Hello PAMily,
I hope everyone is doing well, as spring seems to finally be taking hold in most areas. I wanted to share a few updates before I get into information about Charlotte 2022.
PAM Board
At the most recent PAM Executive Board meeting, February 23rd, the Board addressed the vacancy created by the resignation of PAM Secretary, Debal Kar. Board governance provides for the opportunity to have a volunteer fill the remainder of an elected member of the Board’s term, should they leave before that term ends. Ruth Kneale volunteered to take on the remaining months of Debal’s term, and the Board passed a motion to accept her into the role of PAM Secretary. Welcome back to the PAM Board, Ruth! Thank you for jumping in.
History Project
The Board also discussed the 50th Anniversary Task Force’s suggestion to form a task force to begin a PAM history project. After brief discussion, the Board voted to form said task force, and charged it with gathering oral and written history, stories of PAM members past and present throughout PAM’s 50 year history. Please consider volunteering to join to PAM History Task Force. If you are interested in being a part of this interesting project, please email me at lutley@nrao.edu today.
50th Anniversary
The 50th Anniversary Task Force continues to plan monthly events in celebration of our anniversary. So far they’ve hosted a trivia and puzzle game night, a Pecha Kucha contest, and a Wikipedia edit-a-thon. For April, the TF is co-sponsoring a Professional Development Committee training session, on making the most of LibGuides. At the 2022 annual conference, PAM attendees can look forward to anniversary commemorative items including a new anniversary pin, special decorations in the IOP PAM Suite, a super celebration at the PAM Open House, and more. After conference, the monthly activities will continue until December when those Golden Tickets you’ve been collecting turn into raffle tickets for prizes.
SLA 2022 Charlotte, Source Forward
Now for a conference update! PAM submitted four educational session proposals to the Annual Conference Advisory Council and all four proposals were accepted. PAM also submitted requests for five events: a First Night Dinner, the PAM Open House, the PAM Business Meeting, a Last Night Dinner, and a group tour. The ACAC is working now to iron out final details of those sessions and events and assemble a final conference schedule. In the meantime, they have offered an At-A-Glance schedule (https://www.sla.org/sla-2022-schedule-at-a-glance/) to give us an idea what the conference will generally look like. The early bird registration rate is available until June 1 and the ACAC has promised a final schedule in early May.
If you attended the recent Town Hall, you heard mention of the contingency plans being drawn up, in the event that local COVID considerations require adjustments to the conference plan. These contingencies consist of: changing an appropriate amount of in-person sessions to on demand; pre-recorded sessions; and possibly needing to restrict the schedule to limit the number of attendees in sessions, the number of sessions one person can attend, and the extent to which one can move about in the conference center. This is just contingency planning.
SLA has every intention of our conference being an in-person experience, with some changes from what we normally expect already in place. Namely, there will be no pre-conference Continuing Education courses, no meetings before conference, and all poster sessions will be virtual only. If you plan to attend virtually, SLA will be hosting one live stream of an in-person session during each time slot of the conference schedule. Virtual attendees will also have access to all on demand sessions, and your in-person registration will include all virtual components.
There is still much to be settled about 2022 Charlotte- as more details emerge, you can expect to hear about them in messages from SLA, and I will continue to provide updates through PAMnet.
Sincerely,
Lance Utley
2022 PAM Chair/President
PAM Bulletin 