Editor's Desktop

Abstract

This issue is dedicated to the many ASIS&T members who have devoted their time and energy to the development, promotion and implementation of information standards. Standards in our field have played a vital role in allowing the collaborative creation, automation and wider exploitation of information resources, particularly bibliographic data and knowledge organization tools. Now there is also a focus on linked data standards that may allow these resources to be used in other contexts.

At an official level, the ASIS&T standards effort is spearheaded by the ASIS&T Standards Committee and its dedicated co-chairs Timothy Dickey and Mark Needleman. The committee is our representative to the national and international standards organizations and serves as liaison to us. Timothy Dickey is the guest editor of our special section on standards, which is special not only in being a focused treatment, but also in its approach. Instead of being a dry recitation of what the standards are, it presents case studies of the implementation of several important standards, including those for description, information management, record-keeping and technical interoperability, with the issues and opportunities accompanying these innovative efforts.

While our major coverage of the Annual Meeting will appear in the next issue, we are pleased to present Peter Ingwersen's acceptance speech for the ASIS&T Award of Merit, our highest honor, as well as greetings and an update from 2017 ASIS&T president, Lynn Silipigni Connaway. I would also like to call your attention to our interview with ASIS&T communications officer, Yolande Nanayakkara. Communications officer is a new position, and Yolande is the first person to fill it. Her energy and imagination are already making a difference at the Bulletin.

We also welcome a new RDAP associate editor to the Bulletin. Amelia Kallaher is scholarly resources librarian at the Jane Bancroft Cook Library, New College of Florida, USF Sarasota-Manatee. If you have ideas or suggestions about RDAP coverage, she can be reached at [email protected]. The RDAP Review in this issue reports on the recently created Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Finally, IA associate editor Laura Creekmore reflects in the IA Column on how vital information architecture is in airports and other situations where we are trying to find our way when we don't speak the language.