P-A-M BULLETIN

Proposals will be evaluated by SLA's Research Committee according to the research topic, methodology, qualifications of researchers, proposal presentation, budget and timetable.

Funded projects include the following:

1998 Understanding Users in Digital Environments: A Longitudinal Study of Genre Influences in Information Work, Andrew Dillon, School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University

1997 Using Information in the Virtual Office: How Special Libraries are Serving Telecommuters, Claire R. McInerney, College of St. Catherine

1996 Potential Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert System Technologies in the Special Library of the Future, F.W. Lancaster and Linda C. Smith, School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois

1995 The Impact of Electronic Publishing on Special Libraries, Carol Tenopir, School of Information Sciences, University of Tennessee, and Donald W. King, King Research

1994 Users' Choice of Filtering Methods for Electronic Text, Raya Fidel, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Washington, and Michael Crandall, Boeing Technical Libraries

1993 Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Quality of Service in Special Libraries, Marilyn White, Eileen Abels and Danuta Nitecki, College of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland

1992 A Research Study of Productivity,Usefulness and Value of Special Libraries, Donald W. King, King Research, and Jose-Marie Griffiths, School of Information Sciences, University of Tennessee

1991 The Impact of the Special Librarian on Corporate Decision Making, Joanne Marshall, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto.

Application materials are now available on the SLA website at www.sla.org/research/index.html, or via fax from SLA's toll-free fax-on-demand system at 1-888-411-2856 (items #1401-1406).

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

Please send nominations for the positions of PAM Chair-Elect and for Secretary to Greg Youngen, Physics/Astronomy Library, 204 Loomis Lab (MC-704), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801. (youngen@uiuc.edu)

The deadline for nominations is December 15, 1998.

The Chair-elect serves:

The Secretary serves for two years (June 1999 - June 2001) and is expected to attend the annual conference.

The Nominating Committee will present a slate in the February 1999 PAM Bulletin.

Membership News

Submitted by Sylvia Toombs, toombshs@slu.edu

PAM membership stands at 206 members. Michaelyn Haslam and I have been mailing out the 1998-1999 editions of the PAM membership directories. Most members should have received their copies by the time you read this message in the newsletter. If there are any changes that need to be made to your entry in the directory, please let me know so that these changes can be made for the next edition. The directory looks a little different from last year--the new SLA logo has been included on the cover; we hope you like it.

MEMBERSHIP CHANGES

Internet address correction:

Christopher Olson
olsonc@lhl.lib.mo.us

New members:

Borden, Lisa M.
University of Houston Libraries
Special Collections &Archives
6043 South Loop East
Houston, TX 77033-1041
Phone:(713)643-3563
Internet:lmborden@bayou.uh.edu
Mailing address:
1954 Winrock Blvd.; Apt. 222
Houston, TX 77057-3323

Hoover, Carol L.
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Research Library MS P362
PO Box 1663
Los Alamos, NM 87545
Phone:(505)667-3031
Internet:hoover@lanl.gov
Mailing address:
1348-b 42nd St.
Los Alamos, NM 87544

Leslie, Gretchen K.
Intel Corp.
Intel Library RA1-252
2501 NW 229th St.
Hillsboro, OR 97124
Phone:(503)613-6541
FAX: (503)613-7727
Internet:gretchen.k.leslie@intel.com

Neff, Judy C.
Sandia Natl. Laboratories
PO Box 5800 MS 1219
Albuquerque, NM 87185
Phone:(505)845-8386
Internet:jcneff@sandia.gov
Mailing address:
1024 Wade Cir. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87112-5247

Roe, Eunice M.
Binghamton University Libraries
Binghamton, NY 13902-6012
Phone:(607)777-4596
Mailing address:
3137 Briarcliff Ave.
Vestal, NY 13850-2859

Strife, Mary L.
West Virginia Univ.
Physical Science Library
PO Box 6470
Morgantown, WV 26506-6470
Phone:(304)293-3420
Internet:mstrife2@wvu.edu
Mailing address:
PO Box 4727
Star City, WV 26504-4727

Vazakas, Susan M.
Johns Hopkins University
Science & Engineering Library
3400 Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21218
Phone: (410)516-4153
Internet:svazakas@jhu.edu
Mailing address:
3714 Martins Dairy Ctr.
Olney, MD 20832-2454

Ward, Sandra N.
Mt. Holyoke College Library
Science Library
50 College St.
South Hadley, MA 01075-6404
Phone:(413)538-2095
FAX:(413)538-2370
Internet:sward@mtholyoke.edu

Inactivated Members:

Linda Arny, Amherst, Mass; Joan Dubis, Norwalk, CA; Isabel Ezquerra, Coral Gables, FL; Mary Ann Hager, Houston, TX; Mary Jo D. Hendricks, Charlottesville, VA; Janice M. Jaguszewski, Minneapolis, MN; Sheryl L Joiner, Mission Viejo, CA; Nancy D. Kackley, Cambridge, MA; Christina L. Keil, San Diego, CA; Linette Koren, Philadelphia, PA; Phillip A. Lofaso, New York, NY; Gary Lance Lugar, Pittsburgh, PA; Peggy V. Markham, Greensboro, NC; Ralph McElroy, Austin, TX; Linda L. Morris, Canoga Park, CA; Jayashri Nagaraja, New York, NY; Madeleine M. Needles, Chelmsford, MA; Evelyn Constance Powell, Lawrence, KS; A.Kathleen Robertson, Kailua, HI; Juannna Gee Shin, Fremont, CA; Ruth A. Sill, Carrboro, NC; Bruce A. Style, Upton, NY; Julia H. Triplehorn, Fairbanks, AK; Cathaleen Van Atta, Tucson, AZ; Richard W. Vierich, Riverside, CA

ASTRONOMY NEWS

Compiled by Emily Poworoznek, emily.poworoznek@unh.edu

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARIBIB, the ARI Bibliographic Data Base for Astronomical References, is being made freely available on the Internet to subscribers of the printed bibliography Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts (A&AA). ARIBIB does not include abstracts, although it is based on A&AA. Currently, it is available for an introductory period to any interested person, without registration, through the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut Heidelberg Web site: http://www.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/aribib Registration instructions for institutional subscribers are also available on the site.

SIMBAD - In cooperation with the Centre de Donnies astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS), a U.S. mirror site for SIMBAD (Set of Identifications, Measurements, and Bibliography for Astronomical Data) has been set up at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: http://simbad.harvard.edu

ADS - The Astrophysical Data System (http://wwwads.harvard.edu) has added Acta Astronomica, 1992-1997, and the Journal of the British Astronomical Association, 1981-1997, to its scanned journals.

JOURNALS

Astrophysical Journal and ApJ Supplement - Some librarians reported difficulties with print subscription fulfillment this year. If you need to resolve a problem with your institution's subscription, please contact: Patricia Scarry, Associate Journals Manager for University of Chicago Press, phone 773.702.7359, fax 773.753.0811, e-mail pscarry@journals.uchicago.edu

Electronic access to Astronomical Journal, Astrophysical Journal, and Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific should now be available to registered institutional subscribers. Registration forms were mailed to subscribers from the University of Chicago Press earlier this year. To check whether your institution has been registered, see the list of registrants for each respective publication:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJ/AJ-reg-list.html

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/ApJ-reg-list.html

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/PASP/PASP/PASP-reg-list.html

If your institution registered, but is not listed, please send e-mail to help@www.journals.uchicago.edu

Journals included in LINK, Springer-Verlag's full online journal program, are currently available to print journal subscribers at no extra charge, through 1999. Registration is required; institutional access is controlled by IP address. For more information and online registration, see the LINK home page at http://link.springer-ny.com

SERIES

Errors in some recent volumes of the ASP (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) Conference Series, noted on ASTROLIB, have prompted the ASP to ask that requests for replacements of defective copies be e-mailed to pasp@astro.byu.edu

A note from David Bigwood: the Lunar & Planetary Institute will no longer publish its Technical Report series. However, all reports that would have been included in that series will now be published as part of LPI's Contribution series.

WEB SITES

IAU (new address): http://www.iau.org

IAU Commission 5 (under construction): http://nut.inasan.rssi.ru/IAU/

LISA III (Library & Information Services in Astronomy III) proceedings:

http://www.eso.org/libraries/lisa3

Mirror site: http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/meetings/lisa3

The printed proceedings will be published as vol. 153 of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series.

LISA III photos: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/library/lisa3/lisa3photos.html

CATALOGING

PURLs for astronomy publications - David Bigwood of LPI (bigwood@lpi.jsc.nasa.gov) is interested in hearing from anyone who is using PURLs (Persistent Uniform Resource Locators) and/or setting up group

access for astronomy links. More information about PURLs is available at http://purl.oclc.org

LICENSE SOFTWARE

The LIBLICENSE Project, directed by Ann Okerson, has developed software to assist those who wish to create, revise, adapt, or store digital information licenses. It is free, and is available for downloading, with installation instructions, a readme file, help files, and a FAQ file at: http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/software/shtml. Comments and questions are welcomed (see FAQ for contact information).

LIBRARIANS ASSIST THE ASTROPHYSICS DATA SYSTEM (ADS)

Several libraries volunteered to photocopy the title page and tables of contents of several astronomy series for inclusion in the database of the ADS. Donna Cromer at the University of New Mexico had students copy all of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Symposia, and Brenda Corbin at the U.S. Naval Observatory had a student copy all of the IAU Colloquia. Sarah Stevens-Rayburn (Space Telescope Science Institute) and Ellen Bouton (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) will supply information for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series starting with the 1998 volumes. Carolyn Stern Grant of the ADS says they hope to have all of these series scanned and in the database by January 1999. Having bibliographical data in the ADS for these important series will be very useful for both astronomers and librarians.

GLOBAL 2000

WORLDWIDE CONFERENCE ON SPECIAL LIBRARIANSHIP

OCTOBER 16-19, 2000 IN BRIGHTON, ENGLAND

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) will host hundreds of information professionals from all over the world at Global 2000 -- Worldwide Conference on Special Librarianship. The meeting, complete with exhibit hall and continuing education opportunities, will be held in Brighton, England. The theme of the conference is "The Information Age: Challenges and Opportunities." Dates for the meeting are October 16-19, 2000.

Global 2000's mission is to support and encourage interaction and networking among information professionals from around the world. "Networking opportunities, such as this, are critical components in the global evolution of the information professional as well as in the growth and strengthening of ones own competencies," said David R. Bender, Ph.D., SLA's executive director.

The issues and developments shaping the information industry transcend country borders. Copyright infringement, the role of the Internet in information distribution, and rising journal

costs all affect information professionals across the globe. Attendees will have the opportunity to play a part in discussions on issues that have global implications and will help to shape the future of the information industry.

This meeting is specifically targeted to an international audience and will be smaller and more focused in content and scope than SLA's Annual Conference. Global 2000 will not replace the 91st Annual Conference which will be held four months prior, June 10-15, 2000, in Philadelphia, PA, USA.

1998 PAM DIVISION SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS

Submitted by Karen S. Croneis, kcroneis@library.wustl.edu

Compiled by the 1997/98 Strategic Planning Committee: Antoinette Beiser, Karen Croneis (chair), Gary Davidoff, Dorothy Mc Garry, and Robert Michaelson.

This report highlights selected results from the February 1998 survey of PAM members and friends conducted by the 1997/98 Strategic Planning Committee. The 1998/99 Committee is conducting further analysis of the data for use in drafting a strategic plan for the PAM Division. A slightly edited version of this report is available at

http://library.wustl.edu./~kcroneis/pamkey.html

Please direct questions about the survey, the survey results, and the work on the strategic plan to Karen Croneis at kcroneis@library.wustl.edu.

PART I -- Methodology and Response Rate

In February 1998, the PAM Strategic Planning Committee mailed surveys to 214 PAM members. Of that number,

142 returned a completed survey (66%)
9 declined to participate (4%)
64 did not respond (30%).

The 70% response rate from the PAM membership is terrific! Thanks to everyone who replied.

The survey also appeared on PAMNet. Friends of PAM returned a total of 12 surveys:

2 from members of SLA but not of PAM, and
10 from those who are not members of either SLA or PAM.

Of the 154 surveys returned by members and friends,
16 were faxed (10.4%)
96 were sent via the post office (62.3%)
42 were emailed (27.3%).

PART 2 -- Selected Results

1. Leadership Role in PAM

Nearly half (49%) of PAM members responding (69/142) either have or have had a leadership role in the Division (as an officer, roundtable facilitator, committee chair/member, with the Bulletin or PAMNet or PAM Web Site).

Twenty-four (24) members said they were not involved in leadership because they were new, haven't been asked, or don't know what was involved. (Lots of leadership potential!)

2. Conference Goers

80% of PAM members (104/142) reported attending at least one SLA Annual Conference in the past three years.

3. Ratings of Conference Programs

Note: Ratings for all conference programs were compiled for this question. For detailed information on the programs and their individual ratings, please go to the 1998 PAM Survey Results at http://library.wustl.edu/~kcroneis/pamrslt.html.

Rating Per Cent
Great 27%
Good 59%
Great+Good 86%
So-So 14%
Poor 1%

4. Open Houses

Of those expressing a preference, 63% (55/88) preferred having 2 (two) open houses during the Annual Conference.

Most respondents (43) said they were flexible regarding nights open houses are held.

Sunday (40 replies) and Monday (25 replies) were favored by those indicating a specific night.

5. Evaluations of PAM Services

Service Great Good Marginal Poor # Replies

PAMNet 67% 30% 3% 0% 138
PAM Web Site 21% 65% 13% 1% 106
Bulletin-Print 34% 55% 12% 0% 124
Bulletin-Online 42% 48% 10% 1% 84

6. PAM Practices

A. Conference Open House Expenditures

Is it preferable to spend the money we're currently expending for 3 open houses at the Annual Conference in another way? (106 replies)

Definitely NO (i.e., keep spending money on 3 open houses) - 36%
Definitely YES (i.e., spend money on something else) - 32%
Possibly reduce number of open houses to reduce expenditures - 21%
Not sure/don't know - 11%

B. Print and Electronic Versions of the PAM Bulletin

Is it preferable to have both print and electronic editions of the PAM Bulletin? (133 replies)

Need both/retain both until everyone has electronic access - 74%
Electronic only/Electronic OK - 25%
Print only - 2%

7. As a librarian/information professional, what are the biggest challenges facing you today?

"Keeping up" (60 mentions)
Budgets/Costs of Journals (49)
Time Pressures and Setting Priorities (individual) (30)
User-related Issues (30)
Electronic Environment With Options and Choices (28)
Dealing with Hierarchy and Management Expectations (13)
Keeping Skills Current/Professional Development (13)
Change and Changing Roles (12)
Management/Supervisory Issues and Concerns (7)
Miscellaneous (7)
Space and Facilities Issues (5)
Finding/Keeping a Job (2)
Automation/Migration in My Own Library (2)

8. What can the PAM Division do to help you meet those challenges?

Have Dynamic Programming at Annual Conference (35)
Communicate Information about Resources and Services (23)
Communications with Vendors and Publishers (23)
Continue PAMnet (22)
Continuing Education (13)
Networking/Information Sharing (13)
Don't know/not sure (12)
Continue PAM Web Site (7)
Doing A Good Job; Keep It Up (6)
Collaborate/Work with Others (6)
Mentoring (5)
Initiatives to Deal with Journal Situation (5)
Miscellaneous (5)

9. Possible Activities of the PAM Division

NOTE: In the table below the first column reflects the total number of times the activity was checked or ranked, regardless of the specific ranking. The second column (Ave.) is the weighted average of ranks 1-5 only.

Checked Wgt.Ave. Reply

118 1.89 Increase communications and networking among members
106 2.45 Plan focused dynamic programming at the Annual Conference
109 2.81 Strengthen liaison relationships with vendors, publishers, etc.
90 3.48 Sponsor continuing education courses
83 3.16 Provide mentoring in the subject areas of the Division
48 3.81 Represent members at Association Cabinet and other SLA meetings
41 3.83 Recruit new members to the division
39 3.96 Encourage library/information science students to work in physics-astronomy-mathematics organizations
39 3.30 Increase participation of international members
42 3.54 Provide leadership training for members

* Other

PAM - 8 responses
All PAM members, including minorities, should be given the chance to be officers -- 1
Regular updates on astronomical database awareness -- 1
Sponsor PAM-relevant research -- 1
Represent members on a political level -- 1
Encourage mentoring -- 1
PAM Division services such as the Union List and the Astronomy Thesaurus -- 1
Provide means of professional development via committees -- 1
Provide current professional news via PAMnet, Bulletin, etc. -- 1
Friends - 2 responses
Offer continuing education courses at conferences -- 1
Reviews or announcements of Web resources -- 1

For complete survey results, go to 1998 PAM Survey Results at http://library.wustl.edu/~kcroneis/pamrslt.html.

To see the original survey, go to 1998 PAM Survey (http://library.wustl.edu/~kcroneis/pamsurv.html).

For more information about PAM, go to PAM Division Web Site at http://pantheon.yale.edu/~dstern/pamtop.html.

PAMNET NEWS

Submitted by Catherine Candee, ccandee@sulmail.stanford.edu

Archiving of Electronic Journals

The American Physical Society announced the launch of Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA) to rave reviews. PROLA at http://prola.aps.org makes available online all of Physical Review from 1985-1996. It is available as a beta level service until January 1, 1999 at which time it will become a subscription based service. Mark Doyle of APS hopes to see widespread linking to the journals, but he urged that everyone first read the instructions at http://publish.aps.org/linkfaq.html

Speaking of Archives

American Institute of Physics (AIP) made public its policy on Archiving and Use of AIP Electronic Information. In short, AIP pledges to maintain an archive of all electronic information it publishes, and will allow access to it for all active subscribers. For lapsed subscribers, "AIP will make available a physical archive copy of information covering a specific subscription term" and notes the inherent limitations in such an unlinked copy. Bob Michaelson passed the word along and urged librarians to respond to the AIP with comments on the policy. See http://www.aip.org/journals/archive

Peter Boyce argued that-in Astronomy-electronic versions are diverging from print versions of the journals, and predicts that in a year, saving the paper will not be considered an adequate archival strategy. Based on his experience with the astronomical information system, "much of which is now seamlessly integrated so that backward references, future citations, searchable abstracts, and massive data files on astronomical objects are seamlessly linked into a working, distributed data system," Peter identifies the archival problem as one of "maintaining the whole system -- and this requires cooperation among all the information providers."

...and Access

Gary Davidoff took issue with the restrictions in the licensing agreement for Physica Scripta and the Topical Issues, i.e., an apparent limit of only five C level IP addresses per agreement. He noted the inefficiency of requiring scientists at large sites to travel to libraries and laboratories to use specific computers--a situation not unlike the current one. He also noted the unlikeness of more than one person connecting to any one journal at one time, and appealed to the publisher for site-wide access.

...and Archives, Access, and Prices

Michael Spinella clarified the AAAS policy on archiving of and access to Science Online. He explained that all Science Online subscribers have access to the full archive of Science articles online (back to October 1995). But he also confirmed that dropping a subscription would entail loss of access to all issues, even the issues published during the licensing term. Their recommendation is to retain print as a temporary solution, though he notes, in defense of the added cost for it, that Science Online provides benefits that cannot be replicated by the paper subscription. Four other reasons were cited for the access charges to Science Online: fewer buyers, fewer advertisers, R&D costs for creation of Science Online, and library subscription losses.

John Taylor of the Royal Society responded to Gary Davidoff's plea for direct access to Royal Society journals, unmediated by aggregators. The Royal Society's scale of output does not warrant the resources that would be involved in providing electronic access to their journals via their own server, but they have lowered their prices to reflect the additional charges which will be incurred by libraries who are not clients of Blackwell's, Swets, or EBSCO, the three agencies providing free access to Royal Society online journals.

Walter de Gruyter announced the availability of three online math titles which, according to Hal Zabin at de Gruyter, are free through 1998. Zabin advised that de Gruyter is contemplating a 25% surcharge for online access beginning in 1999 and asked for feedback. Richard Funkhouser and Martha Tucker registered their dismay at the additional expense and called it a significant enough barrier to keep them from subscribing to the dual versions.

...and Links

IOP announced its new STACKS service which allows users and other publishers to embed hyperlinks in their own records or citations to IOP Electronic Journals Service. IOP builds the data sets for you, with tables of contents of your choice (including those you don't subscribe to) for the full archive of IOP journals. More information is available at: http://www.iop.org/STACKS/faq.html

Regarding access to MNRAS via ADS, links from ADS to Monthly Notices letters are indeed live and free and, according to Blackwell, soon all of the journal articles will be free through ADS.

An agreement has been established between EDP Sciences and the American Physical Society to link the electronic versions of their journals. Starting January 1999 and upgrading gradually, the references published in The European Physical Journal and Physical Review will include hyperlinks to the articles referred to.

A Computing Research Repository

Through a partnership of ACM, the Los Alamos e-Print archive, and NCSTRL (Networked Computer Science Technical Reference Library), an online Computing Research Repository (CoRR) is being established. The Repository has been integrated into the collection of over 20,000 computer science research reports and other material available through NCSTRL (http://www.ncstrl.org) and will be linked with the ACM Digital Library. The Repository will be available to all members of the community at no charge.

For more details, see http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/cs/intro.html for information on how to submit documents, browse, search, and subscribe to get notification of new articles of interest. See http://www.acm.org/repository for a more detailed description of CoRR.

SLA Dues Increase

After it was determined that PAMnet was indeed an appropriate forum for discussion of the proposed SLA dues increase, a lively debate ensued. The primary rationale for the increase was the falling, relatively low, percentage of revenue generated by membership dues. Bob Michaelson suggested reducing other fees to compensate for increased dues. Rob Atkinson went a step further and recommended reducing overall costs by moving the headquarters from Washington DC.

Scott Smiley wrote a lengthy response to Bob Michaelson's suggestion, noting that: SLA has built a world class program over the past few years without new revenue sources, but by reducing costs at headquarters; and that the Association is poised to fulfill its strategic objective to provide cutting-edge programs and services to its members at affordable rates, but it cannot do so without an increase in revenue. His message of August 17, 1998, which included part of the long range Financial Plan, can be read in full in the PAMnet Archives at http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind9808&L=pamnet

Articles Noted

Duda, Andrea L., Rosemary L. Meszaros, and James W. Markham. "A Month in the Life of a Mailing List: Communication Among Science and Technology Librarians". Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship 15 (Summer 1997).Also at http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/97-summer/article1.html

Gardner, William and Rosenbaum, Joseph. "Database Protection and Access to Information". Science 281:786-7877 (August 1998). Also available on the Web at: http://intl.sciencemag.org/content/vol281/issue5378/

Kiernan, Vincent. "Paying by the Article: Libraries Test a New Model for Scholarly Journals". The Chronicle of Higher Education (August 14, 1998). Also at: http://chronicle.com/data/articles.dir/eguid-44.dir/49eguide.htm

Mackenzie, Dana. "Computer Science: New Language Could Meld the Web into a Seamless Database". Science 280:1840-1841 (June 19, 1998). Also available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/280/5371/1840

Wiggins, Richard and Judith A. Matthews. "Infonortics '98 Search Engines Conference". Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals 6:6 p.16 (June 1998). Also available at http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jun/story4.htm

Walker, Thomas J. "Free Internet access to traditional journals". American Scientist 86:5 pp.463-71 (Sep-Oct 1998). Also available at: http://www.sigmaxi.org/amsci/amsci.html

Internet Sites Noted

LISA III (Library and Information Services in Astronomy III) proceedings are now available: http://www.eso.org/libraries/lisa3/ A mirror site is kept in the US at http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/meetings/lisa3/

Check out the links from the International Astronomy Meetings list to the Table of Contents of many online proceedings available through ADS: http://cadcwww.dao.nrc.ca/meetings/meetings.html

INFOMINE: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections ...links to over 14,000 Internet/Web resources at http://lib-www.ucr.edu/

An e-forum, prompted by recent articles on e-journals in American Scientist, is available at: http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/September-forum.html

The Science & Engineering Library at UC San Diego announced the "Web Based Patent Searching Tutorial" available at: http://scilib.ucsd.edu/subjectdir/patents.html

The Provost of the California Institute of Technology has proposed a radical plan to give universities and their faculty members more control over scholarship output. http://chronicle.com/infotech

NextWave, a resource from the AAAS, had a feature on library and information science - a field crying out for people with a science background! http://www.nextwave.org

The Copyright & New Media Law Newsletter, an international print newsletter for libraries, museums and archives, with email alerts between issues. Subscribers also get the free electronic newsletter: Copyright & New Media Legal News. See http://copyrightlaws.com or email libraries@copyrightlaws.com

November 1998 Conference: Alternative Models for Scholarly Publishing in Higher Education http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/LAUC/Conference

Proceedings of the 1997 Telescope Mirror Coating and Cleaning Conference abstracts available at: http://ww.cfht.hawaii.edu/Reference/Bulletin/Bull39

Interesting reading in ARL's October newsletter, a special issue on journals, available at: http://www.arl.org/newsltr/200/200toc.html

Issues in Science and Technology Librarianshipis available at: http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/

Suggested Web link checkers: Mind-it, a free Internet Change Detection Server, at: http://www.netmind.com/html/url-minder.html

Also, try Netmechanic at: http://webreference.com/services/validation/link.htm

The Librarian's Yellow Pages are on the web: http://www.LibrariansYellowPages.com

WIRED WEST: Web Journal of the SLA WCC http://www.sla.org/chapter/cwcn/wwest/

Duplicates Exchange Database http://www.acusd.edu/~scawsey/cgi/Database_manager/db_manager.cgi

The revised list of cancelled journal titles is on the PAM web site at: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~dstern/alphacan.html

Near Earth Asteroids

Submitted by James Struck, jstruck@roosevelt.edu

Since the earth moves in so many ways--around the sun and earth's axis, with the solar system around the galaxy and with the galaxy around the universe, there are many objects scientists have to keep track of to ensure that mankind does not get killed off like some earlier species. I examine in this brief note retrieval of articles about a type of object that might hit the earth-asteroids. I admit that plasma, nebulae, and maybe even dark matter might also impact the earth, but I choose to focus here on asteroids. I searched a few of the databases at a public library-Evanston Public Library-near Chicago and a few databases at Northwestern University's Science and Engineering Library to see how many hits would be found with the search term "asteroids" and then with the search term " near earth asteroids." This brief note then is a study of retrieval not precision. I did not determine what databases had the best hits only how many hits were retrieved with the two search terms. What follows is a list of how many hits I found in the two libraries.

Evanston Public Library

1. Evanston Public Library Catalog

Asteroids-20 hits, 1 pictoral book
Near earth asteroids-near death came up

2. Infotrac General Reference Center Gold 1994-July 1998

Asteroids-198 hits, 6 encyclopedic, 13 reference, 18 newspaper, 138 periodical, subdivisions 23, related hits 2
Near earth asteroids- no subject hits, 5 keyword hits

3. General Reference Center Backfile

Asteroids-402 hits, 33 subdivisions, 2 related subjects
Near earth asteroids-8 keyword hits

4. Books in Print

asteroids-80 hits
near earth asteroids- no record found

5. ERIC

asteroids- no record found
near earth asteroids- no record found

6. Illinet Online

Asteroids-166
Near earth asteroids- no records found

It should be said here that there was no sign of a lessening of publications after the onset of the web/internet. Rather 1998 had 2 hits, 1997 had 11, 1996 had 13, 1995 had 8, 1994 had 11, 1993 had 6, 1992 had 6, 1991 had 9, 1990 had 5, 1989 had 8, 1988 had 10, 1987 had 3, 1986 had 5 and so on. There is no clear evidence that after the internet and web onset, publications on asteroids declined.

7. LUIS/UIC

asteroids-36 entries
near earth asteroids- said search also under asteroids collisions with earth and near earth asteroids report of the near earth objects working group 1995

8 Wilson General Science Index

Asteroids-695 hits
near earth asteroids-subject and textword 23 hits

Northwestern Science and Engineering Library

1. NUCAT- Northwestern University's Online Catalog

asteroids-76 hits
near earth asteroids- 5 hits

2. Lycos search engine

search engine does not yield number of hits but there were hits under both asteroids and near earth asteroids

3. Alta Vista

asteroids-82,130
near earth asteroids-8,529

4. Netscape and Excite search engines yielded the same number of hits

asteroids-13, 361
near earth asteroids-2,880

5. Infoseek

asteroids- 24,877
near earth asteroids-235

6. Look Smart search engine

asteroids-8 hits
near earth asteroids-6 hits

7. Wilson Select Full Text

asteroids-145 hits
near earth asteroids-12 hits

8. Applied Science and Technology Index

asteroids-204
near earth asteroids-14

9. General Science Abstracts

asteroids-562
near earth asteroids-5

10. Dissertation Abstracts International Jan 97- June 1998

asteroids-24
near earth asteroids-3

11. Index to Theses

asteroids-10
near earth asteroids-2

12. MathSci Database

asteroids-117
near earth asteroids- said "forbidden entry"

13. Science Citation Index Jan 96- Dec 96

Asteroids-64
near earth asteroids-10

14. Science Citation Index- Jan 97- Dec 97

asteroids-58
near earth asteroids-5

15. Web of Science

asteroids-1289
near earth asteroids- could not understand query

16. Expanded Academic Index

asteroids-748 hits, 39 subdivisions, 2 related subjects
near earth asteroids-31

17. Compendex Jan 87-May 98

asteroids-107
near earth asteroids-13

18. INSPEC Jan 69-May 98

Asteroids-4,681
near earth asteroids-195

I could not find the PHYS database at Northwestern University which was compared to INSPEC by David Stern then of UIUC Astronomy and Physics Library.

Still, one can see that there is a lot of information about asteroids, but not as much about near earth asteroids. Using precise search terms appears to limit yield. Still, with the search engines, yield remains high even with limitation to near earth asteroids. My hope is that someone reading this data will be able to help astronomical institutions like Jet Propulsion Laboratory-which was recently funded for a new office devoted to asteroid research.

Someone may be able to suggest I should look further at yield with regard to specific asteroids like Mathilde or Vesta. Someone may also note that this examination of retrieval is worthless without some examination of precision of hits. I would argue, however, that some things were learned like that some databases did not recognize the term near earth asteroid.

James T. Struck works part-time as a reference librarian at Roosevelt University, a library assistant at the IIIT Information Center and Northwestern's Galter Health Sciences Library, and a volunteer library assistant at the Adler Planetarium Library

SLA'S WINTER EDUCATION CONFERENCE AND THE NEW MILLENIUM

Special librarians and information professionals will soon gather to participate in the Special Libraries Association's (SLA) Winter Education Conference, Crossing the Bridge to the 21st Century. The three-day event, to be held January 24-26, 1999, in San Francisco, CA, will highlight on the latest technology trends confronting the information profession through workshops, continuing education courses and a technology fair.

Larry Bowden, Director of Content Management at IBM Corporation, is the featured speaker at the Ron Coplen Leadership Address and Breakfast that opens the conference on Sunday, January 24, 1999. His presentation focuses on how content will be managed into the 21st century and the tools and technologies that will support this evolution.

Offered annually, the three-day conference includes a variety of workshops, full-day CE courses, and exhibits and demonstrations of the latest products and services designed to enhance the success of information centers. Three new hands-on workshops developed for this year's conference include:

*Creating Your Own Home Page Using HTML;
*Advanced HTML; and
*Best Business Resources on the Internet.

Courses will focus on areas such as Intranets, knowledge management, electronic copyright, and training users. In addition, the Technology and Applications unit of the Management Competencies Institute (formerly Middle Management Institute) will be presented.

Conference registration includes: Ron Coplen Address and Breakfast, two workshops, one CE course, admission to the Technology Fair, and more. Cost for SLA members before December 31, 1998 is $410 (USD); nonmembers $460 (USD). For additional information, interested participants may contact SLA's Professional Development Department at profdev@sla.org, or by calling 1-202-234-4700, ext. 649.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Special Libraries Association (SLA) is the international association representing the interests of nearly 15,000 information professionals in 60 countries. Special librarians are information resource experts who collect, analyze, evaluate, package and disseminate information to facilitate accurate decision-making in corporate, academic, and government settings. The Association offers myriad programs and services designed to help its members serve their customers more effectively and succeed in an increasingly challenging environment of information management and technology. SLA has been committed to the professional growth and success of its membership for almost 90 years.

Message from the Editor

The PAM Bulletin is published by the Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics Division of the Special Libraries Association. The Bulletin is issued four times a year: August, November, February and May. The Bulletin is also available at

http://ucs.orst.edu/~kristicl/pambull.

Articles should be submitted in ASCII format (preferred) to the Bulletin Editor:

Laurel Kristick
Oregon State University
121 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR 97333
(541) 737-7276
laurel.kristick@orst.edu

Deadline for Next Issue:

January 15, 1998

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University of Manitoba
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