Inside ASIS&T

Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, Aug/Sep 2005

2005 ANNUAL MEETING

Pattie Maes to Headline ASIS&T 2005

Pattie Maes, associate professor at MIT's Media Laboratory where she founded and directs the Software Agents Group, will be a featured plenary speaker at the 2005 ASIS&T Annual Meeting, Sparking Synergies: Bringing Research and Practice Together, October 28-November 2, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Maes is one of the pioneers of the research area known as software agents - an area which builds on such disciplines as artificial intelligence, human computer interaction, computer-supported collaborative work, information filtering and electronic commerce. Software agents are semi-intelligent computer programs that help users with the overload of information and the complexity of the online world. Maes' group pioneered the use of machine learning to build such agents and invented a range of new algorithms, such as collaborative filtering.

Maes joins a lineup of dozens of leading researchers and practitioners in information science and technology who will explore the intersection of research domains - such as behavioral science, communications, computer science, sociology, business, biomedical sciences, history, philosophy and others - with a variety of fields of practice - such as librarianship, information architecture, systems design and development, publishing, bibliography, interface design and usability, teaching and classification.

Technical sessions at the meeting have been divided into a number of tracks, including information behavior; digital libraries; information design; information organization; ethical, legal and policy issues; knowledge management; medical and health information; online searching behavior; information resources; social informatics; foundations of information science; and online help.

Program co-chairs Mike Crandall and Barbara Wildemuth note several unique additions to this year's Annual Meeting plans. For one, they say the poster sessions have been expanded to two full days, with poster presenters on hand at designated hours each day for discussion. At all other times, the posters will be available for viewing. The first poster day will be focused on the topic Users and Behaviors; the second will feature Content and Systems.

Another innovation this year is that the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting will be offered in electronic form only. A CD-ROM version of the Proceedings will be available at the conference and provided to all full conference registrants as part of their registration fees. Additional copies of the CD will be available for purchase on site. Enhanced content including information from poster and panel sessions will be added to the Proceedings after the meeting and will be available at the ASIS&T website.

Conference Hotel

The Westin Charlotte has been chosen as the conference hotel. All conference sessions and events will be held at the conference hotel, unless otherwise noted. A special discounted room rate of $149 single or double is available until October 9, 2005.

The 700-room Westin Charlotte offers an uptown location in the heart of the city's financial district. A convenient trolley stop whisks guests to the city's hottest dining and entertainment district. All guest rooms and suites feature dual-line telephones with voice messaging, large work desk, in-room data port, complimentary gourmet coffee, in-room movies and minibar. A full-service concierge and well-equipped business center are available to attend to last-minute details. A gourmet restaurant and an outdoor café are guaranteed to satisfy any palate. A number of attractions are within minutes of the hotel including the shops and restaurants of Historic South End, the Charlotte Convention Center and Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers.

Pre-Conference Workshops and Seminars

As always, ASIS&T's robust continuing education efforts will be visible at the 2005 Annual Meeting. Seven courses and two SIG Workshops are in the schedule.

The courses, for which separate registration is required and which are described in some detail at the ASIS&T website, are Building Digital Library Collections with Open Source Software; Theory and Practice of Cognitive Work Analysis: Designing Ecological Information Systems; Information Architecture & Findability; Ontology Design Using RDF/OWL and Topic Maps; Resolving Taxonomy Challenges and IA Conflicts; Building Taxonomies for Information Retrieval; and Personal Information Management in Theory and in Practice.

The two SIG workshops are the 16th SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop and the 5th SIG/USE Workshop.

Additional Conference Information

An abridged preliminary program will be mailed to all ASIS&T members this summer. In addition, complete program information is available at the ASIS&T website: www.asis.org.

News from an ASIS&T SIG

Special Interest Group/International Information Issues (SIG/III) raised over $7000 in just two months this spring for the 6th International Paper Contest on International Digital Libraries and Information Science & Technology Advances in Developing Countries. With fundraising a continuing process, SIG officials expressed pleasure and expectation for ongoing support from the information community. The funds support two-year ASIS&T memberships for six to eight of the paper contest winners each year and cover expenses of the top winner(s) to travel from his or her home country to the ASIS&T Annual Meeting. Since the contest began in 2000, SIG/III has sponsored 32 two-year ASIS&T memberships to contest winners from 15 different countries and has supported 15 winners to attend ASIS&T Annual Meetings.