[Asist-announce] FW: Annual Meeting Proceedings and Mobil APP; President's message

[Richard Hill]

APOLOGIES.  Resending as unless I format this as plain text, it gets
converted into and attachment.  I neglected to do that.

ANNUAL MEETING UPDATE
Annual Meeting Proceedings are online, open access at:
https://www.asist.org/events/annual-meeting/annual-meeting-2016/conference-p
roceedings/

Mobile app for the meeting logo and links for both Apple & Android to the
AM16 home page:
https://www.asist.org/events/annual-meeting/annual-meeting-2016/

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
President’s Page by Nadia Caidi

Nadia Caidi is 2016 ASIS&T President and an Associate Professor at the
iSchool at the University of Toronto, Canada. She can be reached at
nadia.caidi at utoronto.ca

Dear All,

The first ever Annual Meeting of ASIS&T outside North America is around the
corner, and Copenhagen is calling. I hope that you are as excited as I am to
make your way to this beautiful city. The program is fantastic and
attendance is very strong this year. As an added bonus, much is happening in
and around Copenhagen during the AM, including the superb Culture Night (on
October 14th), an all-night affair consisting of events and shows that will
welcome you to Copenhagen’s rich cultural and local scene. To remain
informed and connected, make sure you download our conference app and use it
to connect with local colleagues who can share their insights on nightlife,
dining, and activities during the AM. Student attendees are also invited to
document their experience and Storify the highlights of their AM to win one
of several $500 prizes generously donated by OCLC (See
https://www.asist.org/events/annual-meeting/annual-meeting-2016/student-acti
vities/). 

Our thanks go to conference co-Chairs, Diane Sonnenwald and Lauren Harrison.
Thanks to their hard work, the program is highly eclectic reflecting a range
of perspectives and ideas, as well as new sessions and formats. We hope you
will take advantage of the stimulating program, opportunities for networking
and professional development, along with meeting old friends and making new
ones. On behalf of the Board and the ASIS&T community, I would also like to
thank profusely the jury and award committee chairs and members who put in
countless hours reviewing the various entries and nominations. Thanks to
their hard work, we have a superb lineup of awardees this year, including
(to name just a few) Dr. Reijo Savolainen (recipient of the ASIS&T Research
Award); Dr. Peter Ingwersen (2016 Award of Merit), Dr. Donald Case and Dr.
Diane Sonnewald (Watson Davis Award); Dr. Adam Worall (James Cretsos
Leadership Award); The European Chapter for Chapter of the Year Award;
SIG/MET for SIG of the Year, Dr. Lisa Nathan (Thomson-Reuters Information
Science Teacher of the Year Award), Pratt Institute for Student Chapter of
the Year, and “Boundary Objects and Beyond: Working with Leigh Star” (edited
by Dr. Geoff Bowker et al.) for the Outstanding Information Science Book
Award. Please join us on October 18 at the Awards Luncheon to meet and
congratulate our winners, the people who nominated them, and the various
jurors and committee members.

The Annual Meeting also signals the end of my term as President. Before I
pass on the baton to my esteemed colleague, Lynn Connaway, I would like to
take the opportunity to thank everyone for a fantastic experience on the
Board, and at the helm of ASIS&T. Together, we have been able to reach some
significant milestones: 

•    The financial health of ASIS&T remains strong. We have also been able
to increase membership, although there is more to do to continue attracting
new members and engaging existing ones. The challenge for many educational
non-profit associations is to continue to provide value for their members,
and ASIS&T is no exception. But we are going in the right direction.

•    We have hired ASIS&T’s first Communications Officer in the person of
Mrs. Yolande Nanayakkara. Yolande is responsible with overseeing our
communication strategy and membership outreach and engagement efforts. She
comes to us with a decade of experience in a range of associations. The
search committee was very impressed with her fresh ideas and insights on
marketing and membership engagement. She will be a great asset to our
Association. 

•    Outreach and engagement have been our priority this year. Several
initiatives were put into place, including Regional Meetings, the Doctoral
Students’ Research Videos or the Meet the Author Series. The Doctoral
Students’ Research Videos, for instance, showcases the range of research
work and interests of our emerging scholars. If you have not done so, make
sure to check the videos of the top winner, Ms. Olubukola Oduntan, and the
other contributors at
https://www.asist.org/doctoral-student-research-videos/. All selected videos
will grant  earn their author a free one-year renewal/membership to ASIS&T.
In addition, the top winner will also have her work featured in the
Bulletin. Our thanks for Dr. Iris Xie and her team for their work on this
initiative. The Meet the Authors Series was inaugurated in August 2016 and
has been a great opportunity for ASIS&T members and non-members to become
acquainted with a range of ideas and influences from within and without the
Information field. Topics that have engaged our community members included
the search engine manipulation effect and the regulation of cloud computing.
The upcoming lineup for future events is available here:
https://www.asist.org/events/meet-the-author-series/. 

•    Knowledge management, which has been another priority of the Board, is
well underway. Under the able leadership of June Abbas, Heather Pfeiffer and
their team, a review and assessment of current practices and guidelines is
in progress. We invite everyone to cooperate with June and Heather on this
important project.

•    Capitalizing on Dick Hill’s outstanding legacy, we are proceeding with
succession planning and are working toward replacing Dick and revitalizing
the management at ASIS&T. In this vein, I have created an Executive Director
Search Task Force, which will be co-chaired by Dr. Sandy Hirsh and Dr. Clara
Chu. The Task Force has been provided with the following broad questions to
consider as part of its deliberations: 1) Develop a clear picture of
ASIS&T's current organizational and financial state; 2) Building on the most
recent Strategic Planning Document (and other relevant documentation),
determine whether an Executive Director or an Association Management Firm is
best suited to fulfill the management needs of the Association. Having an
Executive Director in place is critical for managing the HQ staff and
operational issues, and thus allowing the ASIS&T Board to focus on strategic
issues and planning for the Association. The Task Force will be charged with
developing a job description and job announcement for the Executive Director
position (by late October/early Nov 2016). It will also drive the selection
process, review applications that meet the qualifications and parameters
set, and complete face-to-face interviews with the selected
candidates/associations (By January end/early Feb 2017). Finally, the Task
Force will provide a ranked list of candidates along with its recommendation
to the Board of Directors (by February end/early March 2017). In addition to
Sandy Hirsh (a Professor and Director at SJSU and ASIS&T Past President, who
is familiar with the workings/administration of the Association) and Clara
Chu (Director and Mortenson Distinguished Professor at the Mortenson Center
for International Library Programs at UIUC, ASIS&T member-at-large, and a
past President of ALISE when that Association was undertaking its own
management changes), other Task Force members include: Marjorie Hlava,
President of Access Innovations Inc. and a Past President of ASIS&T; Jamshid
Beheshti, a member of ASIS&T Board of Directors and Professor at McGill
(Canada); Lisa Given, Professor at Charles Sturt University in New South
Wales (Australia) and incoming President-Elect; Lynn Connaway, Senior
Research Scientist at OCLC and incoming ASIS&T President and myself. The
Task Force co-chairs welcome any input on the process. Please feel free to
contact them at: sandy.hirsh at sjsu.edu or cmchu at illinois.edu

As you can see, a wind of change is blowing on ASIS&T. I invite everyone to
share your ideas, provide your input and most important of all, engage. I
look forward to meeting and speaking with as many of you as possible.
Nadia Caidi, 2016 ASIS&T President.

Richard B. Hill
Executive Director
ASIS&T
8555 16th Street, Suite 850
Silver Spring, MD  20910
v. (301) 495-0900
f. (301) 495-0810