Proceedings 2011 Annual Meeting CD-ROM

2011 Proceedings of the 74th Annual Meeting (Vol. 48)
New Orleans, LA
©2011, CD-ROM, ISBN: 0-87715-543-7

Information is an essential structure in our world as a part of our professional and everyday lives. Our wonderful host city, New Orleans, has exemplified how a community of information professionals can assist society during trying times. Six years ago Hurricane Katrina changed the physical landscape but it also revealed the need for dependable information provision both during the disaster and during recovery. More recently, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill highlighted how information tools such as powerful data driven visualization models can be invaluable partners in protecting the environment. The New Orleans experiences highlight the important role of information in times of societal challenge whether it is from natural disasters such as the tornados in Alabama or from civil disturbances such as terrorist activities.

For 74 years, the American Society for Information Science and Technology has provided a venue for scholars and practitioners to study information problems and chart solutions for the future. This year’s Annual Meeting investigates and celebrates how information builds bridges that facilitate free flowing information and successful communication in society, technology and work.

In 2010, ASIST introduced a new approach to the Annual Meeting review process that included themed tracks to sharpen the review process and increase the involvement of scholars. This year’s conference follows the same blueprint with the addition of new deadlines that allowed authors to submit their work late in May. The process has proven to be very successful. This year authors submitted 161 papers, 29 panels and 188 posters which is a nearly 8% increase in paper submissions and a 17% increase in poster submissions over last year. This affirms the success of the new approach and demonstrates the continued support of the ASIST Annual Meeting by accomplished researchers and practitioners.

The review process for ASIST 2011 was extremely competitive and we appreciate the contributions of all the submitting authors. From this excellent group of submissions, we are proud to present this year’s program of 60 papers, 25 panels, 91 posters and 13 workshops. Special thanks go to the track co-chairs and the poster chair who oversaw the review process in their track including recruiting highly qualified reviewers. Thanks go to these reviewers who carefully assessed each submission and provided invaluable input for the final decisions. It is very exciting when the information community comes together in this way!

We are delighted to have Tom Wilson and Steve Kelling as keynote speakers. Tom is one of the pioneers in information-seeking behavior research and has been involved in the SHAMAN project for the development and testing of a next generation, long term digital preservation framework for libraries and archives. Steve is a leader in involving citizens in gathering bird-monitoring data and in developing tools that allow scientists to integrate these rich data resources into existing bioinformatics infrastructures so they can be analyzed in unique ways including through powerful visualizations. Special sessions have been added that address the future of the information profession from a socio-technical viewpoint and that challenge the digital natives and digital immigrants hypothesis.

We also extend special thanks to Linda C Smith for her support, and to Dick Hill and the ASIST team who tirelessly answered our questions, helped conference participants and provided guidance about the whole conference creation process.

We hope you enjoy this year’s Annual Meeting!

Suzie Allard & Lynn Silipigni Connaway