Categories
Uncategorized

2025 PAM Annual Business Meeting Minutes

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:
Community20252024Change
Science-Technology221166+33%
Engineering 9777+26%
PAM8865+35%
Biomedical & Life Sciences 8262+32%
Pharmaceutical & Health Technology6748+40%
Chemistry5544+25%
Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Resources4531+45%
  1. The Open Forum: SLA Connect community has 1,715 registered members, compared to 2082 last year – a 18% drop.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. In May of this year, I put old PAM Bulletins in the PAM Dropbox as well as the html for the PAM Connect site.
  5. Archived version of the Connect site: https://web.archive.org/web/20240301024240/https://connect.sla.org/pam/home
  6. Archived version of the old WordPress site: https://web.archive.org/web/20190327184821/http://pam.sla1.org/
  7. Archived PAM website from about mid-2006 to mid-2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20060616114421/http://units.sla.org/division/dpam/
  8. 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/
  9. Archived PAM website back to 1998: https://web.archive.org/web/19990117032233/http://www.sla.org/division/dpam/pamtop.html
  10. 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.
  1. 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.
  2. 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

Leave a comment