Joan Gantz, a PAM member for over 20 years, retired on June 30 as librarian at the Carnegie Observatories. The PAM Division sent a letter of congratulations to Joan on her retirement thanking her for her many years of collaboration with astronomy librarians throughout the world. She hopes to keep up with PAM activities via the Bulletin. Joan provided the following summation of her years as an astronomy librarian.

I belong to an almost extinct species--I am a librarian without an MLS degree. After earning an Associate in Arts degree at Pasadena City College, where I majored in library science and minored in astronomy, I began my mid-life career change (from that of wife, mother, business partner, gardener, volunteer, etc.) in what had been a one-person library since the beginning of the twentieth century. My raison d'etre at the Hale Observatories (now The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington) was to reclassify the astronomy, physics and mathematics collection into the Library of Congress classification system from the antiquated Royal Society of London classification system then in use.

With the leave of our librarian in 1978, and with a steady increase of responsibilities during my first two years here, my title and duties took the shape of a solo, full-time librarian. As such my favorite duties have included satisfying reference requests and research, and book selection participation.

Because our library serves about a dozen staff members, a few postdocs, visiting astronomers, and an occasional student, and because several on the staff have been of a certain generation (mine!) we have enthusiastically remained, until recently, largely an "old fashioned" (uncomputerized) library. But this condition has been changing. For a few years now, listservs have played an important part in our library, and under the leadership of our new librarian, John Grula, "fondling" of the catalog cards will soon be just a memory; he has recently issued notice that our CIW online catalog is now available for use.

Besides reaping the rewards derived from the great variety of experiences of working solo, I have enjoyed astronomically (pun intended) the comradeship of so many people here at the Observatories, and in libraries located all over the world. The association on a daily basis will be missed. But the time has come for me to move on and now I am looking forward to the many opportunities and challenges of retirement. I look upon this move as my senior-life career change. I have a nice relationship with my grown children and my three young grandchildren. And with a certain companion I will learn again how to cook, garden, and swim (recalling my first career); and together we will read, enjoy good music, and travel to places unknown. Cheers to careers!

Marlene Cummins, Astronomy Library, University of Toronto has been awarded the 1998 OCUFA Academic Librarianship Award. This award is part of the Teaching and Academic Librarianship Awards program of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA). The academic librarianship award has been presented annually since 1990, and is awarded to a librarian who has made a significant contribution to scholarly achievement in the academic community. The awards were presented on Friday May 14, 1999 in Toronto. Congratulations Marlene! (library@astro.utoronto.ca)

Sara Tompson, Fermilab Library Administrator and President of the Illinois Chapter of SLA, has been appointed to the SLA-wide Strategic Planning Committee as the Chapter President Representative (sarat@fnal.gov)

Ann Eagan has left her position as Science-Engineering/Undergraduate Services Librarian at the University of Arizona in Tucson to become Head of Reference at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. She has been given responsibility for the subjects of physics and astronomy. Ann's new email address is Ann.Eagan@nau.edu

Tim McMahon, Electronic Publishing Specialist at the American Mathematical Society, is a new member of PAM. Tim was recently appointed Column Coordinator for a new column to appear in Information Outlook, SLA's monthly magazine. The column will focus on internet, intranet and other technologies that will be useful to members of the profession. Tim is making a strong effort to include international authors and hopes this announcement might stimulate some interest in writing for the column. He will be happy to answer any questions about this new project (txm@ams.org).

Judy Matthews is the Science & Technology Reference Book Series Editor for Libraries Unlimited, Inc. A Guide to Field Guides: Identifying the Natural History of North America, 1999 (Diane Schmidt, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), a title in the series, was published in July. Judy has also co-authored an article, "Reference Managers" for the Software Reviews column in the July 29th, 1999 issue of the Nature magazine online (http://www.nature.com/).