[Asis-l] Ceasing publication of ARIST

[nicholas belkin]

Dear members of ASIST,

Upon reading Blaise Cronin's editorial in the most recent published 
version of JASIST, vol. 61, no. 4, I was shocked (shocked!) to discover 
that the ASIST board has decided to cease publication of the Annual 
Review of Information Science and Technology, after the 2010 edition. I 
then went to the ASIST home page, where I saw, under ASIS&T People and 
News, a link entitled "ARIST to Cease Publication". There is no 
indication of when this link was posted, but I do not recall any email 
notification from ASIS&T of either the board's discussion of this issue, 
or of the board's decision. It certainly was made after the copy 
deadline date for the February-March 2010 number of the Bulletin, as 
there is no announcement there of this decision.

I find it quite remarkable that the ASIST board took, solely upon 
itself, this very serious decision to cease publication of one of the 
most significant activities of the Society. Would they also have taken a 
decision to cease publication of JASIST without consulting the members 
of the Society in general? I hope not, but this one example does not 
make my feel confident in that hope. I also find  pretty remarkable the 
way that this announcement has been made to the membership.

ARIST has been, since its inception, a vital research, teaching and 
professional enhancement tool, used by a wide spectrum of Society 
members. Its replacement by an occasional series called Advances in 
Information Science in JASIST is quite unlikely to maintain the same 
level of regularity and coverage that ARIST was able to achieve, despite 
the obvious talents of Jonathon Furner of UCLA, who will be editor of 
that series.

I think that the way in which this decision was made is quite improper, 
and hereby ask the ASIST board to put a hold on its implementation, 
until after a more detailed description of why this issue even came up 
is given to the Membership, and until after an adequate period and venue 
for discussion on this issue is given the Membership for input.

Nick Belkin

-- 
Nicholas J. Belkin
Professor (II) of Information Science
Department of Library and Information Science
School of Communication and Information
Rutgers University
4 Huntington Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1071, USA
Phone +1 732 932 7500 x8271
Fax +1 732 6916
Email belkin at rutgers.edu
http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~belkin/belkin.html