SIG III Newsletter

1. Greetings from the Chair, Sue O'Neill Johnson. 1

3. 2002 Annual Meetings Activities Highlights. 3

SIG III Winning SIG of the Year Award three times in a row! 3

SIG III Sessions and Global Information Village Plaza. 4

International Reception, Silent Auction, and Raffle. 4

4. SIG III Business Meeting Minutes. 5

5. Proposed sessions for 2003 Annual Meeting. 6

6. Frequently Asked Questions about sigiii-l Subscriptions and SIG III Web Site. 7

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1. Greetings from the Chair, Sue O'Neill Johnson

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Welcome to SIG III from the 2002-2003 Chair, Sue O'Neill Johnson

SIG III was fortunate to be recognized at the ASIST Annual Conference, again, as SIG of the year for the third straight year! This recognition is the result of the dedication of our members who have been working hard to make SIG III effective for all of us. We are looking for more of you to join us in the activities to come this year! Send me an e-mail at sueojohnson@msn.com if you want to become more involved. We can discuss details.

Here are some of the highlights of activities to come in 2003.

Thanks to the hard work of Yin Zhang we continue to have the electronic newsletter you are reading, the web site and SIG III list serv. These services are excellent only because of Yin’s effort and dedication.

We are very pleased that ASIST now has an International Liaison to the Board, Julian Warner, to bring forward international issues to them. Michel Menou will be working with him from the SIG III Board. One of their tasks is to continue the discussion on setting up a membership category that will provide ASIST memberships at a reduced rate for information professionals from developing countries.

Hong Xu, Immediate Past Chair, is engineering all the proposed sessions from SIG III for us. At last count there were ten! Each session coordinator must meet this deadline with specific details if he wants to have a session in Long Beach. The deadline is upon us (January 28), so session coordinators are moving quickly to put together their proposals. If you want to fit into a session, contact Hong, and she will pass the information on to a session coordinator. This is a hurried process at the beginning, which smoothes out after the initial proposals are sent in.

The InfoShare Program will be granting one year memberships to new members from developing countries. We are looking forward to having more grants this year. Criteria for nomination and selection of these one year grants are being drafted by Suzanne Stemler. The Program is funded by the silent auction and raffle, which take place at the International Reception at the Conference, which will continue thanks to the generosity of Elsevier Publishers.

The International Paper Contest for developing country information professionals will be held this year for the fourth consecutive year, thanks to the primary support from Elsevier Publishers, Basch Publications, and from ASIST Chapters. This competition has provided some travel grants, helped dozens of information professionals obtain two memberships in ASIST, and has enabled dozens more to have their papers published. Papers from last years competition have been selected for the ASIST Bulletin, and are now in the process of selection by the International Information and Library Review (IILR). Yunfei Du and Nathalie Leroy will be managing the contest again. In addition to the web site (designed by Yunfei), which facilitates reading papers for the judges, ASIST Bulletin and IILR editors, Yunfei is also putting up a web site showcasing the SIGS, commercial, and big personal donors that support InfoShare and the International Paper Contest. At least one 2003 winner of the contest will be given a travel grant to attend the annual conference, and others, depending on funds available. The top two winners will have an opportunity to participate in a poster session In addition the second place winner from last year, who was unable to use his travel grant because he could not get a visa, Dr Subbiah Arunachalam, will be given a travel grant, and present a paper.

Michel Menou and Nadia Caidi introduced the Global Village Plaza in Philadelphia, which was highly applauded as a huge innovation at the Conference. Information Plaza II is being organized, with novel approaches planned.

SIG III will make another attempt to bring the five (out of twelve recipients) of the Eugene Garfield Travel grants who were unable to get visas to enter to the U.S. to Long Beach, CA. To do this SIG III will host a fund raiser with the Potomac Valley Chapter in Washington,D.C. in the spring 2003 to add to the remaining Eugene Garfield Travel Grant funds. We hope they will be able to come to the Conference, and give papers as well.

Responding to the request from the Eugene Garfield Travel Grant winner from Lithuania, Andzela Armoniene, SIG III has begun the process to acquire and ship selected text books published by Information Today publishers needed by staff and students of the University of Vilnius library school.

Dr PR Goswami from the SIG III Board has joined a committee of the Special Libraries Association‘s Asia Chapter to work on a joint SIG III/SLA Asia Conference. The Chair of the SLA Asia Chapter is also a member of ASIST and a Eugene Garfield Travel Grant winner, PK Jain.

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2. 2002-2003 Officers

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Meet the Officers: photos are available!

Chair
Sue O'Neill Johnson
Consultant
sueojohnson@msn.com

Chair-Elect
Nathalie Leroy
Chief of the Information Processing Section
Library, United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland
nleroy@unog.ch

Immediate Past-Chair
Program Chair (e.g., annual meeting programs)
Hong Xu
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
hxu@mail.sis.pitt.edu

Assistant Chair (Outside the U.S.)
P R Goswami

Director, National Social Science Documentation centre

Indian Council of Social science Research

35 Firoz Shah Road

New Delhi 110001, India

prgoswami@hotmail.com

Assistant Chair-Elect (Outside the U.S.)
Liwen Vaughan
University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
lvaughan@julian.uwo.ca

Infoshare Officer
Suzanne Stemler
University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL
sstemler@miami.edu

Treasurer
Bahaa El-Hadidy
International Information Consultant, Tampa, FL
elhadidy@chuma1.cas.usf.edu

Outreach and Membership Officer(Outside the U.S.)
Nadia Caidi
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
caidi@fis.utoronto.ca

Cabinet Representative
Report Committee Chair
Norman Horrocks
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
nhorrock@is.dal.ca

International Paper Contest Chair
Yunfei Du
North Texas University, Denton, TX
ydu@lis.admin.unt.edu

Honorary WWW" (wisdom webbing wizard)
Michel J. Menou
City University
Michel.Menou@wanadoo.fr

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3. 2002 Annual Meetings Activities Highlights

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SIG III Winning SIG of the Year Award three times in a row!

SIG III was the co-winner of the SIG-of-the-Year Award this time! This award is to recognize outstanding professional accomplishments and activities of an ASIS&T Special Interest Group. What made this award very special is the fact that SIG III won this award three times in a row!

SIG III Sessions and Global Information Village Plaza

At this annual meeting, SIG III sponsored or co-sponsored the following five sessions:

§ Digital Divide II: Global vs. Local Content (SIG/III)

§ Global Information Village Plaza (SIG/III)

§ Multicultural Aspects of Information Organization and Access (SIG/III)

§ Society Metrics in the Global Environment (SIG/III)

§ Bridging the Digital Divide as Capacity Building for the Information Economy

The Global Information Village Plaza was born out of the idea of going beyond the hype, rhetoric and ‘expert’ analysis by the happy few involved in the preparation of policies and programs supposed to support the transition into the “information society" or "digital economy.” Instead, it sought to give ASIS&T members -and information professionals at large- an opportunity to express their views about the challenges and opportunities that the so called "information society" represents in their personal and professional lives. Between July and December 2002, individuals were invited to post short position statements and engage in discussion about these issues on the SIG-III listserv. The position statements and major discussion threads (originating from the USA, Canada, Europe, Africa and Latin America) were then summarized by the moderators, Michel Menou and Nadia Caidi. Poster boards identifying the major themes, along with direct quotes from the position statements, were then displayed during a special panel session at the annual ASIST conference in Philadelphia.

Among the recurring themes were: the rise (and challenges) of multiculturalism and multilingualism; the changing nature of the public sphere; the strategies for coping with information overload and pollution; the new patterns of work and social life; the increased opportunities for social involvement; as well as issues around digital divide and inequalities. At the professional level, learning was a much discussed theme (e.g., lifelong learning for information professionals; the switching focus from information systems toward interactive learning); along with user-friendliness and reliability of ICT applications; and the role of ICT as instruments of cultural domination vs. liberation. The role of the information science and technology community was viewed as essential in leading the change and educating professionals about information culture and the potential of ICTs. A call for better ethics, more openness and leadership (“make it safer, simpler, cheaper”) was made.

During the ASIST session, all attendees were invited to browse the panels and add their own comments on post-its. A general discussion ensued, which attested to the usefulness of such a forum. The overall positive response to the Global Information Village Plaza led to the decision to have a follow-up. Check the Global Plaza Archive on the SIG-III website and stay tuned!

Contributed by Nadia Caidi and Michel Menou

International Reception, Silent Auction, and Raffle

The International Reception at ASIST 2002 Annual Meeting was held on Monday November 18 from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Elsevier Science, Inc. donated generously $1000 to the reception. This year’s reception attracted a large number of attendees as it always has!

The Silent Auction went really well at the International Reception. Thanks for all those who participated in the Silent Auction at the reception. Many SIG III members helped the auction by contributing wonderful items for sale, setting up and managing the sale, and buying the items.

A raffle to benefit the SIG III InfoShare Program was also held at the reception. The program sponsors ASIST membership for information practitioners from developing countries, residing outside the U.S., to help them benefit their information communities and the developments in their countries. This year, the winner, Penny O'Connor, donated her winning $100 to the InfoShare Program. Thanks, Penny!

The Silent Auction and the Raffle together raised $510!

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4. SIG III Business Meeting Minutes

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Nov 19, 2002

Attendees:

Sue O'Neill Johnson sueojohnson@msn.com

Mila Rush m-rush@umn.edu

Roman A. Santillan rsantillan@nypl.org

Miriam V. Cunha mcunha@unetsul.com.br

Suzanne Stemler sstemler@miami.edu

Bernard Bamuhiiga bamuhiiga@mulib.mak.ac.ug

Merlyna Lim merlyn@bdg.centrin.net.id

Dorothy McGarry dmcgarry@ucla.edu

Hong Xu hxu@mail.sis.pitt.edu

Albert Arko-Cobbah arcob-a@blenny.vista.ac.za

Wendy U. Sealy sealyw@caribank.org

Nathalie Leroy nleroy@unog.ch

Yunfei Du ydu@lis.admin.unt.edu

Nadia Caidi caidi@fis.utoronto.ca

Yin Zhang yzhang4@kent.edu

Michel Menou Michel.Menou@wanadoo.fr

Julian Warner j.warne@qub.ac.uk

Ben-Ami Lipetz balipetz@albany.edu

Sue O'Neill Johnson, SIG III president, opened the meeting at 3:00 p.m.

Hong presented a brief review of SIG III sessions for 2002 and reported

especially good turnouts at morning sessions.

Sue began planning discussion for 2003 events by suggesting a session on

government control of access to information and including advances toward

privatization of the telecommunications industry in the developing world.

During further discussion Wendy suggested we work with World Summit on

Information Technology themes (http://www.itu.int/wsis/). Nathalie

volunteered to develop this program.

Wendy suggested we capitalize on the momentum of ICTs before financing drops

and asked if we are in a position to do some forecasting. She volunteered

to organize a session addressing ICTs.

Michel Menou suggested a multimedia activity (a video of approx. 25 min.)

involving analysis of critical success factors for development of

field/profession in several geographic regions. Suggestions for regions

included Trinidad and Tobago, Indonesia, Uganda, Brazil, and China. This

would be like a "Success Stories of the Global Village" plaza and would be

part of the International Reception. Merlyna and Nadia agreed to edit the

videos and host the event.

(Ben Ami led a discussion of how to organize the event if Elsevier funds

liquid refreshments. No conclusions were reached.)

Nadia agreed to develop a session addressing Information Policy in Mexico by

working with a Mexican Information Society.

Hong suggested a program on how cultural differences and characteristics

influence information seeking and use. Yin volunteered to work with Hong on

organization of this program.

Yunfei suggested a session on distance education and lifelong learning.

Wendy volunteered to assist Yunfei.

Minutes submitted by Suzanne K. Stemler

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5. Proposed sessions for 2003 Annual Meeting

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Proposals for 2003 Technical Panel Sessions are due on January 28. Eleven sessions are proposed for next year. If you are interested in participating in the sessions, or know a good speaker, please contact the session organizers. Thank you!

1. Government Control and Geolocation (Co-Sponsor: IFP?). Contact Roman A.

Santillan (III) at rsantillan@nypl.org

2. Momentum of ICTs, Contact Wendy Sealy (III) at rsantillan@nypl.org

3. World Summit on the Information Society (Co-Sponsor: IFP). Contact

Nathalie Leroy (III) at nleroy@unog.ch or Gail Hodge (IFP) at

gailhodge@aol.com

4. Transborder data flow: implications for information dissemination and

policies between the US, Canada and Mexico. Contact Nadia Caidi (III) at

caidi@fis.utoronto.ca or Gail Hodge (IFP) at gailhodge@aol.com

5. Cultural variations of Internet use. Hong Xu (III) at

hxu@mail.sis.pitt.edu

6. Distance education, lifelong learning. Contact Yunfei Du (III) at

ydu@lis.admin.unt.edu or Wendy Sealy (III), sealyw@caribank.org

7. Internet resources and services. Contact Yin Zhang (III) at

yinzhang@slis.kent.edu

8. Training in Science and Technology (Co-sponsor: STI). Contact Sue O.

Johnson (III) at sueojohnson@msn.com

9. Career Development: (Co-sponsor: MGT). Contact Sue O. Johnson (III) at

sueojohnson@msn.com or Bill Edgar (MGT) at bedgar@u.arizona.edu

10. Decreasing public domain: (Unesco conference)

SIG-III will find an international speaker (Emil Levine) (Co-sponsor IFP)

Contact Sue O. Johnson (III) at sueojohnson@msn.com or Gail Hodge (IFP) at

gailhodge@aol.com

11. Multilingual Access to Information (Co-Sponsor DL). Contact Nathalie

Leroy (III) at nleroy@unog.ch or Suzie Allard (DL) at slalla0@uky.edu

Contributed by Hong Xu, Program Chair

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6. Frequently Asked Questions about sigiii-l Subscriptions and SIG III Web Site

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This issue of SIGIII newsletter is compiled by: Yin Zhang (yinzhang@slis.kent.edu)