B U
L L E T I N
of the American Society for Information Science and Technology Vol. 31, No.
3 February/March 2005
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Inside
ASIS&T Annual
Meeting Coverage ASIS&T
2004 Is History Throughout
this issue of the Bulletin, we take a look at some of the
fun and some of the work that wrapped up 2004 for ASIS&T and
its members. 2004
ASIS&T Award Winners Each year at the ASIS&T Annual Meeting, the Society honors the winners of the prestigious ASIS&T Annual Awards. This year’s winners received their accolades at the Awards Luncheon and at other venues during the meeting. Nominated by practitioners and scholars throughout the information field and selected by juries of their peers, dozens of outstanding representatives of the field were cited for the highest levels of contributions in their selected specialties. Award of Merit Howard White has made fundamental and profound contributions to the field
of information science continuously and persistently over
decades, not only to the field’s core, but also to the
interdisciplinary frontiers. Howard is one of the most original
and inventive minds in information. His recent work is both
empirically innovative and philosophically deep. He is driven by
an enjoyment of conducting research and by the commitment to
making things useful for readers. The solid research and detailed
analysis presented in his papers convincingly show that Howard
is a talented researcher and thinker, a visionary and an
innovator. He has continuously brought new ideas, techniques and
methods to our field. He invented several methods of author
co-citation analysis in the early 1980s and has since developed
new methods and tools for author-citation analysis (ACA). The 1998 White-McCain study (Best JASIST
Paper Award, 1998) is among a handful of information science
works that has overcome the disciplinary barrier. The study is
an exemplar of many kinds, with rigorous scholarship and
craftsmanship that delineate clearly so a reader outside the
field can understand. Howard’s work has raised the awareness
and visibility of the field of information science to a level
that productive and interdisciplinary communications become
possible and are, in fact, taking place. Howard
has labored productively in a number of areas. He has
contributed to reference work, domain analysis, evaluation and
performance of retrieval systems, collection evaluation, on-line
searching methods, librarianship and more. His recent studies on
bibliometrics and social network analysis are seminal and will
be quoted for years to come. Howard White’s research best exemplifies the
traditions, topical concerns and academic standards of the field
of information science. The Award of Merit is a fitting
acknowledgement of the distinctiveness and heft of Howard
White’s contributions to the field. Special Award The American Society for Information Science and
Technology is pleased to honor Sir Timothy Berners-Lee,
KBE, with the prestigious ASIS&T Special Award. The founder
of the World Wide Web joins a distinguished list of prior
winners of the Special Award, including such luminaries as Isaac
Asimov (1968); Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (1978); Al Gore (1991),
for his work in shepherding the government's release of the
Internet as a distributed, open access system; Bob Kahn and Vint
Cerf (1993), for their work in developing the Internet
protocols; and Douglas Engelbart (1996) for his lifetime work in
“augmenting human intelligence.” A citation honoring
Berners-Lee reads as follows: Whereas,
one goal espoused by the founders of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology was to promote the spread of
scholarly information so it was available universally, and
Whereas the World Wide Web is today and tomorrow's
"lingua franca" for a growing amount of scholarly
information and research; and Therefore,
the American Society for Information Science and Technology
hereby bestows its Special Award on Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, KBE,
in recognition of his unprecedented work in fathering the World
Wide Web, and his work in maintaining the Web universal document
identifiers, as open source, royalty-free, platform independent,
and governed with distributed authority. Watson The
2004 Watson Davis Award, commemorating the founder of the
Society and given to members for outstanding continuous
contributions and dedicated service to the Society, is presented
to Joseph Busch, former ASIS&T president and founder
of Taxonomy Strategies. Joseph has contributed to the Society in numerous ways. He has been involved with a number of SIGs (including AH, CR, HCI, KM and USE) as both a member and an officer; he served on the SIG Cabinet Steering Committee; and he won the SIG Member-of-the-Year award in 1992. He was an active member of the Los Angeles Chapter of ASIS&T for many years contributing through program planning and new member activities. Joseph served as an ASIS&T director-at-large from 1994 to 1996 and was elected in 2000 as president-elect, succeeding to the presidency in 2001. He was the chair of the technical program committee for the 1997 Annual Meeting and has presented papers, served on panels and moderated sessions at a number of ASIS&T meetings throughout the years of his membership. Joseph has most recently served on both the project team selecting and implementing the Society's new member records management system and on the ASIS&T Digital Library design and implementation task force. Joseph is a tireless ambassador for the Society when meeting with students and new members and is always focused on the people who make up the membership. He has been described as the heart and soul of the Society and his contributions as wide-ranging and steadfast. The Society is very pleased to recognize Joseph Busch for all of his dedicated service by awarding him the Watson Davis Award for 2004. Research in Information
Science Award W. Boyd Rayward, the
winner of the 2004 ASIS&T Award for Research in Information
Science, is noted for his pioneering work investigating the
development of the International Institute of
Bibliography/International Federation of Information and
Documentation and the role of Paul Otlet. His work has
significantly improved our understanding of the many connections
between the early years of information science and current
issues and research problems, revealing important developments
and ideas that would otherwise remain unknown to contemporary
researchers and practitioners. He has provided a much richer
intellectual history for present-day theory and practice in
information science and technology. He has fostered the work of
other researchers in the history of information science and
technology through his leadership in organizing conferences on
History and Heritage of Science Information Systems, editing
issues of IEEE Annals of
the History of Computing on the history of library
automation (upcoming as part of an ASIS&T monograph he is
editing) and a
recent issue of Library
Trends on pioneers in LIS, and mentoring
students in their pursuit of historical research in information
science and technology. Thomson ISI/ASIS&T
Outstanding Information Science Teacher Don Cleveland, Perhaps
his major contribution to the field of information science has
been his leadership role in developing the interdisciplinary
information science program at the Best Information Science
Book Award A History of
Online Information Services 1963-1976 (published by MIT Press,
2003), by Charles P. Bourne and Trudi
Bellardo Hahn, is, according to the award jury, “a
landmark achievement based on a prodigious amount of research
over many years... it is doubtful this book will ever be
superseded. The topic is of central interest to ASIS&T. It
is a model of its kind. We should be grateful that it has
appeared." This book provides a rich narrative of the early
development of online information retrieval systems and services
during a period important to anyone who uses a search engine,
online catalog or large database. Drawing on personal
experience, extensive research and interviews with many of the
key participants, the book describes the individuals, projects
and institutions of the period. It also corrects common errors
and misconceptions and provides milestones for many significant
developments in online systems and technology. John Wiley & Sons Best JASIST
Paper Award The 2004 John Wiley & Sons Best JASIST Paper
Award goes to Cecelia Brown for “The
Role of Electronic Preprints in Chemical Communication: Analysis
of Citation, Usage, and Acceptance in the Journal Literature”
(Volume 54, Issue 5, March 2003; pp. 362-371). Jurors found the paper to be a carefully executed and
well-presented study of the many factors that influence
information seeking. The paper documents the conflict between
chemists' use and perception of the value of the Chemistry
Preprint Server and editors' hesitation to allow publication of
papers previously submitted to an e-print server and citation to
e-prints. This work should advance thinking about a complex
situation that eventually implicates the whole social structure
of the refereeing/publishing system. James M. Cretsos Leadership Award
The 2004 James M. Cretsos Leadership Award, honoring new
ASIS&T members who have demonstrated outstanding leadership
qualities in ASIS&T activities, is given to two deserving
members: Stacy Surla and
Tom Terrell. Tom Terrell is recognized
for his service
to ASIS&T in a variety of national and local capacities.
Among his accomplishments and contributions thus far have been
participating in national and chapter meetings; helping to found
SIG/Digital Libraries and serving as chair; serving on the
ASIS&T Leadership Development Committee, the Leadership
Award Jury, the Information Science Education Committee and the
UMI/ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Award Jury; continuous
participation in the Florida ASIS&T chapter, serving as
chair-elect/chair; and organizing the ASIS&T student chapter
at the University of South Florida where he continues to serve
as chapter faculty advisor. Tom’s good humor and enthusiasm
make any activity in which he is involved more fun for others. Stacy Surla, a
valued member of the Potomac Valley Chapter, is honored for her
service to ASIS&T in both national and local chapter
meetings; her production of the 2004
IA Summit website; chairing the 2005 IA Summit program; service
as a founding member of the DC Information Architects (DCIA), a
local chapter of the ASIS&T IA SIG; and for team leadership
in planning and creating the redesigned ASIS&T website.
Stacy excels at motivating and leading project teams to the
timely and effective accomplishment of goals while keeping all
team members involved, and she is recognized for her
organization, communication and leadership skills, her pleasant
demeanor that allows others to enjoy themselves, and for
recruiting participants in IA Summit meetings to become members
of ASIS&T. Thomson ISI/ASIS&T
Citation Analysis Research Grant David
Hubbard,
Texas Tech University, is the winner of the 2004 Thomson ISI/ASIS&T
Citation Analysis Research Grant for his proposal entitled,
“Nature and Persistence of Corrected Journal Literature in the
Field of Chemistry,” a context analysis of retracted/corrected
chemical literature. This project will extend knowledge into additional
subject areas and will yield useful insights. While limited in
scope, the project is practical and doable. Hubbard has the
content knowledge to conduct the study, which will involve a
significant amount of work in collecting and classifying the
particular data set, as well as classifying the citations to
those items. Thomson ISI/ASIS&T Doctoral Dissertation
Proposal Scholarship Meng
Yang,
Meng Yang has shown commendable courage and creativity in
her choice of research topic. She has taken relevance, a core
concept in information science, and given it a contemporary
twist by using it to study video, one of the most pervasive and
influential forms of current human expression. Ms. Yang's
research will investigate how people make relevance judgments
when they search video. She proposes to identify the criteria
they apply and the factors that influence these criteria using a
combination of qualitative research methods. She has crafted a well-reasoned, articulate and
persuasive plan of research for her dissertation that augurs
well for her successful completion. Her meticulous attention to
data collection and analysis using multiple methods to ensure
reliability and validity, her clear and detailed articulation of
her proposed research, her balanced understanding of the likely
contributions of her work, her impressive record of research and
publication that deepened her expertise in the area all combined
to convince jurors that Meng Yang is indeed a worthy recipient
of this honor. ProQuest/ASIS&T Doctoral Dissertation Award Lennart
Björneborn, Royal School of Library and Pratt Tori
Orr, The paper is creative in its topic, scholarly in
its approach and well written. It provides a foundation for
research and development in the indexing and representation of
oral histories and similar rich, descriptive, narrative
information resources in a format that can be easily integrated
into digital libraries. CHAPTER AWARDS Chapter-of-the-Year
For the sixth year in a row, the Los Angeles Chapter
of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
(LACASIS) was named ASIS&T Chapter-of-the-Year,
sharing the honor for the second year in a row with the Southern
Ohio Chapter of ASIS&T (SOASIST). LACASIS places a high premium on recruiting. Each
year the chapter appoints a coordinator for membership
recruitment, welcome and retention. After each chapter meeting
or event, the coordinator sends letters to all potential members
who participated in some way. In addition, the chapter reaches
out to potential student members with the appointment of a
student chapter coordinator who, along with other LACASIS board
members, visits library and information student events, such as
career fairs, professional association days and resume
workshops. Students are recruited as volunteers for the Annual
Fall Workshop and in return receive free workshop registration.
The chapter also sponsors a student scholarship competition,
which awards travel to an ASIS&T Annual Meeting and student
memberships in ASIS&T. This year SOASIST was determined to
leverage its funds for the benefit of not only its current
membership, but for the wider community as well. To that end,
the chapter hosted a free seminar on the USA Patriot Act,
presented by Thomas S. Blanton. Because the chapter leaders
believed it important to inform as much of the public as
possible of the implications of the Patriot Act, the meeting was
supported by a well-planned publicity campaign to encourage
attendance and facilitate dialogue on the topic. SOASIST also
collaborates on programs with other organizations in its area,
allowing it to reach a broader audience and make effective use
of their resources. The chapter also posts HTML/PDF slides of
most of the past programs. The enthusiasm and leadership of this
chapter are very evident, making SOASIST a chapter on the move,
as the newsletter motto so aptly states. Student Chapter-of-the-Year
For the second year in a
row, and for the sixth time since 1992, the University of
Washington Student Chapter of ASIS&T is the winner of Student
Chapter-of-the-Year honors for 2004. The chapter presented
an impressive annual report for the equally impressive
activities and events they organized in the past year. The
chapter had a net increase of 59 members as a result of a
variety of recruitment and retention activities, in addition to
their technical programs. Among their recruitment activities
were social welcome events for incoming and distance-learning
students and a free membership and several scholarships
(co-sponsored with the school and local chapter) to students for
attending the national and Pacific Northwest annual meetings. Throughout
the year, the chapter hosted a wide range of activities,
including programs, workshops and discussions on such topics as
the Library Online Resource Analysis (LORA) system, CSS,
Photoshop, FrontPage, project management and Bliss
Classification. Chapter Member-of-the-Year Nicole McNeeley
Kallas of the Potomac Valley Chapter is the 2004 winner of the ASIS&T
Chapter Member-of-the-Year Award recognizing the service of an
individual to a particular chapter. During the past two years, Nicole Kallas has actively
worked to grow the Potomac Valley Chapter. She has organized
programs that serve the interests of PVC members, increasing
program attendance significantly; she developed a website,
served as chapter officer, hosted a major fundraiser and
involved new members in chapter activities. She brings all the
qualities that will ensure the future for the Potomac Valley
Chapter: leadership and initiative, enthusiasm, follow-though on
all promises, creativity in programming, and, at the same time,
appreciation for the chapter’s history and traditions. Her
successful and inspiring efforts to reinvigorate the Potomac
Valley Chapter are applauded by ASIS&T. Chapter Event-of-the-Year
Two ASIS&T chapters share 2004 Chapter
Event-of-the-Year honors: The Los
Angeles Chapter (LACASIS) for its 2003 Fall Workshop and the Potomac Valley Chapter (PVC) for a program on taxonomy. The 2003 LACASIS Fall Workshop, "Database-Driven
Technology," provided an opportunity to learn basic
techniques and to view applications of exciting new applications
of web-based technology. Speakers included industry
professionals and representatives from academic, corporate and
public institutions. More than 100 attendees from information
organizations of all types throughout California and Arizona
were in attendance. As one of the jurors enthusiastically
remarked, "The Los Angeles Chapter does a masterful job of
designing and implementing programming." The Potomac Valley Chapter presented "Taxonomy and Metadata Strategies for Effective Content Management," providing real-world examples of how the right taxonomy can organize content so users can find the right information at the right time to solve the problem at hand. More than 80 people registered for the program, featuring Joseph Busch, former ASIS&T president and founder of Taxonomy Strategies (and winner of the 2004 ASIS&T Watson Davis Award). He demonstrated the re-use of existing vocabulary sources to create company-specific taxonomies and debunked many myths, including the myth that taxonomy creation and descriptive cataloging can’t be done by mere mortals. The Potomac Valley Chapter provided its constituents a highly entertaining and educational program on a timely topic. Chapter Electronic Publication-of-the-Year
OASIS
(Observations of the American Society for Information Science
and Technology), the newsletter of the Los Angeles Chapter, and
the website of the Southern Ohio Chapter of ASIS&T (SOASIST)
are the recipients of the 2004 Chapter Electronic Publication-of-the-Year Award. OASIS, the electronic newsletter of the Los Angeles Chapter, has
been published since fall 2003 exclusively as an electronic
publication. OASIS is a true electronic publication as
all facets of its creation – submissions, coordination,
layout, editing, distribution – utilize various forms of
electronic communication and media. Electronic publication of
the newsletter has provided significant cost savings to the
chapter and has decreased production time of each issue.
Creating OASIS in electronic format has allowed its
distribution to grow, effectively educating a wider audience
about activities within information science. It is a beautifully
designed and organized website, from its muted, cool colors
which are easy on the eyes to the good navigational links and
its timely and relevant content for chapter members. The SOASIST website provides a clean entry point to
excellent resources, including listservs, newsletters, events
and PowerPoint presentations. The job lists and event
notification forms are particularly useful. Much thought has
gone into the design and maintenance of the site in order to
keep it simple, yet elegant and up-to-date. The site is a great
portal for interesting and relevant resources. SIG AWARD SIG-of-the-Year
Recognized for its significant contributions to the
Society in programming, collaborative opportunities, member
participation and leadership, Special Interest
Group/Scientific and Technical Information Systems (SIG/STI)
is the winner of the 2004 SIG-of-the-Year Award. Among the
activities for which SIG/STI was cited was its partnership with
the New England Chapter of ASIS&T in the production of the
successful DASER Summit, the first cooperative effort of its
kind between a SIG and a chapter. In addition, the jury noted
that SIG/STI had been active in the sponsorship of program
sessions and in recruitment efforts at ASIS&T Annual
Meetings. The jury commended the entire membership of SIG/STI
and gave special commendation to SIG chair Ann Eagan, Northern
Arizona University, for her leadership during the year. Nominations
Sought for 2005 Awards With the conclusion of the 2004 ASIS&T awards process, the juries and committees responsible for the awards in 2005 immediately go to work. Deadlines for this year’s nominations begin popping up as early as April. All members are encouraged to review the information regarding the purpose and the nomination procedure for all ASIS&T awards and to consider nominating colleagues throughout the information profession to be recognized with one of the prestigious ASIS&T awards. Complete awards information can be found on the ASIS&T website at www.asis.org. |
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Copyright © 2005, American Society for Information Science and Technology |
