by Alison Verbeck

Ruth Kneale, Systems Llibrarian for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, has been made a Fellow of SLA. She will be honored at the annual conference in Chicago in July. See the full press release. Ruth was also recently featured in an SLAchat on Drupal vs. WordPress.

Hema Ramachandran, Engineering Library at California State University, Long Beach, and Caroline Smith, Librarian at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, are co-authors, along with Ashok Naimpally (Dean of Instruction for Math, Science & Engineering at Fresno City College), of Lifelong Learning for Engineers and Scientists in the Information Age published by Elsevier in December 2011. The book covers information literacy and internships, including assessment techniques for lifelong learning, teamwork and information literacy as defined by the ABET criteria. It also discusses critical thinking skills for scientists and engineers and their role in lifelong learning. The authors hope this book will be useful to librarians, engineering and science educators, career advisors, employers, and students.

Donna Thompson and Alberto Accomazzi wrote “Introducing ADS Labs Full-text Search System” which was published in the HAD News: The Newsletter of the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society, Number 80, April 2012, page 4.

Martha Tucker, Head, Mathematics Research Library, University of Washington will be retiring May 4, 2012. An internal search is underway to hire a new mathematics librarian. The library serves 3 departments: Mathematics, Statistics, and Applied Mathematics and is still quite an active branch library. Once a new hire is official, she will let PAM know. Martha says, “I’ve been here since 1983 and have seen many, many advances in the world of mathematics librarianship. I have been a member of SLA-PAM since the 1980′s and treasure all the connections I have with PAM members. Like other retired PAM members, I will stay on PAMnet to keep up with you all. Thank you all for your friendship, expertise, advice, and support over the years.”

Linda Yamamoto, Librarian at Stanford University, was elected as Secretary of the SLA-Silicon Valley Chapter for 2012.

by Cunera Buys

The 2011-2012 PAM Membership Directory was mailed in March. Please contact me if you have any changes to your entry or did not receive your copy. A big thank you to the AMS for printing the PAM Membership Directory. It looks great and we appreciate their continued support on this project.

Remember to update your SLA membership information with any changes. Just go to http://www.sla.org/ and log in using your SLA user name and password. Click on “Update Your Information” under the Membership tab on the SLA home page and update your name or contact information.

I hope to see you all in Chicago.

PAM currently has about 200 members. Please join me in welcoming new PAM members since the last Bulletin.

Laurie Scott
Acting Head, Engineering & Science Library / Library Assessment Specialist
Queen’s University Engineering & Science Library
laurie.scott@queensu.ca

Mrudula Chirmule
National Chemical Laboratory
mp.chirmule@ncl.res.in

Beth Ayer
Web Editor
American Mathematical Society
eda@ams.org

by Ruth Kneale

The Newcomer’s Lunch, open to new Division members and also to those Division members attending Conference for the first time, will be Sunday July 15th from 11:30am to 1:00pm. We’ll be enjoying the culinary treats of the Russian Tea Room (www.russianteatime.com), across from the Art Institute. Transportation won’t be provided, so you’re on your own to get there, but it’s an easy 2.5 mile walk mostly along the lake shore, or grab the Metra from the Convention Center to within two blocks of the restaurant. (See http://g.co/maps/4knat for a map and various directions.)

Please RSVP to the Past-Chair, Ruth Kneale, at rkneale@nso.edu before June 29th. See you there!

by Willow Dressel

February:

1. SLA announced Ruth Kneale as a new Fellow. The people of PAMNet responded with many congratulations.
2. Jill Lagerstrom shared an article from the Library of Congress Gazette, featuring a donation from PAM’s Sally Bosken.
3. Dana Roth pointed to an article in Nature issue 481 titled ‘Database tallies US emissions’, that is based on the EPA Greenhouse Gas Data sets.
4. William Jacobs compiled responses for his inquiry about activities people are engaged in beyond the traditional science library duties. Results were posted on the Science-Technology division website.
5. Marsha Bishop reported that the IAU General Assembly, Working Group Libraries will meet in Beijing on Thursday and Friday, August 23rd and 24th. The program includes a panel discussion with scientists and librarians on the topic “The Need for Libraries in the Age of the Internet”. IOP, IEEE, and SPIE are helping to provide travel stipends.

March:

1. Rich Hunt pointed to the ACM Institutional Profile pages which compiles information about publishing based on ACM authors’ affiliations. Institutional Profile pages can be found in the course of a search of the Digital Library. To find a particular instution, go to the Advanced Search and search for the institution in the affiliation field. Click through to the article details and click on the link for the institution.
2. Bob Michaelson pointed to an essay in Inside Higher Education on problems with the publish or perish model and fake or low quality journals.

April:

1. Nature Publishing Group stopped accepting submissions to Nature Precedings as of April 3, 2012. Started in 2007, Nature Precedings is the Nature Publishing Group’s “preprint server for the Life Sciences community”. It is being cancelled due to unsustainability. Read the press release or get more information.
2. Bob Michaelson sent a link to an opinion piece “Reading Into the Future” by Richard Smith in the April 1, 2012 issue of The Scientist about scientific journals and pre-publication peer review.

by Julie Arendt

We are currently soliciting speakers for PAM’s Vendor Update session at SLA 2012 in Chicago. See the details below for what we are looking for:

Time: Tuesday, July 17 from 8:00-9:30am.

Format: Breakfast session, sponsored by SIAM. Lecture-style with open Q&A. Presentation equipment will include a presentation screen and a computer with Windows OS for presentations.

Presentation length: Each vendor will present for around 15-20 minutes in length, but that depends on the final number of speakers and making sure to allow plenty of time for questions.

Theme & Topics: SLA 2012’s conference theme is: “Practicing Agility in an Open World Economy”. To this end, we have had several narrower topics submitted by librarians, the major two being:

Access: Practical journal access issues surrounding DRM, eBooks, and “pay-per-view” journal content

Changes in the publishing industry: such as company mergers, changes in products, the changing costs of publishing, and the cost of Open Access

We would like the speakers to speak on what changes have been happening at your company, and how your company is remaining agile in response to changes in publishing models and demands for access

Speakers: If you are a vendor with something to say about these topics, please contact the moderators, Julie Arendt (jarendt@lib.siu.edu) or Kim Hukill (khukill@aip.org).

by Zari Kamerei

This year the PAM Wide Roundtable will be on July 16th from 10:00 to 11:30 am (1.5 hours). We will have a totally traditional roundtable! You will be talking about your institutions, cool projects, budget woes and whatever professional news that will help your colleagues in their institutions to move forward. We will limit ourselves by subjects. PAM members have shown interest in the following topics so far:

1- Data Management
2- Public Policy issues
3- Professional Communication
4- Role of a ‘special library’ at your organization
5- Budget cuts and reorganizations

Please email me the topics that you think should be discussed in this roundtable. I look forward to your emails.

Zari Kamarei
Director of Science and Engineering Libraries
University of Rochester
zkamarei@library.rochester.edu.

by Kathleen Lehman & Michael Chesnes

Looking forward to gathering with your fellow PAM members at SLA 2012? So are we! And we are hoping that you make plans to join us for the Physics Roundtable discussion session to take place on July 17th from 2:00pm-3:30pm. Join us Tuesday afternoon to share your best practices and experiences while gathering ideas from your PAM colleagues. Everyone will have the opportunity to engage in small group discussions on two separate topics of their choice and hear summaries from the other groups. While we are still open to topic suggestions, currently scheduled topics are: Physics Library Instruction, Non-traditional Services, Institutional Repositories, Historical Exhibits, Faculty Interaction & Outreach, and Space Planning & Redesign. This session is being generously sponsored by The Optical Society (OSA).

If you have other ideas for topics, or just want to tell us how much you are looking forward to visiting Chicago, you are welcome to email us:

Kathleen Lehman, kalehman@uark.edu
Michael Chesnes, michaelchesnes@gmail.com

by Jane Holmquist & Andy Shimp

Math Roundtable Preview

The Mathematics Roundtable is scheduled to be held at the annual conference in Chicago on Wednesday, July 18 at 10am. We will devote this session to group discussion about topics of current interest such as collections issues, developments in math librarianship, non-traditional services, outreach and space planning. We are looking for your ideas as we plan this session. Please contact Jane Holmquist at jane@princeton.edu or Andy Shimp at andy.shimp@yale.edu.

Article on Author Rights

The March 2012 issue of Notices of the American Mathematical Society includes an article in the column “Scripta Manet” by Kristine Fowler entitled “Do Mathematicians Get the Author Rights They Want?” The article elaborates on the responses to a question in her recent survey of mathematical researchers’ views on current publishing issues. See http://www.ams.org/notices/201203/rtx120300436p.pdf.

Cornell University Library Digitizes Collection of Eugene Dynkin Interviews

The library has acquired an historic collection of interviews of mathematicians conducted by Eugene Dynkin, Cornell’s Emeritus A. R. Bullis Professor of Mathematics. Dynkin worked with the library to organize and digitize his collection of nearly 150 conversations spanning more than half a century, many of which are interviews with Russian mathematicians. They are available online at http://dynkincollection.library.cornell.edu. Through the American Mathematical Society, some funds were made available for the translation of Russian-language content. The library is seeking assistance to continue the process of making the collection accessible to researchers. Listeners can help by submitting lists of the topics covered in the interviews and translations or transcripts to rareref@cornell.edu. For additional information, see the Cornell University Library press release.

Mathematics Awareness Month

Did you know that April was Mathematics Awareness Month? The theme for 2012 was “Mathematics, Statistics, and the Data Deluge.” According to the MAM Website “Massive amounts of data are collected every day, often from services we use regularly, but never think about. Scientific data comes in massive amounts from sensor networks, astronomical instruments, biometric devices, etc., and needs to be sorted out and understood. Personal data from our Google searches, our Facebook or Twitter activities, our credit card purchases, our travel habits, and so on, are being mined to provide information and insight. These data sets provide great opportunities, and pose dangers as well.” A theme poster, essays and related materials are available from http://www.mathaware.org. Mathematics Awareness Month is sponsored each year by the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics.

by Margaret Lam

2012 SLA Conference: Astronomy Roundtable

The scheduled speakers for the Astronomy Roundtable at the SLA Conference this year are: Christopher Erdmann, John G. Wolbach Library, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Lance Utley, National Radio Astronomy Observatory; Donna Thompson, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Molly White, John M. Kuehne Physics Mathematics Astronomy Library.

The topics that will be discussed are the following: E-Science and Data Curation; Scholarly Communications Issues; Developments in Astronomy Librarianship; and an update on ADS.

The Astronomy Roundtable is scheduled to be from 7:30am-9:30am on Monday, July 16, 2012.

Hope to see you all there!

by Jill Postma

When you arrive at the Planetarium’s south entrance, we’ll check the weather. If it’s not cloudy, we’ll walk over to the Doane Observatory at the tip of the peninsula the museum sits on and look through a modern telescope at the sun with the astronomer on duty that day. If we’re lucky we’ll see sunspots.

After that, we’ll venture down into the depths of the museum and visit our underground Webster Institute for the Study of the History of Astronomy. One of our curators, Dr. Bruce Stephenson, will describe some of our favorite pieces from our collection of rare objects and books. Most of the rest of our staff will also be in attendance to answer questions and talk a little about what we get to do here.

Then, for a very different experience, we’ll go into the museum’s Space Visualization Laboratory and meet with Dr. Stuart Lynn, who will tell us about Zooniverse, our citizen science project. After playing on computers, you’ll be let loose to wander the rest of the museum, especially the “Telescopes : Through the Looking Glass” exhibit, which has our best rare telescopes and relevant rare texts (it’s my favorite exhibit because it has the most books in it!).

Lunch in the museum can be on your own. The cafe has the best view of the city at ground level.