PAM-Wide Roundtable
Cynthia Holt Sponsor: CISTI Approximately 80 PAM members made it to the annual roundtable. Following introductions and an announcement of the location of the PAM suite in the Hilton, six main reports were delivered followed by a General Question and Answer Session.
Physics Translation Database Project Bob mentioned that this group includes Kris Fowler and Dana Roth. The current database can be viewed at http://rama.grainger.uiuc.edu/PAMtranslations/SearchFormApp3.asp.
The group has decided to continue with data entry and also to move beyond just the history of physics as far as content is concerned. Sarah Stevens-Rayburn wanted to know if the database will track the Astrophysical Journal translations. The answer was no, as this task is too complicated given the scope of the project as it currently stands. David Stern suggested that the database be made OpenURL compliant so that it can be searched simultaneously with other databases to avoid duplicating results from other sources.
Image Research Follow-On Study This research consists of surveying patrons about their perceptions of public images of librarians. The survey will be taken at Tucson-Pima Public Library, AZ, public libraries and will include standard demographic questions and also topic-specific questions about librarians. More information can be found at http://atst.nso.edu/library/perception/.
This follow-up study is being done after a tremendously strong, worldwide response to Ruth's first study that focused on librarians' own perceptions of our images. If there are any questions, please address them to Ruth.
Prague Flood Disaster Relief Efforts After torrential floods in central Europe in the summer 2000, Charles University's Physics and Mathematics Library was devastated. The faculty put up a Web site showing the damage. The PAM board voted to donate $2,000 which was acknowledged by the Czech mathematics professors. The faculty there now has access to JSTOR and other e-resources due to a variety of funding sources including the SOROS Foundation. The American Mathematical Society donated back sets of their journals and the estates of two Syracuse University mathematics professors were donated. All together, 4000 lbs. of materials were shipped. Much of the difficulty came in the logistics of collecting, storing and shipping these disparate materials such a long distance.
Carol reported that during all this time and after numerous inquiries she has never had a response from the science librarian at Charles University. In October a PAM member will be visiting Prague and Charles University and may be able to investigate this silence and report on the progress made in restoring the library.
PAM Strategic Plan The Strategic Planning Committee set out to revise the strategic plan over a three-year cycle and solicited ideas for the plan from the PAM membership. Response was low.
The committee has 4 primary goals: For communication, the specific goal is to have 100% of PAM members subscribe to PAMnet. The paper PAM Bulletin will be phased out by 2005 and the current Web site will be revised and updated. David Stern reported that there are 520 members of PAMnet (whom he has individually entered), and he estimates that 75% of PAM members are on the list. However, only about 50% of the PAMnet subscribers are actually PAM members. Nancy Curtis suggested adding new members automatically to the list. David Stern responded that he manually adds everyone and that each new member is informed about the list and given a choice. The idea of being added automatically upon membership and then given an opt-out choice was also suggested.
David Stern announced that SLA will be adopting 'community of practice' software that might include threaded discussions. Since PAM tends to be an early adapter of new communication methods, the Division will probably test it at some future point.
For conference programming, the session feedback form may be revised. Due to low feedback from later sessions compared to earlier sessions, a survey may be done electronically after the entire conference. Barbara Hamilton voiced a concern about the response rate to an electronic survey. Brenda Corbin added that post-conference surveys would lose the immediacy of in-session feedback forms and that presentations may be lumped together in the response.
Mentoring and Liaison activities with vendors will remain essentially unchanged under the new strategic plan.
The entire strategic plan appears to be on target. The revised plan is available on PAM's Web site.
Memorial Tribute to Fritz Whitcomb (University of Chicago) Kris led the memorial tribute for Fritz whose untimely death in February 2003 saddened PAM members. Fritz joined PAM only two years ago, but had already made a very large impression on members. Both Liz Bryson and Brenda Corbin spoke about their memories of Fritz. Liz mentioned his help with compiling the Core List of Books in Astronomy. Fritz's unique talents included graphic design and public relations, and his optimistic spirit will be missed.
Revised PAM Web site Cynthia gave a report from the Networking Committee on the revised PAM Web site. Plans include updating pages, removing duplicate pages, updating the site to use style sheets and changing the underlying directory structure. The team working on this is distributed, but Cynthia has written much of the actual code. The new pages will mirror the Bulletin look in appearance. New pages can be seen at http://home.gwu.edu/~holt/index.html. Send comments to Cynthia.
Jane Holmquist asked if there are style sheets. The answer is yes. Joe Kraus wondered if the old URLs will point to the new. The answer is that all of the old internal pages will redirect to the new.
Questions and Answer Session Maria Gomez had several questions that spurred discussion. In particular she wondered what other libraries were doing regarding putting in coffee bars and other public reading/browsing areas. Pat Viele (Cornell), Debra Bailey (Rice), Zari Kamarei (University of North Carolina), Sandy Ward (Holyoke College) and Bob Noel (Indiana University) all mentioned that their institutions had recently installed coffee/commons areas or were planning to do so. Those who had already installed such areas thought they were very successful at getting faculty back in the library and at encouraging the formation of spaces for knowledge sharing across disciplines. Some institutions were even planning on having Starbucks manage their coffee facilities.
Joe Kraus reminded everyone about the Mt. Stromlo Observatory (in Australia) fire and wondered if anyone knew if someone was handling donations. No definite person or group was mentioned.
David Stern summarized the SLA voting procedures for attendees.
Finally, Michael Fosmire, the new Chair-elect, asked for volunteers to help with division meetings and to join division committees in order to keep PAM vibrant and active.
holt@gwu.edu
Notes: Scott Warren
Bob Michaelson
Ruth Kneale
Carol Hutchins
Greg Youngen
Kris Fowler
Cynthia Holt
