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2025 is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology

The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2025 to be the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. This year was chosen because, 100 years ago, quantum mechanics was developed.

Find out more information about events and ways to participate with the celebrations at Quantum.gov, the home of the government’s National Quantum Initiative.

The journal Physics Physique Fizika published a number of important articles on Quantum Science and Technology in the latter half of the 1960s. The American Physical Society (APS) has made these issues openly available if you would like to read through them. The APS also published a great article about the Year of Quantum in Physics Magazine, which you can read here.

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LISA 10 Conference: Research, Equity and Access in the Age of AI

We invite all those interested in Library and Information Services in Astronomy (LISA) to mark their calendars to attend LISA 10 in Santiago de Chile. LISA 10, Research Equity and Access in the Age of AI, will take place the week of Mon, 03 Nov – Fri, 07 Nov 2025 and 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.

The conference will be held in-person at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) premises in Santiago, Chile, with remote participation available via MS Teams. Registration and abstract submission will open in April.

Remote participants are equally encouraged to submit their abstracts for consideration. Both presentations and digital posters are welcome and will be 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 credibility 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.

General questions can be directed to LISA10@eso.org<mailto:LISA10@eso.org>

We look forward to receiving your abstracts soon and to seeing you in Santiago.

LISA 10 SOC & LOC

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Chair's Message

Chair’s Message: Autumn 2024

Dear PAMily,

I hope you are having a nice Fall! This summer flew by, with the conference and the engaging roundtables and workshops we got to attend. Thank you to everyone for organizing, presenting, and attending. We now have two things coming up:

Firstly, the call for proposals for the 2025 Annual SLA is open, with a deadline of December 6, 2024. More details about the CFP are available at https://sla.org/page/25CFP. We hope to continue the tradition of Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics and Industry Partners roundtables and need volunteers to moderate them! If you are available, please email both Kayleigh (2025 PAM President) and I at your earliest convenience.

Next, with the year coming to an end, we also need volunteers for the PAM committees. Below is the list of current committees. Please email Kayleigh if you are interested in joining or continuing in any of them:

  • Awards
  • Bulletin Editors
  • Hospitality
  • Industry Partners
  • Mentoring
  • Networking
  • Professional Development
  • Membership

Thank you and take care,

Sarah

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Elections

SLA Elections Results: 2025-2027

“The Special Libraries Association is pleased to announce the results of this year’s election for 2025 President-Elect and 2025-27 Board members. This year, 258 SLA members (13.57%) cast their votes. Below are the results of this year’s polling:

President-Elect (January 2025 -December 2025)
Heather Kotula | President and CEO, Access Innovations, Inc.

Board Members (January 2025-December 2027)
Emma Moore | Librarian, Institute for Advanced Study
Julie Maekask | Law Librarian, Eastman & Smith LTD
Stephanie Rollins | Director of Library Services, Air University Library
Meenal Oak | Librarian (Prof – Level 14), MEs’s Institute of Management and Career Courses (IMCC)

SLA congratulates the new Board members-elect and expresses its deepest gratitude to all who stood for office during this election. Their dedication to SLA and its members ensures that the Special Libraries Association will remain vibrant and member-led for years to come.”

The Special Libraries Association

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PAM Awards

2024 Achievement Award: Daniel Dotson

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.

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Uncategorized

STELLA 2024 Virtual Unconference December 13, 2024

The 2024 Stella Unconference is taking place VIRTUALLY on Friday, December 13, 2024. This free event welcomes current or aspiring science, technology, engineering and medical/health librarians and those interested in STEM librarianship. In the Unconference spirit, YOU will drive the agenda and determine what discussions and breakouts will take place. It’s a great chance to discuss and learn about current topics relevant to STEM librarianship.

IF you are interested in receiving updates about the Unconference, please follow the instructions on how you can subscribe to the STELLA Listserv at https://stellaunconference.com/about/ . (This is a relatively quiet list).

The latest information that was sent out is:

  • registration is open through Friday, November 15
  • voting is open for discussion sessions
  • a call is out for presenters, lightning talks and poster presentation
  • a second call is out for discussion session Facilitators (welcome presenters, run the Zoom room, ask submitted questions)

Please see the registration form to submit your information for the session vote, the call for presenters, and the call for session facilitators

STELLA Unconference Agenda – Schedule for Friday, December 13th (All times in Eastern Time):

11:00-11:30am Coffee Break & Welcome

11:30am-12:45pm Session 1

12:45-1:00pm Break

1:00-2:00pm Lightning Talks and Posters

2:00-2:15pm Break

2:15-3:30pm Session 2

3:30-4:00pm Close-Out

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the STELLA 2024 Organizing Committee at stellaunconference@gmail.com.

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Uncategorized

Lots of Great Discussions Were Had at the SLA 2024 and the Summer Math Roundtables

SLA 2024 Math Roundtable

The Math Roundtable at the SLA 2024 conference was a plenary discussion. We covered a number of great topics, which are detailed below.

Accessible HTML for Math: We discussed what tools were available to convert mathematics papers to an HTML format that would be accessible for use with screen readers. The American Mathematical Society (AMS) noted they had developed some tools to make math documents accessible. They are hoping to make them more publicly available in the future.

ArXiv has their own LaTex to HTML converter, and they are hosting an online forum on accessibility soon. They will make an announcement on PAMnet when they have the details ready, so look out for that.

Artificial Intelligence and Math: We talked about AI training on math. A representative from ArXiv said there was evidence that AI models had been trained on ArXiv.

E-Books Versus Print Use of Math Materials: The AMS reported that 40% of their book sales are e-books. Also, 75% of their journal subscriptions are online only. The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) noted that their digital sales also outstrip print sales for books.

Author IDs Using ORCID: The discussion involved the use of ORCID by math researchers. Librarians at the University of Rochester said that they help populate their researchers’ ORCIDs for them. Various publishers reported that they have seen inconsistent use of ORCID from authors. Mathematical Reviews said that they focus more on using MRID instead of ORCID. SIAM doesn’t mandate that authors have an ORCID, but they encourage authors to get one. It was also noted that sometimes mathematicians use a new ORCID when they move to a new institution.

AMS versus EBSCOhost re: the MathSciNet Interface: The discussion revolved around teaching the two interfaces to students. Some librarians said that they teach undergraduate students about the EBSCOhost interface because the students are already used to using EBSCOhost for other databases.

Summer 2024 Math Roundtable

An online Math Roundtable was hosted over ZOOM late in the summer. The discussion was active and covered a number of topics.

A question was posed about relocating Lecture Notes in Mathematics to storage if they have not circulated in 10 years.

Next, the IMU Permissions report was discussed. The report may be viewed at https://www.mathunion.org/activities/ad-hoc-committee-permissions-cop .

After the report discussion, there was a proposal that the MathSciNet and the Mathematics Genealogy Project could link to Open Access theses & dissertations as well as ProQuest Dissertations. More and more schools are making their theses & dissertations freely available online, so being able to access the documents directly from the two databases would save time and effort. It was suggested that perhaps MathSciNet might be interested in doing a pilot with a select group of PAM people.

Another item brought up was an interest in learning LaTex and learning how to teach others to use it.

Tyler Kane, AMS, speaking about mathematics and accessibility, said, “I’d love to get Peter Krautzberger in a PAM session to discuss math and accessibility. We had him do a webinar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2y-4bGBwec on how this applies to one aspect of AMS publications, Mathviewer, but he is also a great source of information on development. The asterisk here is that he is pretty invested in projects that he has worked on, but he is very invested in this topic.”

Finally, a great article was brought up on the trending topic of Data Sharing: Making Mathematical Research Data FAIR: Pathways to Improved Data Sharing. (2024) Scientific Data, 11 (1), art. no. 676 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03480-0

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Uncategorized

Members’ Corner: New Marketing Director for Science/AAAS

Sharice Collins is delighted to announce that she started a new position as the Marketing Director for Science/AAAS. In her new role, she is overseeing global sales and marketing activities for the Science family of journals, Science Careers, and Science Custom Publishing. 

Sharice said, “I am humbled to be a part of this prestigious organization whose mission and values so closely align with my own.  I am especially excited to continue to work with the library community, nurturing the essential librarian/publisher relationship.” 

A longtime PAM member, supporter, and 2015 PAM Achievement Award winner, Sharice is looking forward to maintaining her bonds with the PAMily and is grateful for the support and positivity she received from the library community as she made the professional transition to Science/AAAS.

Cheers and Celebrations from the PAMily for Sharice Collins!

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Chair's Message

Chair’s Message: Spring 2024

Dear PAMily,

I hope you are well and having a nice summer! The annual conference is getting close, and I hope you are able to join us in Rhode Island. The full schedule is available at https://sla.org/page/Program2024_Program. Thank you to all our moderators and speakers for organizing the Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics and Industry Partners RT round tables! Our Hospitality Committee is also working on organizing a PAM dinner — might be slightly different this year ­­— more details are forthcoming. Also, thank you to our wonderful sponsors for their continuing support of PAM.

In addition to the conference, there is a slew of events this summer to keep us engaged with all things PAM. To maximize attendance, the PAM Annual Business Meeting will be held virtually soon after the conference on Monday, July 22nd at 1 pm EST. the Zoom link will be shared over PAMnet. Please save the date on your calendars. We also have the PAMinars and continuation of the subject roundtables organized by the Professional Development Committee, so I hope to see you often over Zoom.

Warm Regards,

Sarah Siddiqui (2024 PAM President)

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SLA 2024 Annual Conference: URI

Conference Session: Astronomy Roundtable

Eclipsing Topics for Astronomy and Other Science Librarians 

Sunday, July 14 • 3:30pm – 4:30pm

The Astronomy Roundtable is a moderated discussion of thought-provoking ideas about librarianship in astronomy and related fields, designed by and for anyone interested.  Our topics will include the April 8 Solar Eclipse; the future of astronomy libraries; sharing and making findable grey literature like PhD theses and capstone projects; and what we have learned from the Voyager I mission.  Come prepared with your questions and problems, and to share your tips and tricks with your colleagues.

Moderators: Jenny Mueller-Alexander; Donna Thompson

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SLA 2024 Annual Conference: URI

Conference Session: Industry Partners Roundtable

Tuesday, July 16 • 10:30am – 11:30am

The PAM Industry Partners Roundtable will feature a moderated discussion of the ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) threatens to compromise research integrity, and what tools are available to help publishers detect plagiarism, data fabrication, and image manipulation. We will also discuss how editorial policies on the use of AI in the research process are crafted, what they allow and prohibit for both authors and referees, and how they may change as we move forward. While the focus will be on the sciences, these issues are affecting publishers in every discipline and should be of interest to a broad audience. Format will include 30 minutes of presentations, followed by 20-30 minutes of open discussion and audience Q&A.

Panelists:

Kivmars Bowling, Publications Director, SIAM

Steven Smith, Publisher, Development & Open Science, AIP Publishing

Jon Speilburg, Manager, Publishing Strategy and Partnerships, SPIE

Moderator: Chris Doty

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SLA 2024 Annual Conference: URI

Conference Session: Mathematics Roundtable

Monday, July 15 • 4:00pm – 5:00pm

The Mathematics Roundtable is the premier annual event for mathematics librarians at the SLA Annual Conference. The Math Roundtable is a moderated discussion of thought-provoking ideas about librarianship in mathematics, designed by and for anyone interested. Come prepared with your questions and problems, and also to share your tips and tricks with your colleagues.

Moderators: Zac Painter; Jenny Hart

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SLA 2024 Annual Conference: URI

Conference Session: Physics Roundtable

Collaboration and Research Between Faculty and Librarians

Monday, July 15 • 9:00am – 10:00am

The Physics Roundtable is the premier annual event for physics librarians at the SLA  Annual Conference. The Physics Roundtable is a moderated discussion of thought-provoking ideas about librarianship in physics, designed by and for anyone interested. Our session will focus on collaboration in the classroom and on research between faculty and librarians in the physical sciences. Come prepared with your questions and problems, and also to share your tips and tricks with your colleagues. This session is part of programming by the PAM community

Moderators: Sanday Avila; NuRee Lee

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SLA 2024 Annual Conference: URI

Conference Giveaway!

Come to the AIP Booth at SLA’s Annual Conference next month, and you can pick up a free Yeti tumbler, showing your love for the PAMily:

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Pro Dev

Save The Date: PAM Professional Development, Summer 2024

Grab a PDF of the schedule here.

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Members Corner

PAM Friday Watercooler – BE THERE!

It’s halfway through the year and we’re sweltering under heat wave after heat wave. Cool off on Fridays with the PAM Watercooler Zoom call! What better excuse do you have to lock yourself in your COOL, AIR-CONDITIONED office or room and talk about all things STEM Library?? Even better, since this is a Watercooler session, raise a glass of your favorite COLD beverage to your PAMily while you enjoy the company!

Watercoolers are held from 3:30 – 4:30 EST on Fridays.

PAM Friday Watercooler Zoom

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Members Corner

Join the PAM Community at the New SLA Website

The new SLA website launched in April, and we are looking for all of the members of our PAMily to visit the website and register your accounts. You’ll be able to update your profile with photos and your professional information and you can join the PAM Community group. If you have any problems with logging in or registering your account, contact SLA Membership Director Joel Colon at jcolon@sla.org. He’s happy to help get you started! One item to note – double-check your profile information, as there has been instances of personal information being displayed in the directory.

You can easily replace your personal information in your profile, or click the locks next to fields that you want to hide. The PAM Membership Committee stated that they will be following up on this issue, to see if the default can be changed to display professional information and hide personal information.

Make sure to sign up and WELCOME to the PAMily!

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Members Corner Resources

Resources: Databases That Index PrePrints

A question was asked about which databases index preprints. After some back-and-forth, this was the final list that was generated, with much thanks to our PAMily for making this list possible!


If you need help with searching the various PrePrint repositories, here’s a tip sheet that was kindly put together by our colleagues at the University of Victoria in Canada and the University of Minnesota. Thanks to Zahra Premji and Amy Riegelman for your great work!

Scopus: arXiv, ChemRxiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, SSRN, TechRxiv, and Research Square

Web of Science Core Collection: ChemRxiv, arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv and preprints.org. New repositories are also being added.

Compendex: arXiv, SSRN, Research Square, TechRxiv

INSPEC: arXiv, and plans are in place to expand coverage in 2024 – 2025


SciFinder: arXiv, Beilstein Archives, bioRxiv, CERN Document Server, ChemRxiv, medRxiv, Research Square view in Publication Name

BioHackrXiv and Optica are stand-alone PrePrint servers

Europe PMC and Dimensions have links to many PrePrint servers. Check their lists to see which servers they have. Dimensions has over 50 PrePrint servers that they access, but you will need to create an account with Dimensions (it’s free!) to see their resources.

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Calls for Participants Scholarship

2024 November STEM Librarians Collaborative Call For Proposals

A call for proposals was sent out for the STEM Librarians Collaborative meeting taking place November 20 – 22, 2024. The conference is virtual, and they are looking for sessions on topics related to STEM librarianship.

Proposals may be for lightning talks, short presentations, first-hand experience accounts, problem and scenario advice, and interactive learning. They will also consider ideas for other types of presentations that would fit the virtual format. The deadline for submissions is July 17, 2024.


The website for the 2024 conference is not available yet, but the Collaborative has provided links for submitting your proposals and guidance on what they are looking for in a successful proposal.


Proposal Form with topics


Guidance on what the Collaborative is looking for (video presentation)

Proposal Evaluation Rubric


Questions? Email proposals@stemlib.co

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Chair's Message

Chair’s Message: Winter Bulletin 2024

Dear PAM Colleagues (i.e. PAMily),

I am very excited about being the PAM President this year and learning more with you all. I wanted to take this opportunity to share updates about the PAM Committees for this year and ask for your participation. The current committee members are listed at the end of this message and also at the PAM Committees website. Thank you all so much for your time and energy; it truly benefits the PAM Community, myself included! I would especially like to thank Lance Utley for being our President over the past two years and his continuing work as past-President and archivist and guide for all things PAM.

We are now starting to plan the 2024 SLA Annual Conference, which will be in-person from July 13-16 at the University of Rhode Island. Early Bird registration ends on April 30th. You need a code to register for the member discount, available on SLA Connect (which will be replaced with a new platform in March, so perhaps just save it in advance in case of delays with access). There is no online component this year, so it will be very helpful if you could share your plans to attend. This would also help with finalizing dates for the Annual Business Meeting, the SLA conference planners are considering having general business meetings during or outside of the conference dates.

For the PAM sessions at the conference, we can submit proposals for Education Sessions as a community. We would love your participation in planning the topics. The proposals for the Education Sessions are due March 22nd. We also need moderators for the sessions. If you are available, please email me at ssiddiqui@library.rochester.edu, and take a few minutes to fill out this quick survey to share your plans and ideas: https://universityrochester.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3OYTnImLY82PGnk. 

Finally, you might have heard that Information Outlook has made a comeback. The editorial team is now working on the April edition and has invited PAM members to submit a feature article about the eclipse. The article could be about the science behind the eclipse, interesting facts about the eclipse, the theory of relativity and studies conducted using solar eclipses, or another relevant topic concerning the eclipse. The deadline for the article is April 1st. Featured articles are 2000-2500 words. There is some wiggle room in the deadline (April 8 if you would like to share experiences instead) and in the word count (can be shortened). Articles should be submitted to Leslie Steele. Do reach out if you would like to contribute, individually or as a group.

Thank you again!

PAM Committee Members for 2024:

Archives

  • Archivist: Lance Utley

Awards Committee

  • Chair: Nancy Curtis
  • Member: Zach Lannes  
  • Member: NuRee Lee  

Bulletin Editors

  • Editor: Emma Moore  
  • Assistant Editor: Jerrel Horn  

Hospitality Committee

  • Chair: Lance Utley  
  • Member: Jenny Mueller-Alexander  

Membership Committee

  • Chair: Brian Quigley
  • Member: Anya Bartelmann
  • Member: Kira Wyld

Mentoring Committee

  • Chair: Jenny Hart
  • Member: Mark Chalmers
  • Member: Khue Duong

Networking Committee

  • Chair and Webmaster: Chris Doty  
  • PAMnet Listserv Manager: Lance Utley  

Professional Development Committee

  • Chair: Jeffra Bussmann
  • Member: Danny Dotson  

Industry Partner Relations Committee

  • Chair: John Kromer  
  • Member: Emma Moore  

Best wishes,

Sarah Siddiqui (2024 PAM President)