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Statement of Purpose

Aim
The Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) has long been considered a landmark publication within the information science community. It surveys the landscape of information science and technology, providing the reader with an analytical, authoritative and accessible overview of recent trends and significant developments. One volume is published each year. The range of topics varies considerably, reflecting the dynamism of the discipline and the diversity of theoretical and applied perspectives connoted by the rubric 'information science and technology'. While ARIST continues to cover key topics associated with 'classical' information science (e.g., bibliometrics, information retrieval), the Review is expanding its footprint, prudently and selectively, in an effort to connect information science more tightly with cognate academic and professional communities.

Publishing History
The Annual Review of Information Science and Technology is produced for the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIST) and published by Information Today, Inc. The Society (then the American Documentation Institute) initiated the series in 1966 with the publication of Volume 1 under the editorship of Carlos A. Cuadra, who continued as Editor through Volume 10. Martha E. Williams took over the editorship with Volume 11 and passed the baton to Blaise Cronin with Volume 36. ASIST is the sole owner of ARIST, maintains editorial control, and has sole rights to the series in all forms. Through the years, several organizations have been responsible for publishing and marketing ARIST. Volumes 1 and 2 were published by Interscience Publishers, a division of John Wiley & Sons. Volume 3 through 6 were published by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Volumes 7 through 11 were published by the Association for Information Science itself. Volumes 12 through 21 were published by Knowledge Industry Publications, Inc. Volumes 22 through 25 were published by Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands. With Volume 26, Information Today, Inc. (formerly Learned Information, Inc.) assumed the role of publisher of ARIST for ASIST.

Policy
ARIST is an annual publication that reviews a wide range of topics and trends within the broad fields of information science and technology. The contents vary from year to year: no single topic is treated on an annual basis. The subjects selected and their coverage reflect the evolution and maturation of the domain. ARIST chapters are scholarly reviews of topics substantiated by reference to the published literature. The aim is to furnish the reader with a complete picture of the state-of-the-art for each focal area. The orientation of, and time period covered by, each chapter will vary, depending on the author's expertise and on whether the topic has been treated previously by ARIST and, if so, on the length of the interval from the last treatment to the current one.