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Inside ASIS&T, April 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Lydia S. Middleton, MBA, CAE

Dear colleagues,

Greetings from Washington where the cherry blossoms have given way to dogwoods, and the tulips and daffodils are almost done blooming.

I am happy to report that this is been a productive and exciting spring here at ASIST Central. The rewards process is well underway, and we anticipate announcing award winners in early June. We have had many nominations for our various honors, and are looking forward to celebrating our colleagues when we meet in Melbourne in October. Thanks to the many volunteers who are serving as jury members to evaluate the outstanding nominations that we have received. This is a significant undertaking and we very much appreciate their time and talents.

The call for papers for the 2019 annual meeting in Melbourne close last week. I am delighted to report that we had some 200 proposals for both long and short papers, and work is now underway to review the submissions and give timely feedback to the submitters. I am optimistic that the significant demonstration of interest in presenting at the 2019 meeting suggests that attendance in Melbourne will be strong and diverse. The next deadline for submissions is for panels, and those are due on 28 May. We strongly encourage panels that feature perspectives from around the globe, and particularly those from the Asia-Pacific region. If you are in need of ideas for people to contact in the region, don’t hesitate to get in touch with ASIST staff. We are happy to help make those connections for you.

As Elaine has reported her column, the Board of Directors had a very productive and engaged meeting in College Park following the iConference earlier this month. This was the first opportunity in my tenure that the Board has had to really step back and think about how we can provide meaningful and tangible resources and benefits to you as members. A next step in this process will be a member survey that will be shared soon with all of you. We hope to glean useful insights into the wants and needs of our membership through this instrument and encourage you to take the time to give us detail and thoughtful feedback in the survey. The more we can understand about the challenges you face and how we might assist in addressing them, the better we can tailor your membership experience.

I’m happy to report that we received meaningful feedback on the draft revised Constitution & Bylaws that were shared with the membership in January. The open comment period ran from January until 1 April. The feedback we received has been compiled and shared with the Board of Directors who will be giving their feedback and determining what recommendations will be incorporated the final version of the final revised Constitution & Bylaws. Those recommendations that the Board decides not to incorporate into the final revised bylaws will be addressed in a future column in this publication. We anticipate putting the final revised Constitution & Bylaws out for a vote in conjunction with the Board election which will take place in early to mid-June.

As you will see elsewhere in this publication, the call for nominations for the ASIST Board of Directors has been opened. We are seeking nominations for President-Elect, Treasurer, and Director-at-Large. The Board recently approved job descriptions for all officer and at-large positions, and we encourage interested candidates to review those job descriptions carefully to ensure that you are qualified for the position and able to assume the responsibilities thereof. We are optimistic that we will receive a significant number of nominations from around the globe and will are particularly hopeful that those nominations will represent the diversity of geography, profession, and thought that is represented within our membership. Anyone seeking more information on being a member of the ASIST board is welcome to contact me at lmiddleton@asist.org.

As always, we at ASIST Central are here to serve you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know how we can be of assistance. I look forward to seeing many of you in Melbourne in October and hearing from many of you over the course of the next few months.

Warm regards, Lydia

 

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GOVERNANCE UPDATE

The Board of Directors met on April 4 and 5 in College Park, MD. In attendance were Elaine Toms (President); Lisa Given (Past President); Clara Chu (President-Elect); June Abbas (Treasurer); Dania Bilal; Sarah Buchanan; Timothy Dickey; Emily Knox; Agnes Mainka; Heather O’Brien; Soo Young Rieh; Lydia Middleton (Executive Director); and Steve Hardin (Parliamentarian). The two-day meeting was divided into strategic discussion on day 1 and the morning of day 2, and a Business Meeting on the afternoon of day 2. The following describes the discussion and outcomes of the Business Meeting.

The agenda included the following items:

  • Consent Agenda
    • Draft Minutes of January 31, 2019 Meeting
    • Executive Committee Meeting Minutes of February 21 and March 21
    • Executive Director’s Report
    • Committee Reports
    • Financial Statement as of 12/31/18
  • President-Elect Report
  • FY20 Budget
  • Board Job Descriptions
  • Committee Action Items

The following issues were discussed and/or decided:

CONSENT AGENDA

The minutes of the January 31, 2019 meeting of the Board were approved without amendment.

PRESIDENT-ELECT REPORT

Clara Chu reported that she has identified co-chairs for the 2020 Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh. Further, she proposes the theme, “Information for a Sustainable World: Addressing Society’s Grand Challenges.” She noted that this theme will focus on the UN poverty goals. She would like to launch it with a workshop in Melbourne at the 2019 meeting to get people thinking about these issues and starting to discuss them.

PRELIMINARY DRAFT BUDGET

The Board then discussed the fiscal year 2020 draft budget. In light of a budget deficit resulting from a reduction in revenue that came as a result of the loss of the IA Summit in EuroIA Summit, the Board was very conscious that it should focus both on revenue generation and reduction in expenses. After much discussion, the Board agreed that it did not yet have adequate information to make a final decision on the proposed budget, and requested that additional detail be provided on some of the revenue and expense items. The revised budget will be presented to the Board in advance of its June 2019 meeting.

BOARD JOB DESCRIPTIONS

The Board reviewed five job descriptions developed to provide guidance to the Nominations Committee as they identify an appropriate slate of nominees for the 2019 Board elections. These job descriptions are intended to supplement those eligibility criteria designated in the bylaws for Board service. All five job descriptions were approved as written. The job description can be found here.

COMMITTEE UPDATES

The board reviewed those items that the ASIS&T standing committees had sent forward to the board for consideration through their report process. The most significant of these were proposed revisions to the History Committee Terms of Reference. The Board discussed the possibility that History Committee might take on, as part of its remit, the work previously conducted by the Constitution and Bylaws committee which was sunset as a result of the governance restructuring carried out last year. Significant member feedback has suggested that we need to continue to maintain a Constitution and Bylaws committee separate from the Board of Directors, and to this end, this combination of responsibilities has been considered. This proposal will be returned to the History Committee for their consideration and feedback.

The next meeting of the Board of Directors will be held via video conference at 3 pm Eastern time on 10 June. Any members wishing to observe the meeting are welcome to do so and may obtain the access information by emailing lmiddleton@asist.org.

Minutes of previous Board Meetings can be found HERE.

 

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ASIS&T BOARD ELECTIONS - CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

The Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIST) is pleased to announce the call for nominations for the positions of President-Elect, Treasurer, and Director-at-Large on the Board of Directors.

The Nominating Committee of ASIST is seeking candidates for the open positions of President-Elect, Treasurer, and Director-at-Large on the ASIS&T Board of Directors. Service on the Board of Directors of ASIS&T is a rare opportunity to help drive the decisions of our highly-respected global association and shape the future of information science and technology. The opportunity to work with other leaders in ASIS&T allows you to be on the cutting edge of the profession and to be part of the decision-making process on the international level, helping to drive the strategic goals of the organization. This is an exciting time to join the leadership of ASIS&T and help us map our ambitious future. Board service is a chance to grow personally and professionally, to develop skills, gain unique experience and make lasting connections with a team of other passionate and motivated professionals. ASIS&T has a dedicated staff in the Washington, DC area, who make the Board’s job as fulfilling as possible. They take care of managing ASIS&T day-to-day activities, enabling the Board to focus on matters of strategic importance—working to improve the programs and services that we offer to our members.

To review the Call for Nominations and learn more about ASIS&T Board Service, please visit the ASIS&T Website

 

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ANNUAL MEETING 2019

Plans for the upcoming 82nd ASIS&T Annual Meeting are underway.  The submission site is open and we encourage you to consider submitting a panel, poster, or alternative event.  https://www.asist.org/am19/

We invite original submissions to the ASIS&T Annual Meeting that will shed light on any aspect of information production, organization, discovery, analysis, storage, representation, retrieval, visualization, manipulation, dissemination, use, evaluation, management, and consumption. With a long tradition spanning more than 80 years, the ASIS&T community draws from and contributes to a wide variety of methods, theories, and approaches and we encourage authors to employ the best approach to address their information-centric research questions. Submissions that emphasise how the place, time, and the way in which information is delivered can galvanize or disenfranchise communities are particularly encouraged. Upcoming submissions can take the form of a panel, workshop, tutorial or poster, and this year we will introduce an alternative event category.

Submit your proposals/abstracts to be considered for presentation at the 2019 Annual Meeting in Melbourne, AU, 19-23 October 2019

Submission Deadlines

Panels and Alternative Events
Submission of panels and alternative events proposals due: 28 May 2019

Posters
Submission of posters due: 17 June 2019

Doctoral Colloquium
Proposal submissions due: 15 July 2019

Exhibiting Opportunities

Also, consider exhibiting at the meeting.  We make it easy for you to participate. You can either purchase a standard 10’exhibit booth for $1,500 or $1,000 for an unmanned booth if you are not able to attend.  Please review the details and consider exhibiting your products and services to over 500 attendees. Click here to find out more about exhibitor opportunities!

Sponsorship Opportunities

We have many sponsorship's available to fit every budget which will provide maximum exposure to attendees at the 2019 Annual Meeting in Melbourne, Australia. There are sponsorship packages ranging from $300 to $8,000, as well as exclusive sponsorship's of specific events such as the Opening or Closing Plenary or Welcome Reception, to name a few.  You might also want to support specific give away items such as the meeting registration bags, pens, and lanyards. These items range from $1,000-$5,000.  Please click the link below to explore all of our sponsorship opportunities.  If you don’t see exactly what you want in the list of offerings, please contact ASIS&T Meetings and we will work with you to craft the right package. Click here to find out more about sponsorship opportunities!

We would like to thank these sponsors and exhibitors who have signed on early to help support this outstanding meeting: Morgan & Claypool Publishers; Department of Information Science, GSE, University at Buffalo; School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; San Jose State University and Simmons University - School of Library and Information Science.

Keynote Speaker Announcement

ASIS&T is honored to announce our two keynote speakers for the 2019 Annual Meeting; Mikaela Jade and Helena Teede!

Helena Teede

Mikaela Jade

 

Sunday, 20 October, 2019, 1:00pm-3:00pm

Opening Plenary Keynote Speaker: Mikaela Jade who will be discussing the journey she’s been on as an Indigenous woman building a technology company from a remote Aboriginal community, and expanding it globally to the Amazon and the Yukon, and partnering with the world’s largest technology firm.

Tuesday, 22 October, 2019, 4:00-5:30 pm

Closing Plenary Keynote Speaker: Helena Teede, Director of the Monash Centre Health Research and Implementation, Monash Public Health, Monash University and Executive Director of the Monash Partners Advanced Health Research Translation Centre, Melbourne, Australia.

Job Placement Services Powered By ALISE

ALISE serves as a vital resource in connecting schools and potential faculty members through it's placement services. We’ve partnered with ASIS&T to power placement services at their 82nd Annual Meeting. Institutions may register for up to six hours of interviewing space on October 20-23, 2019. Interview rooms and time blocks will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. Register for interview space online by September 27, 2019. After September 27th, all registered schools will receive a confirmation email with their final schedule.

Register online to secure your interview space.

Housing

This is a reminder to make your hotel and airline reservations for the Annual Meeting early. Visit our housing page for information and rates on the two Crowne Hotels we have selected as well as information on booking discounted airline tickets.  We have appointed oneworld as the Official Airline Alliance for the meeting.

Please take a moment to review the Visit Melbourne website to get familiar with Melbourne and all it has to offer. Highly recommended is the bus tour to see the Penguin Parade and allow time for the all-day Great Ocean Road tour as well.

To stay up to date on all things ASIS&T 2019 Annual Meeting follow us on Facebook and Twitter and visit the AM19 website here.

 

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ANNUAL MEETING 2020 & BEYOND

The 2020 Annual Meeting dates have been finalized.  The meeting will be held October 24-28, 2020, at the Wyndham Grand Hotel in Pittsburgh, PA.  We will begin adding information to the website in the next few months as those plans come together.

An RFP has been sent for the 2021 Annual Meeting to the following cities: San Antonio, TX; Austin, TX; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; San Diego, CA; Pasadena, CA; Phoenix, AZ; and Calgary, AB, Canada. We hope to make a decision and finalize the dates by the Fall of 2019.

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ACCEPTANCE REMARKS: 2018 AWARD OF MERIT WINNER TONI CARBO

Toni Carbo, PhD, Professor Emerita, School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh, accepted the ASIS&T Award of Merit at the 2018 Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC Canada. You can see and read her acceptance remarks HERE.

 

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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

Amanda Hovious

Amanda Hovious, Membership Chair

What attracted you to information science as a profession and field of study?

My professional and research interests have always crossed multiple fields of study, and information science provides an avenue to embrace that interdisciplinary.

In what area of information science do you practice, teach or do research? What about that area of practice/study made you choose it?

I am a former librarian turned PhD student at the University of North Texas College of Information. My background in public and academic libraries—combined with a second master’s degree in instructional design and technology—serves as the basis for my research interests. I am studying ways to measure the text complexity of multimodal texts (e.g., interactive digital novels) to provide educators with a decision-making tool for integrating developmentally appropriate digital literature into the curricula.

Why did you join ASIS&T and what does your membership in ASIS&T do for you?

I am active in the student chapter of ASIS&T at my institution. I also hope to make connections with like-minded researchers and practitioners and discover new research interests at the organization’s annual meetings.

What advice would you give to young people contemplating information science as a potential profession or field of study?

Information science is a broad and ever-evolving field of study that is responsive to the changing needs of our digital society. For young people who are interested in a profession that requires them to constantly learn and grow, information science offers multiple professions from which to choose.

What do you think will be the biggest challenge for those working in information science in the next decade?

I think that the biggest challenge for those working in information science in the next decade will be in identifying and implementing viable systemic solutions for the problems that information technology has already created. We are just beginning to recognize the breadth of problems created by such technologies as social media and the Internet of Things. It will be up to the information scientists of tomorrow to be the problem finders, solutions analysts, and futurists who can predict how new technologies will impact society.

 

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NOMINATE SOMEONE

ASIS&T turns the spotlight on members to highlight how they are making a difference and how they have benefited from ASIS&T membership. It offers an opportunity for you to share your story with your colleagues, inspire future information science professionals, and strengthen awareness of the profession and association.  To nominate another member or yourself, submit your nomination here.

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iCONNECT RESOURCES

iConnect is where ASIS&T members can ask questions, learn from the success of others, share research, and network with other leaders in Information Science & Technology.

Here are the steps:
Here are quick links to information that we feel you will find helpful.

 

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CHAPTER & SIG NEWS
European Chapter

Join us for a day of exciting talks and discussions on search engines and information retrieval! (Free) registration is now open for the ASIS&T European Chapter event "Information Science Trends: Search Engines and Information Retrieval" in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday, 26 April 2019.

Please register by clicking the link.

The program can be found here.

 

Keynote Speakers:

Invisible Search in Everyday Life

Prof. Olof Sundin, Lund University, Sweden

A Call for Fair Search Engines

Dirk Lewandowski, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Product Search at otto.de

Emmy Le, Otto GmbH & Co. KG, Hamburg, Germany

Short presentations:

Alternative Search Engines as Drivers for Social Change?

Astrid Mager, Institute of Technology Assessment, Wien, Austria

Decision Drivers for Search Engine Usage – The Role of the Lock-in Effects

Ingo Knuth, Janina Masuhr, Hochschule für Medien, Kommunikation und Wirtschaft, Berlin, Germany

Influences on the Relevance Judgment Process in Academic Search Systems

Christiane Behnert, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Visual Trend Analytics in Digital Libraries

Kawa Nazemi, University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, Germany

More short presentations tba.

Best,

Your European Chapter.

 

SIG-SOCIAL MEDIA UPDATE

Retrospect: Webinar - The Challenges of Preserving and Sharing Social Media Research Data (Katrin Weller)

On Thursday, March 21, 2019, the webinar entitled The Challenges of Preserving and Sharing Social Media Research Data by Dr. Katrin Weller took place.Thereby, Dr. Weller gave an overview of the current approaches for archiving social media data and explained some of the most urgent challenges including platform lock-downs, data accessibility and discussions about (research) ethics. Besides, the past as well as future challenges were addressed.

The whole webinar recording and slides are available under the following link.

Overall, the webinar was with its interesting information, round about 36 attendees and a concluding question and discussion round a total success. SIG Social Media wants to thank again our wonderful speaker Dr. Katrin Weller as well as Cathy L. Nash for the realization.

This webinar is part of a series about social media methods. If you want to recommend a potential speaker for a future webinar, please feel free to contact the current SIG Social Media chairs Aylin Ilhan and Isabelle Dorsch.

Training event: Social Media & Digital Humanities: Methods/Approaches for Social Scientists by Dr. Wasim Ahmed (May 17, 2019, London, UK)

This event will introduce a mix of methodologies and provide an overview of free-to-use and commercial software for the analysis of social media data. It will be led by an expert in the area, Dr Wasim Ahmed who has taught Undergraduate, Masters, and PhD level courses on social media data analytics. For more information, click here.

ASIS&T Panel Endorsement/Support

Would you like to organize a panel at the ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2019 in Melbourne?

Panel and Alternative Event proposals due: 28 May 2019

We would be happy if we can support you with your idea and the organization.

Don’t hesitate to write Aylin Ilhan and Isabelle Dorsch by 14 May 2019 the latest.

We would be happy to support you.

 Stay in contact: And last but not least, to keep up to date, follow/join us via social media (Twitter, Facebook) and visit our website.

Your SIG Social Media!

NEASIS&T UPDATE

It’s been a busy first few months at NEASIS&T.  In early January, we held our big annual event, the theme of which changes every year to address a current compelling topic among information professionals in the New England area. The theme this year was Navigating the Data Landscape: Roles and Rules and When to Break Them.  Held at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, it was a day of thoughtful presentations and hands-on participatory sessions in Tableau, OpenRefine, and Tidy Data.  Visit our website for links to available slides.

 

Mid-February, NEASIS&T hosted a Best Practices for Data Sharing and Deposit for Librarian Authors webinar with presenters from the Journal of the Medical Library Association and the Journal of eScience Librarianship.  If you weren’t available to be one of the 100+ attendees, a recording of the webinar is available.

We are also excited for our upcoming webinar on American FactFinder and Census Data, presented by Ana Maria Garcia, a Data Dissemination Specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday, May 16, 2019, 11:00am – 12:00pm EST.  The registration link can be found on the webinar details page.

 

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JASIST VOLUME 70 ISSUE 5 IS NOW AVAILABLE

To access the ASIS&T Digital Library, you must be a current individual ASIS&T member or represent an organization with a site license (provided by Wiley). In the online library, you can browse all content by issue and table of contents, view abstracts and full text, and perform complex, full-text searches. Click this link and log on to the digital library to access JASIST.

 

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UPCOMING EVENTS

We have several webinars coming up in the next two months.  Check the website regularly as new webinars are being added weekly. Please visit our webinar events page to see the details. we encourage you to participate, as well as consider submitting a proposal for a webinar.

 

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HELP US HELP YOU!

Have an idea for an ASIS&T article, webinar or training activity?  Help us help you by sharing your ideas! Contact Us

For all of the latest news and updates don't forget to follow ASIS&T on Facebook and Twitter!

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