Michael Fosmire
fosmire@purdue.edu

As all of the details are starting to come together for the Annual Conference, I would like to thank everyone for their contributions this past year. My Executive Board, Cynthia Holt, Alison Verbeck, Karen Croneis, and Sandra Kitt, have given me a lot of guidance and support to get everything accomplished on time and, hopefully, under budget. Cynthia has been very successful this past year in raising money to support our programs at the conference—allowing me a lot of flexibility in what kind of programming we can offer. And, one of the most critical jobs of the conference, the Hospitality committee, staffed by Bob Noel and Melanie Robinson, with special help from Sharice Collins, has arranged for some sumptuous networking events that I can't wait to attend.

Since there was a spike in interest about the transit of Venus on Tuesday morning of the conference, I want to invite you all to attend a previously unannounced pre-Business Meeting event starting in the PAM Suite and continuing out into the Opryland parking lot. The Suite computers will be tuned to transit web sites, under the direction of Ruth Kneale, before sunrise, and we will hand out 'solar shades' sunglasses, approved for sun viewing (for short durations), and see how many PAM librarians we can get to stare at the sun!

I also want to especially thank the Institute of Physics for their full sponsorship of Xiao Long, Deputy Directory of the Peking University Library and of the CALIS National Information Center for Science, Social Sciences, and the Humanities, to attend the conference and speak at our International Issues for Information Professionals program, and to thank an anonymous donor for their support of our PAM-IMA winner, Marie Antoinette Villaflor, Head of Reference at the College of Science Library of the University of Philippines, who will also speak at the program. The costs of bringing speakers in from other countries is a not insubstantial, and external support for these speakers helps make their attendance a reality. Having two PAM librarians from developing countries participate in this year's conference is a truly special occurrence. I encourage you all to make the most of the opportunity to learn about librarianship in other areas of the world, both by attending the International Issues program, and through networking opportunities throughout the conference. In the area of International Issues, I do want to single out Zari Kamarei's efforts. She has coordinated the PAM-IMA award process and organized the international issues programming these past few years, and I want to thank her for her sustained efforts.

I also want to thank our program moderators and presenters, Stella Ota, Donna Thompson and Virginia Smith, Cindy Mader, Mangala Krishnamurthy, David Stern, Jane Kinkus, and Ruth Kneale. Also, to Bill Armstrong for organizing our Division's CE course on Mathematical and CS librarianship, presented by Carol Hutchins, John Dupuis, and Travis Warwick. I am looking forward to some great conversations and presentations this year.

On an internal note, I plan to have some revised Governing Documents and Recommended Practices available for discussion at the PAMwide Roundtable. Many thanks to Kris Fowler for spearheading the effort to tailor the generic guidelines provided by SLA HQ to our Division's special needs. The transition from our tried and true Bylaws and PAM Manual to our new system of governance should be easy, under the guidance of Kris' ad hoc committee.

Finally, thank you to all the committees and their chairs this past year, for providing necessary services to keep the Division running smoothly. And thanks to everyone in the Division for giving me the keys to the car and trusting me not to run it into the ground.