Volume 53, Issue 4 —— Fall 2026
Emma Moore
This year’s PAM virtual Physics roundtable was titled Physics in An Age of Hardening Borders, looking outward rather than inward from the discipline. Emma Moore of the Institute for Advanced Study and Eliot Boden of Washington University (St. Louis) moderated. Across an hour of free ranging discussion on Zoom, librarians supporting physics teaching and research at multiple different levels, institutions, and funding levels took stock of how the past few years and past couple of decades have changed the support work they do. They were joined also by PAM industry partners who spoke about how this has affected the atmosphere of scientific publishing. The first topic was collaboration, and many attendees reflected about the varying affects that immigration law changes and enforcement have had, particularly in regards to training of undegraduate and graduate students. That segued into a larger discussion of how enrollment relates to funding and teaching. This was discussed around both broad themes, relating to how institutional stability affects hiring and retention choices; as well as more granular respects such as relationship building. The latter comes into play even given recent transformations of PAM librarian roles. While there may be fewer explicit liaison librarian positions, the function remains an important mental paradigm. While the discussion was frank and thus optimism could be in short supply, the sense of community among the attendees and PAM at large was palpable.