) summarized the achievements of the Public Relations Committee: an updated Kardex card, P-A-M stationery, and their proposed newly-designed P-A-M brochure.

Karen Croneis, chair of the Strategic Planning Committee, reported a terrific 71% response rate to the survey mailed to all P-A-M members in February 1998. She thanked the members of her committee -- Gary Davidoff, Dorothy McGarry, and Bob Michaelson -- and Ruth Arnold of SLA for all their help on the survey. The next steps will be following up with the non-respondents (60) and identifying the five or six key questions and issues indicated by the survey results.

Old Business:

There was none.

New Business:

The Nominating Committee, comprised of Jean Poland (chair), Cynthia Holt and Greg Youngen, presented the slate of nominees. There was a motion to accept the slate. It was moved, seconded and unanimously approved. The officers and terms for 1998-99 are: Brenda Corbin, Chair; Molly White, Chair-Elect; Liz Bryson, Past-Chair; Kristine Fowler, Treasurer (through 06/00); and Jane Holmquist, Secretary (through 06/99). Laurel Kristick will continue as Bulletin Editor and Cynthia Holt will become Assistant Editor.

The PAM Awards Committee, comprised of Joe Kraus (chair), James Manasco and Nancy Anderson, announced that Dorothy McGarry and Richard Funkhouser were the joint winners of the 2nd 1998 PAM Achievement Award (for details, see http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/pam/a2details.html) and presented the awards to them. Paul Ginsparg was announced as the winner of the 13th 1998 PAM Division Award (for details, see http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/pam/a1details.html); since he could not be present, Donna Berg read a letter he had written to PAM, thanking the Division (see below).

1998 PAM Award Acceptance Letter

I am pleased to receive the 1998 PAM award. While there is frequently a temptation to engage in technological hyperbole, namely speaking of "paradigm shifts" (or "pachyderm shifts" or "shifts happen"...), regarding scholarly communication it is a certainty that the situation a decade or two from now *will be* radically different from that of the past century or two. In my own field of research (relativistic quantum field theory), we've already undergone what we call a "first order phase transition" in the way we communicate our research results, and the near-term goal of the "e-print" project here has generalized to providing a unified set of globally mirrored resources for all of Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science.

No one knows precisely what form our research infrastructure will take two decades from now, much less a century from now (other than of course that our wordprocessor will NOT be Microsoft Word), but we do know that the role of many of the traditional participants must change, and this provides exciting possibilities for shaping this future. In particular, we do not expect that researchers themselves will have to play the dominant role in maintaining the global knowledge network of the future, now in its first stages of incipient development. The award cited my comment, "if we the researchers are not writing with the expectation of making money directly from our efforts, then there is no earthly reason why anyone else should make money in the process...", but I'd like to highlight another comment I made in that same presentation a few years ago, in discussing the possibilities for future maintenance of our research infrastructure: "One possibility is that some consortium of professional societies and institutional libraries will ultimately acquire the technical competence to provide umbrella sponsorship of the global raw research archive." That remains my most optimistic outlook for the future, with the new technology ironically allowing those traditional players from a century ago to return to their dominant role in support of the research enterprise.

Paul Ginsparg

PAM-Wide Roundtable

Submitted by
Jill M. Hackenberg
jmh7@acsu.buffalo.edu

The PAM-Wide Roundtable got underway at 10:30 am on Sunday, June 7, 1998 with Liz Bryson, our Chair, noting some changes/activities for conference attendees.

After the group went through introductions, a short report was given by Karen Croneis, the Chair of the PAM Strategic Planning Committee. We were given a handout showing the statistical summary of the survey sent to PAM members earlier this year. The information reviewed was only that which was already counted and logged. There is more to come concerning the survey results. A Focus Group meeting was to be held during the conference to review the data.

Next, Kris Fowler told the group about the composition of the subscribers of PAMnet. In July 1997, 60% of PAM members were on PAMnet and 30% of PAMnet were members of PAM. As of June 1998, 70% of PAM members were on PAMnet and 34% of PAMnet were members of PAM. 20% of PAMnet are users at non-US addresses.

David Stern then discussed how well the listserv is running. He will be mailing instructions on how to get on/off the list in June. He will discontinue forwarding email from SLA headquarters. An archive of the PAMnet listserv cannot be undertaken at this time. Subscribers can choose a digest option for PAMnet. David will email instructions in June.

Users were reminded to "keep it civil", and a handout was made available to attendees that reviewed the function of the PAM listserv, and Netiquette guidelines (also at http://www.sla.org/division/dpam/pamnet.html).

It was suggested that email sent to the list have a descriptive subject line, or alternatively, a group of "subject" headings be created that we can use so that recipients can distinguish what mail is pertinent to them.

Kris Fowler discussed the letter PAM sent to SLA regarding membership issues, records maintenance, and renewals.

Various conference receptions were discussed.

The roundtable ended at 12:00 noon.

Mathematics Roundtable

Submitted by
Claire Macha
cmacha@bird.library.arizona.edu

The Indy Math Roundtable was held on Monday, June 8th, from 1:30 to 2:45 P.M., with 60+ participants. There were no prepared presentations, and subjects for dialogue were determined by group vote. The main topic dealt with the many aspects of Electronic Journals in Mathematics Libraries. Participants were asked to indicate their interest in several topics that had been submitted during the year. From that list, the following were chosen for discussion (listed in priority order.)

1. Licensing/access/cataloging

2. Journal cancellations

3. Value-added features:
* Links to cited articles
* Links to Web sites
* Scholarly online discourse/forums
* Comments/contact with authors & editors
* Preprints

4. The phase out of paper formats

5. Gathering customer/user input

6. Marketing/Education

7. Lack of space in libraries

8. Books

9. Freebies

10. Various vendor pricing structures

Most of the dialogue centered around items 1 through 3, with side issues such as the use of free document delivery to provide an acceptable substitute for journal subscriptions. Several individuals voiced objections to the trend of offering "package plans" of e-journals, some of which would not otherwise be chosen by an institution. Reference was made to the excellent Web site maintained by Ann Okerson at Yale, that has a rich trove of information about licensing, consortia, copyright, etc. Some examples of the kinds of things included are:

International Coalition of Library Consortia: ICOLC (http://www.library.yale.edu/~okerson/consortia.index.html)

The Transition to Electronic Content Licensing: The Institutional Context in 1997 (http://www.library.yale.edu/~okerson/mellon.html)

Buy or Lease? Two Models for Scholarly Information at the End (or the Beginning) of an Era (http://www.library.yale.edu/~okerson/daedalus.html)

Questions about progress made by the AMS plan to provide use statistics were raised, and no definitive answers were known. They had announced in January of this year that they intend to offer this service to their subscribers.

There was much sharing of information about what various libraries are doing to cope with the integration of Electronic Journals into overall collection management efforts. There seemed to be an emphasis on innovation and collaboration among libraries, publishers, and scholars, as being the best way to serve the mathematical community.

Recommended reading:

In the August, 1998 issue of Notices of the AMS, "Reports Assess U.S. Standing in Mathematics" and "Possible Trends in Mathematics in the Coming Decades," by Mikhael Gromov of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, France. The first article is a summary of "Report of the Senior Assessment Panel of the International Assessment of the U.S. Mathematical Sciences," by the National Science Foundation in March of this year. The entire report is online at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1998/nsf9895.htm.

Also available online is the "International Benchmarking of U.S. Mathematical Research," by the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, National Academy of Sciences, 1997, available at http://www2.nas.edu/cosepup/

These documents may have important impacts on Mathematics curricula and Math Library collections in the near future.

Physics Roundtable

Submitted by Donna Berg
donna.berg@lanl.gov

The Roundtable this year hosted two speakers on topics of current interest that elicited some enjoyable Q&A/discussion time. The room was SRO and everyone seemed to have comments and questions during the session. Thanks to Camille and Greg for excellent presentations.

Camille Wanat of UC Berkeley served on the Web Statistics Task Force for JSTOR. This group developed guidelines for measuring these electronic resources. Librarians everywhere are concerned about the need for meaningful usage statistics-and with electronic resources we can drown ourselves in stats. The mission of the Task Force was to identify units of measurement, explore the capability of vendors and systems for Web-based products to record and measure use, and devise analytical models and reports formats for evaluating and applying use measurements. The work of this group can serve as a model for others and Camille's presentation covered the development of the guidelines. Further information is available at: http://www.co.calstate.edu/irt/seir/usge.stat.req.html

Greg Youngen, Physics/Astronomy Librarian at U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign presented his research findings on e-print citations. Greg has been studying the dramatic increase in physics and astronomy preprints available electronically. Because of the timeliness and ease of access to these papers scientists are now citing these preprints in their research articles rather than waiting until they appear in print. Greg's research shows the growing importance of electronic preprints and he discussed his ideas about the future role of preprints in scientific communication. Watch for his paper to appear in the September issue of "College and Research Libraries."

Vendor Update Summary

Submitted by
Michael Fosmire
fosmire@Oswego.EDU

The 1998 Vendor Update had participants not only from sellers of information products and services, but also from professional societies. We had Don Babbitt from the American Mathematical Society, Michele Day from INSPEC, Jay Trolley from ISI, Sharon Cline McKay from Blackwell's, Dick Kaser from the National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services and Rick Bowes from the Society of Scholarly Publishing.

Don Babbitt spoke about new consortial pricing policies for MathSciNet, where the cost for adding institutions to the consortium is based in part on the number of papers their faculty have indexed in the database. Michele Day informed us that taking INSPEC off FirstSearch was a business decision, and OCLC was doing too good a job of providing inexpensive and useful per search access to the database, thus impacting INSPEC's ability to sell site licences to mid-size institutions. INSPEC has tried to make site licensing more competitive by approximately halving the cost, and they have provided new means of chemical and numerical searching options. Jay Trolley explained all the new features available from the Web of Science. Sharon Cline McKay showed us an example of the services aggregators can provide with regard to a single point of access to an institution's e-journal collection (including the ever popular usage statistics). They offer not only such links, but can facilitate the formation of consortia amongst their customers and can act as an Electronic Service Provider, loading CD-ROM's on their hardware and providing online access to the institution.

Dick Kaser explained the role of NFAIS (http://www.pa.utulsa.edu/nfais.html) in the world of A&I providers. Members of the organization include: AIP, ISI, IEEE, CAS, and Silver Platter. He welcomed the participation of librarians in the organization, by joining NFAIS or creating alliances. NFAIS promotes excellence in A&I through educational opportunities and an advocacy of innovation based on sound principles. Current issues that NFAIS is dealing with include: data standards, document linking, information access (including all the copyright issues of the electronic milieu). Rick Bowes explained the purpose of SSP (http://www.edoc.com/ssp), as a professional development society for publishers and librarians. The publishers in SSP are primarily non-profit and academic publishers. Members of SSP are concerned with all aspects of the publishing industry and SSP offers them an opportunity to learn from others in their field. As an adjunct topic, Rick discussed the launching of his own service, Publist (http://www.publist.com), which offers a comprehensive directory of the Internet locations of scholarly journals.

After the initial presentations of our publishers, the audience had their chance to ask the panel questions. Librarians seemed interested in getting more information out of the vendors. AMS was asked to consider adding Current Index to Statistics into MathSciNet by whatever means possible, and a vigorous discussion concerning the A&I of scholarly preprints occurred. The vendors agreed to look into indexing preprints in some form, although their possible transience makes it hard to nail them down.

Membership News

Submitted by
Sylvia Toombs
sylvia@howdy.wustl.edu

Membership Changes:

H. Sylvia Toombs
Assistant Director for Information and Education Services
St. Louis University Health Sciences Center Library
1402 South Grand Blvd.
St. Louis Mo. 63104-1028
email:toombshs@slu.edu
phone:(314)577-8605; x21

PAM Executive Board and Staff for 1998-1999

Chair: Brenda G. Corbin
bgc@sicon.usno.navy.mil

Chair-Elect: Molly White
mwhite@mail.utexas.edu

Past-Chair: Liz Bryson
bryson@cfht.hawaii.edu

Treasurer: Kristine Fowler
fowler@math.umn.edu

Secretary: Jane Holmquist
jane@astro.princeton.edu

Bulletin Editor: Laurel Kristick
kristicl@ucs.orst.edu

Bulletin Asst. Editor: Cynthia Holt
holt@cc.umanitoba.ca

Roundtable Monitors:

1999 Astronomy Roundtable: Sarah Stevens-Rayburn
library@stsci.edu

1999 Physics Roundtable: Bob Michaelson
rmichael@nwu.edu

1999 Math Roundtable: Carol Hutchins
ch3@scires.acf.nyu.edu

1999 Computer Science Roundtable: Ann Jensen
ajensen@library.berkeley.edu

1999 PAM Wide Roundtable: Nancy Anderson
nanders@uiuc.edu

1999 Vendor Update: Joe Kraus
jokraus@du.edu

Procedures Manual: Marlene Cummins
astlibr@astro.utoronto.ca

Archives: Dorothy Manderscheid
manders1@mainlib3.lib.msu.edu

PAMnet Monitor for Bulletin: Catherine Candee
ccandee@sulmail.stanford.edu

Listowner and WebMaster: David Stern
david.e.stern@yale.edu

Cataloging Liaison: Dorothy McGarry
dmcgarry@library.ucla.edu

Government Relations: Alice Primack
primack@mail.uflib.ufl.edu

Hospitality: Kristine Fowler
fowler@math.umn.edu

International Relations: Jeanette Regan
library@mso.anu.edu.au

Membership: Sylvia Toombs
toombshs@wpogate.slu.edu

Networking: David Stern
david.e.stern@yale.edu

Nominating: Greg Youngen
gyoungen@physics.uiuc.edu

PAM Award: Richard Funkhouser
rlf@purdue.edu

Professional Development: Chair: Michael Leach
leach@physics.harvard.edu

Public Relations: Chair: Judy Matthews
matthews@pa.msu.edu

Strategic Planning: Chair: Karen Croneis
kcroneis@library.wustl.edu

Professional Society Liaisons:

American Astronomical Society Publications Board:
Sarah Stevens-Rayburn
library@stsci.edu

INSPEC
Thurston Miller
Thurston.D.Miller.115@nd.edu

Revised PAM Journal Cancellation List

A revised list of canceled journal titles has been posted to the PAM web site. The direct URL is: http://www.sla.org/division/dpam/alphacan.html

Please continue to send your lists of "last copy" cancellations to David Stern for inclusion on this list.

David Stern
Director of Science Libraries and Information Services
Kline Science Library
219 Prospect Street
P.O. Box 208111
New Haven, CT 06520-8111


phone: 203 432-3447
fax: 203 432-3441
email: david.e.stern@yale.edu

Astronomy Roundtable

Submitted by
Emily Poworoznek
emily.poworoznek@unh.edu

The Astronomy Roundtable was held on Tuesday, June 10, 1998, from 12:00-2:45 p.m., at the 89th Annual SLA Conference.Emily Poworoznek, University of New Hampshire, moderated. Approximately 35 librarians, publisher representatives and guests attended.

ASDS & Observatory Manuals

Liz Bryson, Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation and 1997-98 PAM Kahuna, spoke about the project to put observatory manuals online. More than 80 manuals for both ground- and space-based instruments and observatories are available on the Astronomical Software and Documentation Service (ASDS) site (http://asds.stsci.edu/asds/). Astronomical software is also available from the site, which is fully indexed.

E-journals Snapshot

Kathleen Robertson, Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, was not in attendance, but sent her chart summarizing content and means of access for 56 electronic journals of interest to astronomers, prepared with the assistance of Denise Shinkawa, and distributed at the session courtesy of Liz Bryson.

Astrophysics Data System

Dr. Michael Kurtz, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), gave an extensive presentation and overview of the Astrophysics Data System (ADS, http://adswww.harvard.edu/).

This project, which began in the late 1980's, currently contains more than one million citations and abstracts, 60,000 articles, and 710,000 scanned (bitmapped) full-text pages from 18 journals (about 25,000 scanned pages are added annually). Usage by the astrophysics community amounts to about 16,000 users per year, who conduct more than 400,000 queries, resulting in over 6 million references retrieved.

The ADS has five major services: Abstract Service, Article Service, Digital Library, Data Catalogs, and Data Archives.

Abstracts are available in four separately searchable files: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Physics and Geophysics, and ADS/LANL Preprints.

The search interface provides the capability of complex searches, including author, object, date, title keywords, text keywords, using either simple or Boolean logic. In actual practice, most searches by users are simple -- about 50% are on a single author name, 10% with one keyword, 10% with two keywords, 10% with three, 5% with four, and about 5% accounts for all other queries.

For any author in the database it is possible to find the papers they have authored, the papers they referenced, and the papers that have cited them.

A Table of Contents page provides access to the ToC's of 23 journals as well as links to the LANL preprint sever and the ADS Oracle. This service keeps track of the last few abstracts that an ADS user has viewed in previous sessions and provides a search of similar new articles in the database. ADS Oracle does not cover LANL preprints.

ADS intends to scan as many issues as possible of journals for which they have agreements with the copyright holders. If scannable issues can be obtained, many journals will be covered to volume 1. The project is in need of donations of certain issues for scanning (the issues are destroyed in the process). Issues needed are listed on the web site at http://adswww.harvard.edu/pubs/missing_journals.html.

The ADS has compiled usage and user data via cookies since its inception. Staff analyze these logs to gain an understanding of how the database is being used in order to provide better services through enhancements in the future. A question is: what to do with the logs? Should the project make them available to other researchers such as historians? The community appears to the split on this question. Many feel the logs should be more open. However, a number of major astronomers do not want their research process examined. There are several options: continue with the status quo; embargo the logs for some period of time before making public (decades?); destroy the logs.

Dr. Kurtz addressed a number of issues in the Q&A session:

Project funding (about $600K per year from NASA) is stable for the next few years, but beyond that no one is certain.

-The ADS does not have a formal plan for migrating to future data storage formats, but recognizes the need to develop one.

-The ADS is planning to increase its coverage of the conference literature. There does not appear to be much hope of collaborating with Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts (A&AA), due to legal and copyright issues in Germany (see A&AA discussion, below). A&AA's coverage of the literature is broader, but does not go back in time as far as the ADS.

-There is currently no user advisory committee but the project is open to establishing one.

-There are no plans to include reader comments, but there is a channel for author comments.

Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts

There was a discussion of the current status and prospects for Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts (A&AA), published by the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut Heidelberg (ARI) (http://www.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/index.eng.htm) in cooperation with the Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe (FIZ). It was reported earlier this year (see, for example: http://nut.inasan.rssi.ru/IAU/NEWSLETTERS/newsletter2/) that A&AA would cease publication due to reduction of financial support from the German government. Although a review commission was formed to examine the situation, and it appeared for a time that A&AA would be saved, it is now likely that the printed A&AA may die out gradually. It may not be terminated suddenly, but rather end as individuals retire or leave the employment of the ARI. The ARI is also working on providing Internet access to the bibliographical references (ARIbib), but the abstracts, which are commercially available online, will not be included in ARIbib.

Questions were raised during the presentation on ADS about the possibility of inclusion of A&AA's abstracts into the ADS, but Michael Kurtz indicated that talks thus far have not been productive. There are legal and copyright factors among the various parties involved with A&AA that prevent inclusion of the abstracts in the ADS. As a result, the ADS plans to increase its coverage of the conference literature. Concerns were also raised about biographical information indexed by A&AA; ADS has no plans to cover that area.

Distributed Database of On-Line Astronomy Preprints and Documents

Sarah Stevens-Rayburn of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) discussed the Distributed Electronic Preprint server project being developed, with NASA funding, by the Principle Investigator, Bob Hanisch of STScI, and 10 co-investigators: http://doright.stsci.edu/Epreps/

This project aims to establish a centralized Isite index and server that will provide links to distributed electronic preprint servers maintained by research institutions, observatories, universities, and individuals. It is expected that the central server will be able to host preprints from some individuals who do not otherwise maintain or have access to a preprint database. A prototype of the system has been partially developed, but it not yet ready to become operational.

This approach differs from the server developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (http://xxx.lanl.gov/) by Paul Ginsparg in that the majority of pre-prints (e-prints) will reside on home servers rather than on a central server.

Library and Information Services in Astronomy III

Brenda Corbin, United States Naval Observatory and new east coast Kahuna, reported on the recent LISA III meeting in Tenerife, Spain (see (http://www.iac.es/biblio/lisa/). (A brief summary of LISA III appeared in the May 1998 PAM Bulletin (http://www.orst.edu/~kristicl/pambull/25-4/astro.htm)).

She pointed out that the Friends of LISA support group was able to raise approximately $15,000 from individual and corporate donations, which provided funds to help bring 20 librarians to the conference, who would have been otherwise unable to attend. If final papers are received by the end of June it is expected that the proceedings will be published by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in its conference series by this Fall, as well as on the World Wide Web.

In International Astronomical Union (http://www.iau.org) news, Brenda reported that the new library community representatives to IAU Commission 5 (Documentation and Astronomical Data), Working Group on Libraries, are Uta Grothkopf (European Southern Observatory) and Fionn Murtagh (Observatoire Astronomique, Universite Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg; and University of Ulster).

Union List of Serials

Judy Bausch of Yerkes Observatory talked about prospects for a revised edition of the Union List of Serials (http://sesame.stsci.edu/lib/union.html). Judy and Sarah Stevens-Rayburn, Space Telescope Institute, issued a call for assistance in providing holdings information and updating the database. Rare or unique holdings are sought, in particular.

Several attendees, (Greg Youngen, Marlene Cummings, Ellen Bouton, Brenda Corbin, and others) volunteered to work on the revision. Liz Bryson suggested retired (but active) PAM members as another possible resource.

Princeton Electronic Journals Survey

Jane Holmquist (jane@astro.princeton.edu) discussed and distributed copies of both the questions and the results of a survey of electronic journal awareness and usage by students, faculty and staff at Princeton University. Please contact Jane for more information.

Observatory Publication Preservation Project

Ewa Basinska, Wolbach Library, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Brenda Corbin (USNO) issued an appeal for missing issues of observatory publications to be lent for microfilming for the ongoing preservation project (discussed at last year's Round Table). The microfilming is being done at Harvard under the aegis of the Harvard College Observatory and the U.S. Naval Observatory. The material will eventually be digitized and available via Astrophysics Data System.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all who attended, and to our presenters. Not all topics could be covered, but your moderator appreciated the high level of interest that was evident in the discussions. Special thanks to Pete Banholzer, who took voluminous notes and wrote the draft of this news.

PAMnet News

Compiled by
Dorothy Manderscheid
manders1@mail.lib.msu.edu

INSPEC Pricing/Options

Discussion continued on INSPEC pricing and options. Joe Kraus, U. of Denver, questioned why OCLC was not being allowed to continue to supply INSPEC at a cheaper rate than other vendors. Pat Sulouff, U. of Rochester, provided information from INSPEC that the price for INSPEC tapes or data via FTP had been cut to $21,750; this price includes unlimited access and backfiles to 1969. An unlimited use academic site license of $27,500 for INSPEC was mentioned by Anne Dixon, IOP, in a later message. That price includes full text linking, HyperCite, 2 interfaces, and built-for-Web service and functionality.

Molly White, PAM INSPEC liaison, passed on news that there would be a Windows-based INSPEC CD-ROM providing three options: INSPEC Complete, INSPEC Physics, and INSPEC Electronics & Computing. Customers subscribing in 1998 and 1999 will get a complete set of backfile discs from 1989 onwards. Single workstation price for the complete database including all subjects will be 5,800 UK pounds in Europe and the Rest of the World and $9,550 US in the Americas. Further information is available at inspec@ieee.org (from North, South and Central America) and inspec@iee.org.uk (from Europe and the Rest of the World).

APS Meeting Summary

David Stern, Yale, provided some highlights from the APS Publications Oversight Committee. The Society is investigating cost saving approaches such as electronic editing and composition practices, long term archival solutions, and collaborations with partners such as the LANL xxx-lanl preprint server. New cost models being considered in relation to electronic publishing are flexible subscription packaging, document based vs. journal based revenue analysis, and possible increased member contributions (volunteer services and dues).

Value of ATMP and Similar Subscriptions

Discussion of the real value of a subscription title composed of items that are available free through electronic preprint servers prompted some interesting comments and information. More and more string theory articles are being published in Advances in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics (ATMP) (http://www.intlpress.com/journals) and Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP) (see next summary) both of which have electronic components. Journals such as ATMP and JHEP are seen by some as low cost alternatives to more expensive journals.

ATMP is an overlay of the LANL archives. But Mark Doyle, APS, who formerly worked with Paul Ginsparg on xxx.lanl.gov, pointed out that just because xxx is used to distribute the work to referees and after peer-review, this does not mean that the journal has not been properly peer-reviewed and vetted. David Morrison, an ATMP editor, confirmed that the journal does do the traditional copy-editing functions as well as serving as a selection mechanism. Improved software will soon allow the copy-edited version on the xxx archive in parallel with the author-controlled preprint version. It was pointed out that subscribing to the paper version of ATMP and similar journals provides better serendipity as items of value are more easily spotted by browsing the paper version.

Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP)

Journal of High Energy Physics (http://www.sif.it) is a peer reviewed journal with a strong motivation towards reducing publication costs and thus the cost of subscription relative to commercial publishers. The journal, published by the Italian Society of Physics, is also available in paper form and CD-ROM. Volume 1, 1997, is distributed free to those who request it. Exact cost is 0.15 US dollars per page published; subscription price for 1998 is estimated at $350.

E-Journal Archiving--JSTOR

Attention was called to a JSTOR survey of librarians outlining plans for JSTOR and soliciting input on what subject areas should be covered. Survey is at http://www.jstor.org/support/. JSTOR Phase II will offer "disciplinary clusters" and will allow libraries the option of purchasing only the clusters that seem most relevant to their programs.

Discussion followed on the merits of JSTOR. David Stern cautioned that PDF images will not provide enhanced hypertext links and that libraries are paying for materials they already own at the same time that they are canceling unique titles. Martha Tucker, U. of Washington, pointed out that JSTOR is in the business of preserving old knowledge in a static form and that paper and microforms do not have hyperlinks either. She urged involvement of willing commercial publishers and foreign core titles in JSTOR.

Peter Boyce, American Astronomical Society, mentioned that the core astronomy literature is available at the Astrophysics Data System (ADS) with links to references both forward and backward in time for several journals for the most recent 25 years. Plans are underway to scan pages of major journals from v.1. If optical character recognition software provides an acceptable error rate, search capability and links will be added for earlier journals.

Landolt-Bornstein

In response to a query about keeping/canceling Landolt-Bornstein subscriptions, several libraries reported that they had canceled this with few problems. One librarian reported that it was easier to use since the publication of Substance and Comprehensive indexes.

Document Delivery for Online-Only Journals

Maria Asimakopulos, McGill U., wondered how others had resolved the problem of online-only journals for which ILL is not allowed by the publisher and commercial document delivery is not available. Kristine Fowler, U. of Minnesota, suggested advising the requestor to contact the author for a reprint and urging a publisher to broaden policy to allow ILL from the electronic version.

AIP Combo Packages

Pamela Yorks, U. of Washington, suggested that libraries might want to take a closer look at their combination journal packages from AIP. By recombining some of their smaller combinations with several individual subscriptions held by other branch libraries, U. of Washington was able to save $1,500 as well as receive Industrial Physicist.

New Review Source

E-Streams, a collaborative effort by H. Robert Malinowski and Yankee Book Peddler, is a new monthly ezine featuring brief signed reviews of titles in major scientific fields. Bibliographic and pricing information, a table of contents, and subject headings are also included. Issues are provided via the Web and Listserv. Subscription information for this free title is available at the Web site http://www.e-streams.com/.

Gigabytes and Archiving

In response to a query as to the number of gigabytes in the average scientific journal, Peter Boyce, American Astronomical Society, pointed out that it would be difficult to derive an average size that is meaningful and explained why.

Boyce further pointed out problems associated with an institution archiving a journal. In order to make the links work effectively for a long time and over various mirror sites, you have to have the link resolving software as well of libraries of special symbols, etc. He thinks that it is not possible to store an electronic journal with a reasonable set of features simply by acquiring the files. To maintain a journal for a long time, it has to be actively managed.

Boyce feels that archiving must be done in collaboration with the original publisher and points out that they may not want to share their files.

MSC2000

MSC2000, the proposed revision of the 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification, is available at http://www.ams.org/msc/ and http://www.zblmath.fiz-karlsruhe.de/class/MSC91/. This classification will be used by both Mathematical Reviews and Zentralblatt fuer Mathematik beginning in 2000. The revision takes into account the need for stability which is important for literature searches over long spans of years and the need to make changes to accommodate recent developments in mathematical research.

IOP Pricing

Maiken Naylor, U. of Buffalo, expressed concern about IOP subscription policy, specifically geographic restrictions on the availability of one of their subscription packages (package A) and a steep surcharge on journal prices expressed in a very unfavorable exchange rate for the pound.

Anne Dixon, IOP, indicated that pricing concerns were being taken seriously and final IOP pricing for 1999 would be available in July.

Dialog Pricing

Concern was expressed regarding recent changes in Dialog pricing. A message from Kitty Porter, Duke U., forwarded from CHMINF-L@LISTSERV, compared costs of similar searches on STN HCA and DIALOG file 399. Costs were significantly higher on DIALOG file 399. A preliminary analysis of new DIALOG charges published by Online Inc. showed a resulting general cost increase of around 32%. Gary Davidoff, Argonne National Laboratory pointed out that until we are more experienced with the new pricing structure, it will be very difficult to estimate for our users how much a search will cost.

Current Index to Statistics

A letter previously signed by librarians at an SLA PAM workshop was posted on the list. The letter urged the presidents of the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics to consider seriously mounting Current Index to Statistics (CIS) on a Web site of its own since there appears to be no intent at the present time to add CIS records to MathSciNet. The letter pointed out that this might better serve the ASA/IMS membership than the CIS print volumes or CD-ROM both of which are delayed in publication. The letter also pointed out the problems associated with the current CD-ROM.

ILL of Electronic Serials

Elsevier Science has announced a new ILL policy allowing articles from licensed electronic holdings to be printed and the print copy delivered via mail or fax to fulfill ILL requests. Electronic transmission of files from the electronic original is not included in the new policy.

Science Communication in Developing Countries

Marlene Cummins (astlibr@astro.utoronto.ca) forwarded the text of a talk given by Subbiah Arunachalam, an information consultant from South India. In his talk, Arunachalam expressed concern about the relative disadvantage in access to information suffered by scientists and scholars in developing countries in the transition to electronic publishing. Please contact Marlene at the University of Toronto if interested in seeing this.

Citing E-Journals

According to the APS Web pages, Physical Review D has switched from the traditional system of articles identified by volume and page number to a system that uses volume and article number starting with Volume 58. Each article is assigned a six digit article number at the time of electronic publication allowing articles to be fully citable from the time they are published. Citation example: Phys. Rev. D 58, 012013 (1998).

Internet Sites Noted

Woman Astronomer on the Web: http://www.erols.com/njastro/twa

Full text science journals on the net by subject: http://www.libs.uga.edu/science/keyword1.html

MathSciNet guides from other libraries:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/science/math


http://math.lib.umn.edu/msnho.html


http://www.library.ubc.ca/scieng/msn.htm


http://www.library.ucsb.edu/guides/mathscigd.html

MathSciNet Help for downloading:
http://www.ams.org/msnhtml/headline_review_help.html#original

PAM Survey results: http://library.wustl.edu/~kcroneis/pamrslt.html

Short review of PAMnet commands: http://www.sla.org/division/dpam/pamnet.html

History of astronomy: http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo

International Coalition of Library Consortia ICOLC): http://www.library.yale.edu/~okerson/consortia.index.html

Licensing issues: http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml

Bargain hotel rates: http://www.180096hotel.com

Astronomical software or telescope manuals: http://asds.stsci.edu/asds/

Articles Noted

Wilson, Robin. "Provosts Push a Radical Plan to Change the Way Faculty Research Is Evaluated." Chronicle of Higher Education (June 26, 1998):A12.

"New Language Could Meld the Web Into a Seamless Database." Science 280 (June 19, 1998):280:1840-41.

Schad, Jasper G. "Scientific Societies and Their Journals: Issues of Cost and Relevance." Journal of Academic Librarianship (Sept. 1997):406.

Wilkinson, Sophie. "Electronic Publishing Takes Journals Into a New Realm." Chemical & Engineering News (May 18, 1998). Also at http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/cenear/980518/elec.html.

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