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ASIS&T 2005 Annual Meeting

Second Plenary Speaker Added to Lineup

Matthew Szulik, chairman, CEO and president of Red Hat, will highlight a Monday morning plenary session at the 2005 ASIS&T Annual Meeting, October 28-November 2, in Charlotte , North Carolina . A previously announced plenary session on Wednesday afternoon features Pattie Maes, associate professor in MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences. The two plenary sessions will help illuminate the conference theme, Sparking Synergies: Bringing Research and Practice Together @ ASIS&T ’05.

            Szulik has been leading early-stage technology companies, such as Interleaf, MapInfo and Red Hat, into global, publicly traded firms for more than 20 years. In 1998, Szulik and Red Hat founder Bob Young developed a shared vision that the collaborative approach of open source and a great brand could redistribute the economics of the technology industry from vendor to customer. Today, Red Hat is the leading provider of Linux and open source technology to the enterprise and is positioned to be the defining technology company of the 21st century.

Szulik is the chairman of the Science and Technology Board for the state of North Carolina 's Economic Development Board and recent recipient of CIO Magazine’s 20/20 Vision Award.

Maes is one of the pioneers of the research area known as software agents – an area which builds on such disciplines as artificial intelligence, human computer interaction, computer-supported collaborative work, information filtering and electronic commerce. Software agents are semi-intelligent computer programs that help users with the overload of information and the complexity of the online world. Maes’ group pioneered the use of machine learning to build such agents and invented a range of new algorithms, such as collaborative filtering.

Some changes to the previously announced conference schedule have been made to accommodate Szulik’s presentation on Tuesday. Please check the ASIS&T website (www.asis.org) for changes to the schedule.

Sparking Synergies: Bringing Research and Practice Together @ ASIST '05 reflects the increasing need to bring together the knowledge gained through empirical and theoretical studies and through "on-the-ground" experience.  A conscious effort was made to include contributions from practitioners in the field of information science as well as the research arena, and the program committee is proud of the exceptionally diverse range of sessions we have this year. 

To keep up with changes in the program schedule or to preplan your own on-site experience, visit the website often to view the entire conference program in any of several ways: a pdf of the entire program; by type of activity; or by day.  Registrations are also being accepted online.

ASIS&T Founder Back in the News

Footnote to the Scopes Monkey Trial

            Watson Davis, founder of what we know today as the American Society for Information Science and Technology and managing editor of Science Service during the 1920s, had a front row seat at the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925. Though his contemporaries and other scholars may have known that fact, for most it was news revealed quite dramatically this past July.

            Eighty years to the day after the climactic confrontation between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow at the trial, historian Marcel LaFollette gave an engaging account of the trial at a AAAS seminar on July 20, 2005. The drama came when LaFollette, who has been studying the coverage of the trial by a pioneering team of science journalists, illustrated her account with unpublished photos of the courtroom participants and the community of Dayton , Tennessee . She had found the long-forgotten images in the Smithsonian Institution Archives in Washington .

            The nitrate negatives had been donated to the Smithsonian in 1971 as part of the archives of the Science Service, an organization founded in 1921 to promote the dissemination of information about science in the media. Watson Davis, the managing editor of the service, covered the trial and took the photographs.

            According to LaFollette, Davis and the Science Service worked with the defense team to arrange for scientists to testify at the trial on behalf of Scopes. Though such actions might be considered improper for journalists today, Davis and others were dedicated to an accurate account of the science of evolution and they recognized the value of the trial in helping to educate the public. Davis sat in on strategy sessions, met the participants and photographed the action during the hot summer of 1925.

ASIS&T SIGs and Chapters Cooperate on International Calendar

            ASIS&T Special Interest Group/International Information Issues (SIG/III) and the European and New England chapters of ASIS&T invite visitors to the new International Calendar of Information Science Calendars (ICISC), a centralized Web-based master calendar of events.

ICISC was created to address three primary purposes:

·          Help information science researchers and practitioners learn about conferences that might fulfill their needs to communicate knowledge and experience;

·          Help conference organizers avoid time or topic conflicts or help them coordinate with other groups to create more coherence and cooperation among professional organizations; and

·          Encourage interaction among like-minded professionals around the globe.

Any group or conference organizer is invited to submit relevant conferences, either confirmed or planned, to the ICISC calendar. Detailed instructions for registering a conference can be found on the website (http://icisc.neasist.org). The sponsoring organizations reserve the right to discard entries that are not deemed appropriate for this moderated site.

At this time, the calendar is in English, but the organizers expect to add other languages in the future. Announcements submitted to the site for consideration can be in any language that can be presented in Latin characters, provided an English translation of at least the conference place and title is also included.

In addition to the dynamic and searchable calendar available for viewing in both block and list style, there is a "Quick Calendar" listing all the events on a static HTML Web page useful for printing or for those with slower internet connections. ICISC further offers the option to subscribe to an RSS feed to keep up-to-date on the latest additions.

SIG/III Announces Winners of 2005 International Paper Contest

            Special Interest Group/International Information Issues (SIG/III) has announced the winners of its 6th Annual International Paper Contest. The six winning papers were selected from among 30 papers submitted by authors from 12 developing countries on the theme of Bringing Research and Practice Together – The Developing World Perspective.

            The following were award winners this year, listed with their paper titles:

1st Place : Lukman Ibraheem Diso , Nigeria – Information Technology Policy Formulation In Nigeria : Answers Without Questions

2nd: Sanjeev Kumar & Nandini Dutta, India – Designing a National Fashion Information System: A Perspective Plan

3rd: M.G. Sreekumar & T. Sunitha , India – Seamless Aggregation and Integration of Diverse Datastreams: Essential Strategies for Building Practical Digital Libraries and Electronic Information Systems

4th: Selenay Aytac , Turkey – Multilingual Information Retrieval on the Internet: A Case Study of Turkish Users

5th: Alma Beatriz Rivera-Aguilera, Mexico – XML Markup and Retrieval in Magazine Articles: Exploratory Results and Implementation Issues

6th: Akshay Mathur , India – ICT and Rural Societies: Opportunities for Growth

            Each of the eight winners receives a two-year individual membership in ASIS&T. In addition the first place winner will receive travel assistance to support attendance at the 2005 ASIS&T Annual Meeting.

For more information on the contest and the winners, visit the SIG/III website at www.asis.org/SIG/SIGIII/.

News about ASIS&T SIGs

Special Interest Group/Information Needs, Seeking & Use (SIG/USE) has initiated five new awards opportunities available to members of the group. These awards, to be given for the first time at the 2005 ASIS&T Annual Meeting in October, are for Best Information Behavior Conference Poster; Best Information Behavior Conference Paper; Elfreda A. Chatman Research Proposal Award; Master's Student Travel Award; and Ph.D. Student Travel Award. For information about eligibility and application for these awards, visit the SIG/USE website at www.asis.org/SIG/SIGUSE.

News about ASIS&T Members

José-Marie Griffiths, dean of the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , is one of 24 information and computing professionals serving on the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC). PITAC recently released its report on the future of computational science and high-end computing in the United States .

Frank Kurt Cylke, director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress, since 1973, has received the Newel Perry Award for 2005 from the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). The Newel Perry Award is the highest honor NFB bestows on an individual who is not a part of the federation but who has partnered with it in efforts to achieve equality, security and opportunity for blind individuals. 

            Diane Neal, who is completing her Ph.D. at the University of North Texas ' School of Library and Information Sciences, has joined the faculty of the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University. Previously, she was systems librarian at the University of Texas at Arlington . She is currently co-chair of ASIS&T SIG/VIS.

Clifford Lynch, executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information and 1996 president of ASIS&T, is the 2005 recipient of the EDUCAUSE Leadership in Public Policy and Practice award. The award recognizes "prominence in the arena of national and international technology agendas and the linking of higher education to those agendas." Lynch will be honored at the association’s annual conference in October.

Amanda Spink, formerly of the University of Pittsburgh , has been appointed professor of information technology in the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT) at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane , Australia . Amanda will be leading the FIT library and information science research group in projects in human information behavior, information retrieval and Web search, including ongoing collaborations with major Web companies.

In addition to her new job (above listing), Amanda Spink, Queensland University of Technology, and Charles Cole, McGill University, are co-editors of the recently published New Directions in Human Information Behavior (Springer), a look at new directions, leading-edge theories and models in human information behavior.

Stephanie W. Haas, professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , has been named Francis Carroll McColl Term Professor through 2007. She was selected based on her contributions to research, teaching and service to the school. She was previously honored by ASIS&T with the 1996 Outstanding Information Science Teacher of the Year Award.

News from Institutional Members

University of North Texas Receives Major MARC Study Grant

The Texas Center for Digital Knowledge at the University of North Texas has received a two-year, $233,115 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Principal investigators for the project are William Moen and Shawne Miksa. They describe their project – MARC Content Designation Utilization: Inquiry and Analysis – as a ground-breaking investigation into the extent of catalogers' use of MARC 21, the mark-up language used worldwide to create electronic catalog records.

Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) will provide the project with approximately 56 million bibliographic records from its WorldCat database – a database that contains unique catalog records shared by more than 50,000 libraries in 84 countries and territories around the world.

Moen is an associate professor in UNT's School of Library and Information Sciences and interim director of the Texas Center for Digital Knowledge.

Miksa is an assistant professor of Library and Information Sciences.

Access Innovations Receives Patent for Technology

Access Innovations Inc., specialists in creating and maintaining databases of digitized research, news and other content for government and business clients, has received a patent from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for the underlying database design and maintenance technology that drives its Data Harmony line of software.

The new patent covers key elements of the software's machine-aided indexing and content creation features. The Data Harmony software suite includes tools to design databases, index content, and build and update a thesaurus, critical for accurate searching and retrieval of targeted information.

"Protecting our intellectual property is an important step for us," said Marjorie M.K. Hlava, Access Innovations chairman and president. "With that protection, we are able to accelerate our product development efforts and to pursue a robust growth strategy."

Simmons College Gets Grant from Librarians for the 21st Century Program

            The Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) has received a grant of more than three-quarters of a million dollars to establish a doctoral program at GSLIS specializing in managerial leadership in the information professions. The grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services is part of the 2005 Librarians for the 21st Century program.

            The new program will focus on the knowledge, skills and personal traits applicable to leadership in libraries and other information-based enterprises. The grant will support the preparation of 15 individuals (5 per year) for leadership roles in library and information organizations. The program will cater to those who may not be able to interrupt their employment to gain a degree and will be offered with non-traditional scheduling to a small, highly selective student body. Among the outcomes of the program will be a pool of qualified individuals to lead libraries and information organizations, a body of scholarly and practice-based research and continual updating and examination of leadership issues in information-related organizations.

Peter Hernon, professor, and Candy Schwartz, professor and coordinator of doctoral studies, are principal investigators.

FSU College of Information Receives School Leaders Grant

The College of Information at Florida State University has been awarded a $159,526 grant by The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for School Library Media Specialists for the 21st Century: Leaders Educated to Make a Difference (Project LEAD). This project will develop graduate education opportunities and a research agenda focused on leadership for school library media specialists.

As part of Project LEAD an online curriculum will be developed to prepare school library media specialists for leadership roles. The curriculum will integrate the tenets of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Research has established that educators with National Board certification are more likely to be leaders.

Obituary

Frank H. Spaulding

            Frank H. Spaulding, 73, long-time ASIS&T member and treasurer, died in late July at Hope Hospice in Fort Myers, Florida.

            Born in Danielson, Connecticut, in 1932, Frank resided in Piscataway, New Jersey, for 40 years before moving to Fort Myers in 2002. Before his retirement in 1987, he was employed by Colgate Palmolive Co. as supervisor of information services in Jersey City and Piscataway and by Bell Laboratories as manager of library services in Holmdel, New Jersey.

In addition to his longtime involvement in ASIS&T, he was active in numerous other information associations, including Special Libraries Association, which he served as president; Documentation Abstracts; Universal Serials and Book Exchange; PALINET/LTLC; and the American Library Association.  He taught graduate library classes at Drexel University and Rutgers University.

Frank held a B.A. degree in English literature from Brown University and a MLS from Case Western Reserve University.

            Among his survivors are his wife, Eugenia Spaulding; son, Geoffrey Spaulding of Santa Clara, California; and daughter, Jennifer Spaulding of Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

            Those who would like to make memorial contributions, please do so to Hope Hospice, Ft. Myers, Florida, or to the American Cancer Society.

Copyright © 2005, American Society for Information Science and Technology