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.
This year our award goes to an individual who has consistently demonstrated their passion for education, service, and professional engagement. Our recipient is committed to supporting undergraduate access to information in the sciences, in particular by promoting affordable resources. As their supervisor noted, their “sharing of open and subscribed resources was invaluable during the pandemic when students could not access print course reserves, and also represents thousands of dollars of potential student savings.” They have served on statewide committees with other faculty to develop open educational materials for highly enrolled courses in mathematics: college-level algebra, calculus and pre-calculus.
These teams developed additional open material to support high-demand advanced mathematics courses as well, including both abstract and linear algebra, and ordinary differential equations. Notably, the products of this effort include compiled and/or originally produced ancillary content—videos, interactive machine-graded exercises, problem sets, worksheets, and lab activities—as well as conventional textbook material. The products of this effort, hosted on the OER Commons, are freely available beyond the recipient’s home state, serving as an invaluable resource for the larger international community of mathematics educators and their students. Our recipient and their colleagues described the process of building course content in a book chapter—which, of course, is an open access work itself.
At their home institution, our recipient teaches two for-credit university courses addressing scientific communication, information formats, and effective bibliographic search strategies in PAM and other scientific disciplines. In 2022 they received the Virginia Tiefel Achievement in Teaching Award from their parent university library system, which “recognizes outstanding teaching achievements that advance the mission of the library…over five or more years. It is the highest honor given by University Libraries to recognize quality, innovation and impact in all aspects of teaching.”
Regionally, they have supported the professional development of their colleagues by serving on myriad committees to organize and run the Great Lakes Science Boot Camp for Librarians, which they also co-chaired from 2019 to 2021. Within PAM, they have hosted a Professional Development Committee PAMinar, and organized numerous other educational online seminars and “Pint-Sized PAMinars.” They were recognized with the SLA Presidential Citation for their work on the 2020 Annual Conference Advisory Committee.
Our awardee is also distinguished by a long-standing commitment to interdisciplinary endeavors and public outreach, connecting PAM disciplines with other areas of study in the sciences and beyond. They explored how mathematicians and physicists are portrayed in popular media and published their findings in CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, a journal focused on theory and criticism of comparative literature and cultural studies. They successfully collaborated with public library colleagues to host Science Cafés, introducing enthusiastic youngsters to physics and chemistry through crowd-pleasing “loud, flashy, and/or messy” events. This year, they successfully applied for their parent institution’s Growing Research Opportunities (GRO) Academy, a program to develop leaders of effective interdisciplinary research teams
A long-time PAM member who has worked with the recipient noted that they have been “a regular, consistent, active, dedicated member of PAM… [who] has significant expertise on PAM librarianship and is always willing to share and help others.” Their supervisor believes that their “open and positive attitude” and “competence, kindness, and generosity to…colleagues are a large part of what has made our team successful,” praising their efforts to improve internal communication and uplift organizational culture “in ways that feel light and fun…when the subject matter could feel hectoring or condescending with a different approach.” She notes that our awardee “says “yes” to an astonishing number of requests for teaching, service, and added duties, and still manages to perform excellent work across the board.”
On behalf of the PAM Awards Committee, it is my great pleasure to present the 26th PAM Achievement Award to Danny Dotson!
[Presented at the 2024 SLA PAM Annual Business Meeting, July 22, 2024]
2024 SLA PAM Awards Committee:
Nancy R. Curtis, Chair,
NuRee Lee,
Zach Lannes.
PAM Bulletin 