Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology最新文献

EDITOR'S SUMMARY

The third annual Virtual Symposium on Information & Technology in the Arts & Humanities, held on April 18 and 19, 2017, centered on a theme of open science in the humanities. Presentations at the Symposium have included topics such as data visualization, historical images, interactive exhibits and linked data. The 2017 theme of open humanities was a starting point for the speakers to consider how open science has and can impact the world of humanities in various ways. Speakers at the symposium discussed analyzing writing practices on the internet using web scrapers, data management in the humanities, visual literacy skills of graduate and undergraduate students and the challenge researchers face in trying to keep up with publications in their field.

EDITOR'S SUMMARY

The voice of the performing arts is an important – though seldom heard – disciplinary component of information science research. The Open Symphony, a collaboration between a performing musician and computer science students, allowed for creative audience interaction with live music performances. But such interdisciplinary collaboration is difficult and needs to be put within the larger context of questions surrounding value, individual contribution in artistic expression and ownership in the performing arts. Indeed, tensions around the economics of art and commercial versus academic value may hinder collaborations between artists and academia, but with the right framework and definitions of value these efforts could lead to additional forms of cross-disciplinary exploration.

EDITOR'S SUMMARY

Bibliometric evaluation for research in the field of sciences can be a good way to assess the quality and factual basis of claims and can lead to more funding for authors and for research work. However, due to the more diverse fields covered, this type of evaluation is less effective in the world of humanities. Many professionals and researchers in humanities fields believe that bibliometric evaluation is meant only for STEM research and can't properly assess any findings made in humanities. Four common claims made about bibliometrics in humanities are that bibliometrics do not adequately cover the non-uniform nature of humanities; greater bibliometric coverage will not solve all the research problems in humanities subjects; metrics use already has an impact on humanities research practices and finally; other evaluation methods, like altmetrics, are conventional.

EDITOR'S SUMMARY

ASIS&T president Lynn Silipigni Connaway announced the new executive director of ASIS&T, Lydia Middleton. Lydia joined ASIS&T ready to lead after Dick Hill's 27 years of service as executive director. Also announced are the keynote speakers for the 2017 Annual Meeting: Richard Marks, head of PlayStation Magic Lab at Sony Interactive Entertainment, and William Powers, best-selling author and research scientist at MIT Media Lab. The Annual Meeting will also have an 80^th Anniversary Welcome Reception and panel session, and work is underway for an interactive history exhibit at the meeting, coordinated by Kathryn La Barre. Lynn Silipigni Connaway was invited to spend April 26 through May 7 in Hong Kong as a visiting professor working with the master of library and information management program at the University of Hong Kong. Connaway and past president Nadia Caidi also attended the Council for Scientific Society Presidents in Washington, D.C., May 2017, and ASIS&T partnered with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Earth Day Network for the March for Science.

EDITOR'S SUMMARY

ASIS&T has continuously worked to enhance diversity and inclusion over its long history, including the formation of the Special Interest Group/International Information Issues and the name change from the American Society for Information Science and Technology to the Association for Information Science and Technology. During the 2016 ASIS&T Annual Meeting (AM), a Diversity and Inclusion Luncheon was held to promote discussion and ideas of new ways for ASIS&T to promote diversity. Attendees of the luncheon were asked to share positive personal experiences with diversity, as well as share ideas for how to bolster diversity and inclusion in future AMs and for ASIS&T as an organization. Suggestions include the meeting being held outside of North America more frequently, inclusion of mentor programs for papers and new attendees of AMs, removing North American-centric language from communications and more ASIS&T board members from other continents. The suggestions were recommended to the ASIS&T Board for further discussion.

EDITOR'S SUMMARY

Zombies have been sweeping across all types of media for many years, and their popularity continues to rise with TV shows like The Walking Dead and movies like Warm Bodies. The popularity of entertainment about the undead presents an interesting opportunity to draw parallels between the fiction of zombies and the reality of human politics, societies and issues. In an effort to connect this discourse with born-digital publishing, [ZOMBIES REIMAGINED] was created. The effort behind [ZOMBIES REIMAGINED] was undertaken by faculty, students and librarians at Swarthmore College, and it was launched in May 2016 as a public website with individual exhibits in the form of web pages. The web pages were authored by students in the author's seminar and turned into an online experience with the help of Swarthmore librarians. Due to the success of the project, a large update to the site was launched in May 2017 with all new student authors and topics discussed.

EDITOR'S SUMMARY

ASIS&T president Lynn Silipigni Connaway attended the ASIS&T Regional Meeting at OCLC on March 3, 2017. Special Interest Group/Information and Learning Sciences (SIG/ILS) has launched and will have a presence at the 2017 ASIS&T Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, from October 27 to November 1. In order to facilitate international attendees at the meeting, ASIS&T will be offering visa support documents by request. A conference put together by the Asia Pacific, Taiwan and Europe chapters titled “ASIS&T Presentation: Professional Organizations in Career Development” took place at the iConference in Wuhan, China, on March 24. The Board of Directors has approved a new marketing policy. The search for a new ASIS&T executive director continues. Finally, a respected pioneer in the information science field, Dr. Eugene Garfield, passed away in February. A memorial and account of his life can be found in Inside ASIS&T Reminders and on the ASIS&T website.