SLA/PAM Division Board Meeting
Sunday June 2, 2007
4:00 - 5:30 PM
Denver Convention Center, room 712
Moderator: Joe Kraus
Scribe: Sally Bosken
In Attendance:
Joe Kraus (Chair), Sally Bosken (Secretary), Laurel Kristick (Past-chair), Parker Ladwig (Chair-Elect), Bob Noel (Treasurer), Ruth Kneale, Liz Bryson, Joe Murphy, Karen Croneis, Stella Ota, Jane Holmquist, Kathy Wolcott, Bob Michaelson, Zari Kamarei, Nisa Bakkalbasi, Pamela Yorks, David Stern, Julie Arendt, Robert Fowler, Sara Tompson, Cindy Mader, Susan Koskinen
1. Chair Joe Kraus called the meeting to order at 4:05. He reviewed the agenda.
2. The minutes of the 2006 Board meeting were passed out to all attendees. They were approved.
3. Copies of the “Modification to the Governing Document” were passed out. Discussion followed. The division leadership calendar of SLA has changed. As a result, we now hold elections in the fall for people to take their jobs in January. In the past, we voted at the annual meeting. But with the change of time, we now vote in the fall. Discussion followed concerning how the voting was done. Most of our members can use email but 30 % are not on PAMnet. PAM members will be notified by PAMnet, direct email or paper mail. The document says procedures for nomination and election of candidates “by the division membership” implies that only PAM members can vote. Voting is done by entire membership not just a select few. David Stern said he doesn’t think we need to have anything about how nonmembers vote in our election. Our practices manual addresses this. If the practices manual is clear, then we are fine. It was moved that this be approved to read “officers will be elected by division members” and take out “by the division membership”. Seconded and voted and passed. This will now be presented at the business meeting on Tuesday.
4. Election of 2008 and 2009 PAM officers: An election will take place this fall for Chair-Elect and Treasurer.
5. Nominating committee: David Stern noted that more people are needed to serve on the nominating committee. Please see Sally Bosken, Laurel Kristick or Bob Noel if you would like to serve.
6. Sponsorship of the Bulletin and PAM activities: A question came up on PAMnet about Nature Publishing Group supporting the PAM bulletin. The history of the Gordon and Breach donation for the PAM bulletin was discussed. We take money from vendors in support of our annual conference. What is the difference between accepting money for the Bulletin and accepting money for conference programs? Perhaps we could have a statement in the newsletter saying that sponsorship of a Bulletin issue is not necessarily an endorsement by PAM of the sponsor’s publishing
publishing activities. However, we could get bogged down with legal issues trying to word this statement. What about vendor logos and images? Should we just display the company name and their logo and no more? Pam Yorks suggests we should check and see what SLA’s stand is on this is. SLA has strict rules concerning the difference between advertising in the Bulletin and sponsorship of a Bulletin issue. The secretary will ask the editor to check with SLA.
7. Newcomers Lunch at the Brown Palace: Thirteen people attended a lovely lunch. Of those, seven were past members and six were newcomers. Many thanks go to Turpion Publications for sponsoring the event.
8. International Award Winner: Muhammad Shahid Soroya is the winner for 2007. Nisa B. gave a full report. She started the process early so we wouldn’t have trouble with visas as in the past. We targeted Eastern Europe, but received no applicants from there. Sixteen applications were received; the board reviewed and decided in November. David Stern mentioned that every year the social science division gets credit for international work. It is time that PAM gets recognition. Nisa pointed out that she and the winner will be present at tomorrow’s international reception tomorrow night. We will try to get more publicity from SLA in the future. Shahid Soroya applied for his visa the first week of January; Joe got a letter of support from Akisha Edogun at SLA and Nisa wrote a personal message to the US Embassy Consular section to try to smooth the way. Shahid will speak tomorrow at 4:00 at the international issues session. The two winners from past years who couldn’t make it have been sent a reward package – a small cash gift, a collection of books and an award certificate.
9. Sponsors: Before the board meeting, Joe Kraus and Kathy Wolcott gave PAM certificates to all our sponsors thanking them.
10. 2008 Seattle Conference update: Chair-elect Parker Ladwig says things will be different. The 2008 conference will begin on Sunday afternoon at 3 and close on Wednesday afternoon. Past comments have said there should be a more definitive opening and closing to the SLA annual conference. People thought there were too many programs, so we will have fewer. They are encouraging more cooperation in programming. SLA feels fewer programs mean a better conference. Ten sessions is the limit for each group. The length of programs is changing. There will be a variety of time slots. They will try this for two years then decide whether to continue. Changes we will make: No vendor roundtable. The networking breakfast and business meeting will be combined, and the PAMwide roundtable and the international relations committee presentation will be combined. Parker will poll SLA/computer people about their Division membership preferences.
Planned sessions:
Saturday – early bird dinner
Sunday – newcomer’s lunch & board meeting
Monday pm – PAM-Wide Roundtable
Monday pm – SciTech gaming session with military
Tuesday am – business meeting/ cs rt/mathematics rt
Tuesday pm – all sciences poster session
Wednesday am – astronomy rt
Wednesday pm – physics rt
Chemistry – co-sponsor session on electronic notebooks?
Biology – co-sponsor session on bio-tech firms in Seattle?
11. Committee Reports
· Awards: Stella Ota – PAM achievement award will be awarded but there will be no PAM Division Award winner this year.
· Archives: JoAnn Sears – not present – archives of PAM bulletin almost complete. Will the PDF be searchable/index-able?
· Bulletin Editor: Sara Russell Gonzalez – not present – Comments: We could consider dropping the HTML version of the bulletin and focus on producing a clean searchable PDF version. Joe Kraus and Parker Ladwig will discuss options and ramifications with the Bulletin Editors. We will consider a survey of the membership on PAMnet concerning the issue.
· Cataloging Liaison: Robert Fowler thanked Joe for giving him the position. RLG recently consolidated with OCLC. This will merge RLIN and WorldCat; thus 9 million more titles were added to WorldCat. There will be a cataloging talk by a former PAM person at SLA.
· Fundraising: Kristi Jensen – not present – Over $33,000 was raised!
· Government Relations: Michael Knee – not present
· Hospitality: Susan Koskinen – She needs someone to help at the open house on Monday night in the PAM suite.
· International Relations: Nisa Bakkalbasi – see report above
· Membership: Cindy Mader We are up to 244 members which is a 5 % increase from last year. The membership directory in draft form will be circulated. It will be published in August. When we have new members join, we should sign them up for PAMnet (they can opt-out). Currently, new members have to opt-in. This change may be a problem for international members who have to pay for every e-mail.
· Networking: Julie Arendt – keeping an eye on things that should be put on the website, let her know if there are thing that should be added. Need new volunteers for subject pages.
· Nominating: David Stern – see report above
· Practices Manual Editor: Kris Fowler – not present
· Professional Development: John Dupuis – not present
· Mentoring Sub-Committee: Karen Croneis – only one person wanted to have a buddy. We need to get an expertise database going.
· Public Relations: Kathy Wolcott – vendors appreciated certificates at the walk around. There will be a list of PAM sponsors at our division suite.
· Publisher Relations: Liz Bryson – meeting Monday 3-4 in the Division suite.
· Strategic Planning: Peggy Dominy – evaluation forms will be handed out at sessions. This gives us good feed back each year.
· Translation Index Project: Bob Michaelson – Tim Cole at UIUC (which hosts the database) is on the translations group and has been in charge of the software. Improvements to the software will be under the supervision of Mary Schlembach (acting head of the UIUC Engineering Library).
Other announcement or agenda items
· Parker thanked everyone who said they would maintain their committee post.
· Please let David Stern know if you cancel a journal. This can be posted to the Journal cancellation List (http://units.sla.org/division/dpam/projects/alphacan.html).
· Joe Murphy at Yale will make an Instruction Wiki for PAM.
· The meeting was adjourned at 5:30.
