Astronomy Roundtable I

A brief bulleted list of discussion topics that came up at the Astro RT I, moderated by Joe Murphy and Sara Russell Gonzales:

* DOI and page number issues and changes. Do we mind if page numbers go away? (Consensus seemed to be yes!) Lots of discussion about this one.

* Introductions around the room.

* A notice that the core lists of astronomy and physics books need to be updated.

* Anyone using PhysMathCentral? (Like biomed central.)

* A notice that the Yerkes Observatory library has been officially closed.

* Does anyone do chargeback or recovery fees to departments for information services provided by the library and/or staff? (Several places do.)

* Institutional repositories - is anyone putting in astronomer's data sets? (Brief mention of the NVO and VSO.)

* Poster sessions and topics.

Gold Digger's Ball

For more pics, see the SLA Blog entry... these are just my PAM-specific ones! What a blast - I think we should do this every year!

Thank You, PAM...

...for helping me make my session "Spectacles: How Pop Culture Views Librarians" such a success. You helped pack the room - we were SRO by halfway through! It's thanks to this division and your excellent support that I'm able to carry on like I do on the topic, and I really appreciate it. PAM Rocks!

Book Discussion Group

We had a lively discussion about the book, "Einstein's Enigma, or, Black Holes in my Bubble Bath", Tuesday night at the Colorado History Museum. While only three participants actually finished the book, their discussions and insights have prompted at least this reader to plan on finishing the book!

PAM Achievement Award Winner

Congratulations to Bob Michaelson for his PAM Achievement Award!

Its been a great conference, see you in the am, then in Seattle!

Hope to see many of you at the ebooks on Steroids panel way too soon, now!
Its been great out here, thanks to Joe for being an awesome host!
Here's some crazed human gliders (I prefer AN ENGINE!) on Lookout Mountain, as a goodbye.

Annual Business Meeting: PAM Really Rocks!

The business meeting this morning was an all around good meeting. Minutes of the past year were reviewed and approved, as was a proposed change to the governing document. The treasurer's report was also presented. (Details will appear here or on PAMnet later.) The PAM Award was presented to Bob Michaelson (more on that later, including photos), and after brief reports from various committee members and an update on the 2008 conference planning by Parker Ladwig, our illustrious chair Joe Kraus surprised many of the members with a thank-you certificate for division work throughout the year. These included pieces of fossilized dinosaur bone, and meteorite chips - as the saying went, "PAM Really Rocks!"

Thanks to APS for their sponsorship of our breakfast meeting.

PAMwide Roundtable Speakers

Thanks again to Zari Kamarei, Pat Viele, Donna Thompson, and Tony O'Roarke for speaking at the PAMwide Roundtable!

Networking Breakfast

Some photos from the Networking Breakfast:

PAM Early Bird Dinner

Some photos from the PAM Early Bird Dinner:

Synergy Session

I just attended the opening general synergy session with Eugenie Prime, Clifford Lynch and Stephen Abram... very energetic and enjoyable discussions about where we are as a profession, and where we are going. Questions ran the gamut from "how can we persuade business leaders that we are worth investing in?" to "how do we create the best user experience?", through questions about what is SLA going to do as an organization to support and promote librarians. The answers from the panelists were passionate and emphatic, and many of them looped back to the same basic answer: we need to have confidence and courage in ourselves, the strength to present that confidence when we provide results to our users, and the courage to present ourselves as necessary and important to our user community and upper management. There was also a lot of discussion about new technology tools and how we can take advantage of them, including the social networking aspect. Another common consensus was that we need to take ourselves to the users and not wait for them to come to us.

All in all a good way to start what promises to be a very busy day!

Newcomer's Luncheon

The Newcomer's Luncheon, held at the historic Brown Palace Hotel, was an enjoyable time with tasty food, good talk, an impromptu historical lecture on the hotel, and several first-timers dipping their toes into conference waters. Welcome to you all! We had some pictures taken - sadly the ones from my camera didn't turn out so well, you can see some dark and shady blobs behind the flags. (So much for the new camera's ability to take distant photos!) I hope one of the other folks who gave Dennis their cameras got better shots - we'll post 'em if we do! Thanks to Turpion for their sponsorship.

SLA Denver Wiki

The Rocky Mountain Chapter has their conference wiki up and running - be sure to check it out as you start planning for SLA 2007!