by John Kromer and Mat Willmott

SLA’s 2013 Conference in San Diego is fast-approaching, and your PAM division colleagues are putting together ideas for many events including the roundtable sessions.  This Conference’s Physics Roundtable will be moderated by John Kromer, Physical Sciences Librarian at Miami University and 2012 PAM Travel Stipend award winner, and Mat Willmott, Physics Librarian and Collection Specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Due to some feedback we received on this year’s evaluations, we are planning to change the format a little bit.  We want to start this year’s roundtable off with a sort of “state of the field” session, in which six to eight PAM members give five-minute review-style presentations on particular topics of relevance to physics librarianship, intended to give everybody a baseline knowledge of current trends and developments relative to each topic.  Following these presentations, we will break into more traditional, smaller roundtable discussions to discuss the topics of the presentations.  Lastly, we will wrap up with summaries of the discussions at each table and a brief whole-room discussion/question-and-answer time.  We hope that this layout will make for well-informed and useful discussions.

So here’s where you come in.  We’re excited about this format, but to make it work, we need ideas and we need volunteers!  What topics should we cover at the session?  Are you an expert on a topic and want to share what you know?  Is there a topic that interests you that you’d like to research and share with your PAM colleagues?  Or maybe you’d like to present on something and want us to give you a topic?  Topics can range from current (SCOAP3) to timeless (instruction, reference, etc.), and can be as broad or as narrow as you like.  Please e-mail us if you have topic ideas or wish to volunteer as a presenter.  We look forward to hearing from you!