American Society for Information Science and Technology

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The American Society for Information Science and Technology (also referred to as ASIST or ASIS&T) is an organization of information professionals. Established in 1937, the organization sponsors an annual conference and publishes proceedings from this conference under the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology series; provides administration and electronic communications support for interest-based organizational groups referred to as SIGs; provides administration for geographically defined chapter groups; publishes the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (also known as JASIST); publishes a society bulletin; provides job availability oriented communications support; and provides organizational support for continuing education programs for information professionals.

1 History
2 Membership
3 Society Journal
4 Society publications
5 References & Notes
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

Founded as the American Documentation Institute (ADI) on March 13, 1937, the organization was first concerned with microfilm and its role as a vehicle for the dissemination of information.⁷ The organization went through its first name change in January of 1968. The change was made to represent the organization’s interest in “all aspects of the information transfer process” such as, “designing, managing and using information systems and technology⁷. In 2000 the organization updated its name to American Society for Information Science and Technology to embrace the increase in online databases. Today, the organization comprises professionals from various fields including engineering, linguistics, librarianship, education, chemistry, computer science and medicine. The members share a “common interest in improving the ways society stores, retrieves, analyzes, manages, archives and disseminates information.⁷ The organization began publishing its journal, The Journal of the American Society for Information Science, in 1950 and has continued through to the present.⁹

[edit] Membership

Upon its conception ASIST’s membership was constructed of representatives of scientific and professional societies, foundations, and government agencies. (history) Changes made to the bylaws in 1952 opened the organization to any individual with interest in the dissemination of information. Today, memberships are fee-based and can be individual or institutional. There are no specific professional requirements to join as an individual. Similar to most organizations of its kind, ASIST offers as basic membership benefits a subscription to the Society Bulletin; access to their job assistance services (JobLine); a subscription to JASIST, the Society Journal; discounts to ASIST-sponsored events; and the ability to participate in the ASIST SIG system and participation in the election of Society officials.

[edit] Society Journal

The Journal of the American Society of Information Science is published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and is part of their Wiley InterScience series of peer-reviewed journals. The editorial board has ~3 dozen members primarily from the United States². The journal's concernes are "generation, recording, distribution, storage, representation, retrieval and dissemination of information, as well as its social impact and management of information agencies."⁸ Within these concerns there is a strong emphasis on technological advances in information science. An issue typically opens with an editorial summarizing the contents of the issue and placing articles in context; articles come in Research and Brief Communications formats, numbering around 12 in all; and closing with a handful of book reviews and Society announcements. The Journal is available in paper and electronic formats; abstracts are freely available on-line back to 1996¹.

Articles accepted by the Journal fall into five broad topic areas³

Theory of Information Science
Communications
Management, Economics, and Marketing
Applied Information Science
Social and Legal Aspects of Information

Upon acceptance, copyright for the contributed article must be transferred to the publisher, Wiley.

Occasional issues appear with all article contents focused on a single topic area. There are two series of these special issues. The JASIST Perspectives series began in 1980⁴, while the "JASIST Special Topics" series began in 1992⁵.

The Journal is indexed a number of abstract/citation repositories including Information Science Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts, Library and Information Science Asbtracts (LISA), among others ⁶

[edit] Society publications

The organization’s website provides an online bulletin that provides readers with issues from December 1994 to the present in free, full text format. The bulletin is released bi-monthly and contains articles on new progresses and issues within the field. Several journals published by the society are the platforms for academics to convene the most current issues and the technology in the field ^[1].