PAM Bulletin

2025 PAM Annual Business Meeting (on Zoom)

5 August 2025

Meeting called to order at 3:06pm EDT

Agenda

1. Introduction and Welcome (Kayleigh Bohémier)
2. The minutes of the PAM Annual Business Meeting of 22 July 2024 are up for approval today:
   1. Unanimously approved
3. Secretary Report (Henrik Spoon)
   1. I took over in January 2023 from Ruth Kneale and have since attended all PAM Board meetings and provided all meeting notes.
4. Member at Large/Finances Report (Jordan Green) + Industry Partner Relations
   1. I reached out to Kristen. She shared with me that she no longer works with SLA and is unsure what they’re doing moving forward as far as handling sponsorships. 
   2. I plan to write to SLA’s info email she shared to try to find us a new contact for finances, but want to wait to hear any new news after the merger vote coming up on August 12. I have nothing else to report. 
5. President-Elect Report (Brian Quigly)
   1. This has been a unique year for leadership transition, with a focus on monitoring the proposed merger and its potential impact on our Community.
   2. My primary responsibilities—conference planning and committee recruitment—are on hold pending the outcome of the merger vote. This ensures our planning aligns with the future direction of our organization.
   3. Should the merger pass, I will begin planning our participation in the ASIS&T practitioner conference, slated for next summer. Updates will be provided as more information becomes available from ASIS&T.
   4. If the merger does not pass, we may consider other options for getting PAM members together next year.
6. Past-President Report (Sarah Siddiqui)
   1. I was unable to attend the annual conference this year but coordinated with Jenny Mueller-Alexander and Kayleigh Bohémier for planning the community dinner with Melissa Gonzalez (AIP). Thank you to AIP Publishing for sponsoring the dinner.
   2. On July 23, 2025, the PAM Board unanimously voted to approve the updated PAM Practices Manual. Many thanks to previous co-chairs Lance Utley, Chris Doty, and Donna Thompson for updating the manual over the years. This will be a helpful guide as SLA merges with ASIS&T to incorporate existing practices with the new structure. The updated PAM Practices manual has been added to the PAM Dropbox.
   3. My upcoming goal will be to appoint members for the Nominations and Elections Committee. Please reach out if anyone is interested in volunteering and/or have recommendations.
7. President Report (Kayleigh Bohémier)
   1. Annual Conference
      1. The PAM community showed strong attendance at the final SLA conference despite challenges for many of our members due to travel funding freezes in government and academia. Most roundtable sessions were well-attended, and preliminary feedback in the session survey was positive. Thank you so much to all of our moderators, speakers, and attendees for your participation! Our moderators this year were Alex Manchester and Jenny Hart, Jenny Mueller-Alexander, Ben Mitchell, Emma Moore, and Sandy Avila. We greatly appreciated the important and relevant updates from our industry partners. The conference doesn’t go without all of you! There may be some summer (or early fall) virtual roundtables organized by the Professional Development Committee, so stay tuned.
      2. The surprise PAM word search on the back of the Dance Card was well-received.
      3. The Hospitality Committee, Sarah Siddiqui and Jenny Mueller-Alexander, was expert at collaborating with Melissa Gonzalez from AIP to have the PAM dinner in the Lotus Room at The Ritual House. Thank you so much for all of your hard work!
      4. As we do not know the outcome of the proposed SLA-ASIS&T merger, we do not know what plans there are for future conferences. However, our industry partners are happy to work with us on an event for next year if the need arises. If SLA and ASIS&T merge, there will be a practitioner conference starting up, likely next summer.
      5. Thank you so much to our PAM Community Sponsor at SLA 2025, SIAM, and to SLA’s conference sponsors who serve PAM disciplines, AMS and SPIE, and to AIP for sponsoring the PAM Dinner.
   2. Volunteer Update
      1. PAM committees rotate at the end of every calendar year. This year of transition was difficult for us due to both SLA’s uncertain future and many volunteers being at capacity. Thank you so much to everyone who has been serving on PAM committees for multiple years. If you are a newer member of PAM, volunteering on a committee is the best way to get to know other PAM members. Please let Brian Q. know if you would like to volunteer in 2026. Here is a list of our active committees:
         1. Awards Committee
         2. PAM Bulletin (we will need a new assistant editor)
         3. Industry Partner Relations
         4. Hospitality Committee
         5. Outreach Committee (consisting of the Mentoring Committee, Membership Committee, and Networking Committee)
         6. Professional Development Committee
         7. … and our 2026 Roundtable Moderators
   3. SLA update
      1. As we all know, SLA is dissolving and (maybe) merging with ASIS&T. Many PAM members have been very active asking questions and learning more about how things might look if we do join ASIS&T. There will be room in ASIS&T for very active SLA communities to be fast-tracked as Special Interest Groups (SIGs), and we are very hopeful that PAM would be eligible for that. Thank you to everyone for your engagement, and we hope that PAM has a big showing at the live vote on August 14.
   4. Watercoolers
      1. These are continuing! They are on Fridays from 3:30-4:30 PM EST using Danny’s Zoom account. Please join!
8. Awards Committee (Nancy Curtis)
   1. Thanks to the efforts of committee members NuRee Lee and Jeff Bond, and to thoughtful nominations from the PAM community, we were able to select both Achievement and Division Awardees this year. In light of expected changes to the organizational structure of SLA, as well as current and foreseeable events affecting the ability of honorees to travel, we recommend that the current and incoming committee members re-examine award procedures and propose changes to enhance sustainability. We also recommend that a future Awards Committee study the honors offered by any organization with which SLA merges, with the ultimate goal of recommending procedures both for selecting nominees, and for guiding their nominations through the organizational process.
   2. PAM Division Award to Edwin Henneken of the NASA ADS.
   3. PAM Achievement Award to Lance Utley of NRAO. 
9. Bulletin Editors Report (Jerrel Horn)
   1. Emma Moore stepped down as editor in December 2024. At that time, I became the editor of the PAM Bulletin
   2. The WordPress account for the PAM Bulletin was upgraded to the Business subscription level in February 2025, thanks to the sponsorship of SIAM. This business level allowed the Bulletin to get a dedicated domain: pambulletin.com , and offers much more flexibility and opportunities for the newsletter.
   3. The Bulletin now has an assistant editor: John Kromer, who stepped up in the spring to donate his time and efforts for the Bulletin
   4. The Bulletin is currently being published 4 times a year, with the current issue due out by the middle of August. The Chair’s Message, news of conferences, and current announcements are regular items. We have been looking to expand the news reported in the Bulletin. The biggest issues have been hunting down news items for the Bulletin and getting members to submit items for the Bulletin.
10. Professional Development Committee (a joint effort)
    1. The Professional Development Committee was off to a late start this year, with no chair due to volunteer capacity limits and the news from SLA about its dissolution, yet with several members serving on the committee. The PAM Chair created a survey to distribute at the conference for feedback on PAM sessions and shared the results with PDC members. There might be virtual programming coming up depending on the merger vote with ASIS&T and PDC members’ capacity.
11. Membership Committee (Kira Wyld)
    1. As of late July, current reports show that PAM has 70 members. Compare with 83 members in December 2024.
    2. Focus has been on encouraging people to stay connected with PAM, even as SLA is expected to dissolve
       1. For new members (there have been a few!) we let them know about PAMNet, the Discord server, the bulletin, and the leadership team.
       2. For expired members, remind them that staying a member would allow them a voice in the future of PAM, as well as the fact that PAMNet remains open to non-members.
       3. Haven’t been focused on recruiting new members.
    3. Future plans:
       1. Update our email templates to reflect the results of the dissolution/merger vote.
       2. Investigate if our current committee structure will still work given the results of the dissolution/merger vote.
12. Mentoring Committee (Jenny Hart)
    1. We had two buddy pairs at the SLA 2025 conference. We do not presently have any mentoring pairs.
13. Networking Committee (Chris Doty and Lance Utley)
    1. Webmaster (Chris Doty)
       1. As a recap, the SLA website and community Connect sites went offline at the beginning of March 2024, and the new website went live in early April 2024. There are currently 85 members in the PAM Community, compared to 65 members last year and 131 members in the old PAM Connect community in June of 2023. For comparison with other SLA science communities:

Community	2025	2024	Change
Science-Technology	221	166	+33%
Engineering	97	77	+26%
PAM	88	65	+35%
Biomedical & Life Sciences	82	62	+32%
Pharmaceutical & Health Technology	67	48	+40%
Chemistry	55	44	+25%
Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Resources	45	31	+45%

2. The Open Forum: SLA Connect community has 1,715 registered members, compared to 2082 last year – a 18% drop.
3. There have been 8 posts to the PAM Community Group Feed/Forum since the last business meeting: 6 were duplicates of messages sent out on PAMnet regarding PAM business, 1 job announcement, and most recently an SLA Dissolution/Merger FAQ.
4. We learned at the 2024 Annual Conference that SLA’s new membership software (powered by YourMembership) has the capabilities to build out a website. The Taxonomy Community page has a website feel to it: https://sla.org/members/member_engagement/groups.aspx?id=255093. A few groups have welcome banners at the top of the group feed.
5. In May of this year, I put old PAM Bulletins in the PAM Dropbox as well as the html for the PAM Connect site.
6. Archived version of the Connect site: https://web.archive.org/web/20240301024240/https://connect.sla.org/pam/home
7. Archived version of the old WordPress site: https://web.archive.org/web/20190327184821/http://pam.sla1.org/
8. Archived PAM website from about mid-2006 to mid-2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20060616114421/http://units.sla.org/division/dpam/
9. Archived PAM website from 2001-2006 (after mid-2006, it gives a 404 error): https://web.archive.org/web/20010224003903/http://www.sla.org/division/dpam/
10. Archived PAM website back to 1998: https://web.archive.org/web/19990117032233/http://www.sla.org/division/dpam/pamtop.html
11. PAMnet Administrator Report (Lance Utley)
    1. There are 621 accounts subscribed to PAMnet, a slight increase over last year. 
    2. Activity on the listserv remains decent. 
    3. There has been a minor uptick in attempts to spam the list but the membership requirement continues to block such attempts.

14. Archivist Report (Lance Utley)
    1. A PAM member offered to donate several years of PAM directories, but all years were already held in the PAM archives. No other activity to report.
15. Other Business
    1. Kayleigh alerts members to the upcoming merger vote.
    2. Jenny Mueller-Alexander asks the members to think about what they want to learn about AI, AI and data, etc.

Meeting adjourned at 3:50pm EST

PAM Awards Presentations (Nancy Curtis)

2025 SLA PAM Awards Committee: Nancy R. Curtis (Chair), Jeff Bond, NuRee Lee

27th PAM Achievement Award

The purpose of the PAM Achievement Award is to recognize those Community members who have made outstanding contributions to the Community. The professional work of recipients is marked by distinction and dedication to librarianship in astronomy, mathematics, and/or physics.

Early in their professional career, our recipient received a travel stipend from IOP Publishing to attend the 2010 SLA Annual Conference in New Orleans. They have continued to volunteer for our Division and Community, chairing or co-chairing committees including the Hospitality Committee and the PAM 50th Anniversary Taskforce, co-moderating a Roundtable, and serving a full leadership arc on the Executive Board as President-Elect, President (for two consecutive years), and Past-President.

Our awardee has documented both our professional discussions and our less formal networking by serving as PAM Archivist for nearly 15 years. Additionally, they have ensured that we can build and maintain networks with our colleagues by migrating the PAMNet listserv to a new platform in 2016 and continuing to manage it since. We are confident that this solid foundation our recipient has built up and maintained will continue to benefit all members of PAM for the foreseeable future.

Their supervisor at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) highlighted the awardee’s maintenance of NRAOPapers (the Observatory’s publications bibliography), an “essential resource for tracking scientific output and institutional impact,” and extolled the awardee’s “dedication, vision, and leadership,” as well as their exemplary commitment to service as well as their collegiality. Colleagues at NRAO note that they “quietly and unassumingly serve…at multiple locations in multiple states with diligence, dedication, and unflappable good cheer. For those of us authoring books, [they are] always able to find obscure articles or arcane books via [their] library network or via more formal interlibrary loan.” 

Colleagues also highlighted the awardee’s management of the publication and preservation of over 80 internal memo and report series, as well as maintenance of proceedings of the International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology (ISSTT) annual conference. These efforts have extended the reach and impact of NRAO to astronomers, astrophysicists, science historians, and technical support personnel across the world.

Last year, with a group of international colleagues, our recipient published the open access article “Assessing Your Observatory’s Impact: Best Practices in Establishing and Maintaining Observatory Bibliographies.”  By providing experience-tested advice applicable to any librarian, archivist, or information professional contemplating development and maintenance of a comprehensive database of institutional works, their contributions extend beyond PAM and SLA to our profession as a whole.

With great pleasure, the Awards Committee presents Lance Utley of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory with the 2025 PAM Achievement Award.

Presented at the 2025 SLA PAM Annual Business Meeting

36th PAM Division Award

The PAM Division Award is given to recognize significant contributions to the literature of physics, mathematics, or astronomy or to honour work that demonstrably improves the exchange of information in physics, mathematics, or astronomy. The contribution should also significantly benefit libraries or enhance the ability of librarians to provide service. 

The awardee has a long working history at the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), where they play a pivotal role in the indexing and curation of scholarly content ingested into the system. Their work ensures the seamless ingestion of over 100,000 articles each week, maintaining the integrity and accessibility of one of the most vital resources in astrophysical research.

The awardee has authored more than 144 scholarly publications which include topics such as the evolution of academic publishing, the analysis of scholarly literature, and the role of ADS in supporting these developments. Their research also delves into innovative approaches for representing digital research outputs—such as datasets—within the ADS framework, helping to shape the future of open science and data transparency. Recently, the awardee has also co-authored papers exploring machine learning, large language models and the use of AI in information retrieval. 

Beyond their work and research, the awardee is a key contributor to several collaborative initiatives, including Asclepias—a collaboration between the American Astronomical Society (AAS), Zenodo and ADS to “promote scientific software into an identifiable, citable, and preservable object.” The awardee also contributed to Astrolabe, a collaboration between the AAS and the University of Arizona, works to identify and ingest uncurated astronomical data, developing tools for data processing and analysis. Lastly, the awardee also worked on PHaEDRA, in collaboration with the Wolbach Library, aims to catalog, digitize, transcribe, and enhance the metadata of over 2,500 logbooks and related materials. Notably, their co-authored paper with Michael Kurtz, “Measuring Metrics—A 40-Year Longitudinal Cross-Validation of Citations, Downloads, and Peer Review in Astrophysics,” was honored with the 2018 JASIST Information Science Paper of the Year Award by the Association for Information Science and Technology.

The awardee has also maintained a personal blog, “Meters, Metrics and More,” where they share thoughtful reflections on infometrics and bibliometrics, further demonstrating their commitment to advancing the field.

With all the contributions made by the awardee to the realm of information in astronomy and astrophysics, the Awards Committee is happy to present Edwin Henneken of the NASA Astrophysical Data System with the 2025 PAM Division Award.

Presented at the 2025 SLA PAM Annual Business Meeting

LISA (Library and Information Service in Astronomy) was the 2014 recipient of the PAM Division Award, and the award continues to pass from hand to hand at each conference. This year, Monique Gomez of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias passed the award on to Leslie Kiefer of European Southern Observatory at the 10th LISA Conference in Santiago, Chile.

The following announcement was sent out to inform the members of SLA and ASIS&T of the results of the vote to dissolve the SLA and merge with ASIS&T.

“As of August 21, 2025, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) and the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) today announced that their members have cleared the way for the organizations to merge.  SLA members voted overwhelmingly to accept the dissolution plan proposed by their Board of Directors. Separately, ASIS&T members resoundingly approved their Board’s proposal to welcome SLA members into their organization along with the Association’s remaining assets. These decisions clear the way for the two organizations to formally unite and build on their shared commitment to advancing the work of information professionals worldwide.

The membership votes reflect a recognition of the evolving needs of the library and information profession, and the opportunity for SLA and ASIS&T to combine strengths to better serve their communities.

“Thank you to the SLA membership for recognizing the merger with ASIS&T is the best option for SLA and preserving its 116-year legacy,” said Hildy Dworkin, President of SLA. “As SLA and ASIS&T move forward as one association, I know our combined strengths and dedicated members will have a greater impact on the library and information community for years to come.”

Ian Ruthven, President of ASIS&T, said, “I am delighted that both ASIS&T and SLA memberships have voted overwhelmingly in favour of joining forces to create a united association. This is a significant development for library and information science and its future. In creating a global community of research and practitioners, this merger will provide a home for both internationally excellent research and its impact in practice. I look forward to working with all members of this new community.”

The SLA Board of Directors developed the dissolution plan to provide a structured pathway for responsibly managing the organization’s resources and commitments. In combining with ASIS&T, this merger ensures the continuation of SLA’s mission while opening new opportunities for members through expanded programming, advocacy, and professional networks.

Both associations are committed to transparent communication throughout the integration process, with regular updates and volunteer opportunities provided to members and stakeholders.”

About the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T)
Founded in 1937, ASIS&T is a global leader in advancing the information sciences and promoting the professional growth of information researchers and practitioners.

About the Special Libraries Association (SLA)
Established in 1909, SLA is a nonprofit international organization that has supported information professionals in specialized environments through education, advocacy, and community building. For more than a century, SLA has been a vital resource for librarians and information specialists across academic, corporate, government, and nonprofit sectors.

XKCD: Wavefunction Collapse

_{This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.}

Nuclear Energy

Sculpture marking the site of the first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reactor, on the grounds of the University of Chicago.

STEM Librarians Collaborative, November 19 – 21

The 2025 STEM Librarians Collaborative meeting will be held on Zoom. A small registration fee will help us with Zoom costs and other operational fees.

Schedule at a Glance

• Lightning talks (~5 minutes)
• Short Presentations (~15 minutes)
• Storytelling the Profession (~7-10 minutes) – Firsthand accounts of someone’s experience as a STEM library professional, told without slides
• I Have a Problem (10-15 minutes) – Questions, problems, or scenarios related to STEM librarianship (not personnel problems) that will be discussed by attendees and presenters … live
• I Have a Solution (~15-30 minutes) – Workplace “life hacks” and creative solutions to issues in STEM librarianship, followed by a discussion with attendees

The full schedule for this year’s conference will be posted in the fall. Please stay tuned for updates.

Meeting participants will have every opportunity to be fully engaged and both presenters and attendees will have equal opportunities to contribute to the conference. This means that we will do everything we can to make our conference accessible to all.

Please email us at planning@stemlib.co with any questions.

LISA 10, Santiago, Chile, November 3 – November 7

This conference takes place every 4 years, so if you do not attend this year, the next chance won’t be until 2029.

We plan to post the conference program at-a-glance the week of Aug 18. To the extent possible, abstracts are being grouped by subtopic such as Open Science; Stewarding Astronomical Knowledge (non-data archives); ML/AI topics, etc. The at-a-glance schedule will provide a rough timeline of when these talks will take place. The final program will be posted soon after, once we finalize details with invited speakers and local hosts.

Registration payment for those attending in-person or online remains open through 31 August. You must complete your payment by 31 August to officially register. Please contact the conference host if any questions related to registration or payment at LISA10@eso.org. Please note that your intended type of participation (in-person or remote) can be changed until 30 September, if needed.

In addition to the talks, we invite you to join us for the following events and outings:

  *   Monday, 03 Nov: Evening Welcome Reception: enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres; mix and mingle with colleagues new and known (included in conference fee)

  *   Tuesday, 04 Nov: Early Evening Tour through Observatory Manuel Foster from Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile located in downtown Santiago (included in conference fee)

  *   Wednesday, 05 Nov: Conference Dinner at a traditional Chilean restaurant (included in conference fee)

  *   Friday, 07 Nov to Saturday, 08 Nov: Self-paid, optional excursion flight to Antofagasta, with bus transportation to/from the Paranal Observatory and guided tour. More information about the optional visit to the Paranal Observatory will be posted to the Conference Website in August. Please note that costs associated with this excursion are not included in the conference fee.

Additionally, ESO will send a brief form soliciting your preferences and ideas for two optional roundtable lunches. Boxed lunches are provided each day to all participants, with generous support from ESO and sponsors. For the roundtable we invite those interested to gather in the garden and discuss topics of mutual interest. The form will allow you, the conference participant, to share your topical preferences for these discussions and ensure a more engaged cohort at the roundtable.

About LISA 10:

LISA 10, Research Equity and Access in the Age of AI, will take place the week of Mon, 03 Nov through Thurs, 06 Nov 2025 (optional, self-paid trip to the Paranal Observatory on Fri, 07 Aug to Sat, 08, Aug). The conference will be held in-person at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) premises in Santiago, Chile, with remote participation available via MS Teams. The conference will provide participants the opportunity to engage with fellow librarians, archivists, data specialists, bibliographers, publishers, documentalists, experts on evolving technologies, and scientists. The LISA conference series aims to provide a platform to discuss the state-of-the-art for information maintenance, retrieval, metrics, preservation, scholarly publishing, and information systems.

Conference topics are organized around the following themes:

  *   Using AI/ML/LLMs Responsibly Topics on current or potential application of AI/LLMs/ML at your institution or in your information service community, including opportunities and challenges

  *   Research Equity, Inclusiveness & Access Ensuring equity with perspectives from around the globe

  *   Stewarding Astronomical Knowledge Best practices in traditional and data archives, documentation, and knowledge transfer and representation

  *   Assessing the Impact of Research Sharing insights into tools, platforms, documentation and the Why of bibliometrics. Presentations on researcher/staff, institutional, and observatory metrics are encouraged

  *   The Future of Multidisciplinary Research Current and future expansion of science disciplines and SciX; changes to where and how astronomy gets published; diversity of research communities and media beyond the traditional journal article

  *   Enabling Open Science Topics on data curation, data management and open software; ensuring reproducibility and access to others

  *   Navigating Open Access How changes in publishing models are impacting libraries and their customers; publishing challenges at your institution; topics on affordability and reputability of journals

  *   The Changing Roles of Astronomy Libraries Additional topics, such as:

o   changing role of special libraries, connecting users to resources and managing collections;

o   changing demands on libraries, such as research/data support;

o   role in organizing conferences or publishing conference proceedings;

o   navigating copyright law;

o   organizing training for research skills like proposal writing/Overleaf, etc

For more information, please bookmark the LISA 10 website.

General questions can be directed to LISA10@eso.org.

We look forward to welcoming you to Santiago and online!

LISA 10 SOC & LOC

Women in Mathematics, presented by Smith College and the Association for Women in Mathematics , September 20, 2025

Registration is free.

• WIMIN is the longest-running conference for women in mathematics in New England. There will be two plenary speakers in theoretical and applied topics, as well as a collection of parallel sessions with talks by students from around the region, panel discussions, mentoring activities, and other opportunities for networking.
• All undergraduate, postbaccalaureate, and graduate students are invited to give session talks.
• Registration is free. Click here to register.