Announcement of the 2011 ASIS&T SIG-III International Paper Contest
The Special Interest Group on International Information Issues (SIG-III) of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) is pleased to announce its eleventh competition for papers to be submitted for the 2011 Annual Meeting, which will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, October 7-12, 2011. ( http://www.asis.org/asist2011/am11cfp.html )
Building from the overall conference theme, the theme for this year’s paper contest is:
“Bridging the Gulf: Communication and Information in Society, Technology, and Work”. Papers could discuss issues, policies and case studies on specific aspects of the theme from a global and/or international perspective. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following core areas:
1. Intercultural Information Ethics: Critical reflection on the ethical challenges related to the global and cross-cultural production, storage, and distribution of information, as well as the ethical dimensions of the global development and implementation of information systems, infrastructures, and policies.
2. Information Behavior: Information needs, information seeking, information gaps and sensemaking in various contexts including work, interests or every-day life activities by individuals or groups.
3. Knowledge Organization: Indexing, index construction, indexing languages, thesaurus construction, terminology, classification of information in any form, tagging (expert, userbased, automatic), filtering, metadata, standards for metadata, information architecture.
4. Information Systems, Interactivity and Design: How people use and communicate with information systems; the design, use and evaluation of interactive information technologies and systems, including interfaces and algorithms; search and retrieval, browsing, visualization, personalization.
5. Information and Knowledge Management: Information and knowledge creation, transfer and use at the personal, group, organizational and societal levels. The management of the processes and systems that create, acquire, organize, store, distribute, and use information and/or knowledge. Selected papers will be published in the International Journal of Information Management.
6. Information Use: How people re-purpose existing knowledge from a variety of sources (scientific, humanities, news, family, friends, colleagues), forms (articles, books, video, audio, tweets), locations (work, home, in transit) and mediums (cell-phones, PDAs, digital libraries) to advance knowledge, solve problems, improve information literacy, and learn.
7. Information and Society: Economic, Political, Social Issues: Copyright issues, policies and laws; national and international information policies; privacy and security; economics of information, personal rights vs. freedom of information; surveillance; globalization and the flows of information; computerization movements; social informatics.
Selection Criteria
There will be up to six winners who will be selected by a panel of judges including: Maqsood Shaheen (IRC, US Embassy Islamabad), Johannes Britz (UW-Milwaukee), Maria Haigh (UW-Milwaukee), Hong Xu (University of Pittsburg), Catherine Johnson (Western Ontario), Anindita Paul (University of Missouri), and Borchuluun Yadamsuren (University of Missouri).
The judging criteria will be based on:
1. Originality of paper in the developing world and global information ecosystem (originality of the project described, etc.)
2. Relevance to the paper contest theme
3. Quality of argument, presentation and organization
Eligibility & Information for authors
Only papers by a principal author who is a citizen of, and resides in a developing country are eligible. Winners in the 2007-2010 contests are not eligible. The papers should be original, unpublished, and submitted in English. We encourage submissions from librarians, information and network specialists, and educators involved in the creation, representation, maintenance, exchange, discovery, delivery, and use of digital information.
Award
The award for each winner is a two-year individual membership in ASIS&T. In the case of multiple authors, the principal author will be awarded the ASIS&T membership. In addition, depending on SIG III fundraising for this competition, the first place winner will be rewarded a minimum of $1,000 toward travel, conference registration, and accommodations while attending the ASIS&T Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, October 7-12, 2011.
Style
The international paper contest committee requires that submissions follow the International Information and Library Review instructions to authors. Detailed information is available under the heading, Guide for Authors at:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622845/authorinstructions
Publishing opportunities
Submitted papers will be considered for inclusion in a special issue of the International Information and Library Review, subject to the usual peer refereeing process, for that journal.
ASIS&T Copyright Policy
ASIS&T will have the non-exclusive right to publish any of the papers submitted on its web site or in print, with ownership and all other rights remaining with the author.
Deadline for submission of full papers: Authors are invited to submit manuscripts, not to exceed 5,000 words, by May 31, 2011, to Maqsood Shaheen at ShaheenMA [at] gmail.com, preferably as Microsoft Word or PDF attachments.
Upcoming conferences relating to international information
Image by Goodimages, used under the Creative Commons license.
I’d like to take a moment to alert our community about some upcoming conferences related to the field of international information. SIG-III Mentorship Coordinator Nasser Saleh sent me the information regarding the eiFl.net conference:
eIFl.net opens Call for Proposals public libraries in developing and transition countries.
eIFL.net is pleased to announce a Call for Proposals to spark the development of innovative public library services using technology in transitioning and developing countries.
The Public Library Innovation Program (http://plip.eifl.net ) will encourage public libraries to reach out to their communities, partnering with local government, business and other organizations to assess local needs and develop new services. Technology has transformed public libraries throughout the world, yet in many developing countries where the need is great, public libraries are under resourced.
This call is designed to gather great ideas that introduce technology to meet user needs and help members of the community improve their lives. Ten of the best proposals will be awarded up to $30,000 USD each for a one-year project.
Go to http://plip.eifl.net for the Call for Proposal, Application Form, Fact Sheet, FAQs and Press Release. A help desk will be available to prospective applicants plip [at] eifl.net.
This Call for Proposals opens on 16th November 2009 and closes 28th February 2010.
It will be open to applicants from the following countries: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, People’s Republic of China, Colombia, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lesotho, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Mali, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Palestine (West Bank and Gaza), Poland, Guatemala, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Beyond that, there is the 5th Shanghai (Hangzhou) International Library Forum (SILF), and an IFLA Satellite Meeting on the theme of “The Global Librarian,” which will be held in Sweden. Both of these conferences will be held in August of this year. Here are the descriptions of each:
The 5th Shanghai (Hangzhou) International Library Forum (SILF) will be held on August 24~27 in Shanghai and Hangzhou.
The biennial forum, conducted in the era of quickened growth of information industry and globalized development of libraries, provides opportunities of brainstorming centering on the latest progress, innovative measures and future trends of library science and service. With the intensified coverage of media and wide recognition from the library circle, the convening of the forum, combining keynote speeches, plenary session and individual seminars, appeals to over 300 participants for participation at home and abroad, among who are IFLA senior officials, library directors, professionals and experts from the information sector, researchers and people from other fields.
Expo 2010 Shanghai China will take place between May 1 and October 31, 2010 in Shanghai with the theme of ‘Better City, Bette Life’. It would become a pageant for city life discussion, a symphony with the melody of technological innovation and cultural blending as well as a splendid dialogue between nations and cultures.
The forthcoming Forum coincides with World Expo and will include the 7th Chinese-Japanese International Seminar for the Librarianship.
Hangzhou is historical and cultural city reputed as ‘Paradise on Earth’. The host libraries are now extending warm welcome to domestic and overseas colleagues alike to join the academic exchanges while celebrating meanwhile Expo 2010 Shanghai China.
To facilitate in-depth discussions, subtopics are designed as follows,
I．Libraries and Multicultural Service
II. Libraries and Community Well-Being
III. Library Performance Evaluation
IV. Library Support for Innovation and Strategic Decisions
V. Library Service in Cloud Computing EraSubmitted papers shall be original research contributions or summaries of practical experience, which have not been published in any other periodicals or proceedings. Formats can be referred to at http://www.libnet.sh.cn/silf2010. Please submit the abstract to the Organizing Committee prior to March 15, 2010 and the full text before April 30, 2010. All the papers will be peer-reviewed by the Program Committee of SILF 2010 before the selected few get collected in the proceedings of the conference for official publication.
Conference Secretariat
Contact: Ms. Ren Xiapei or Mr. Zhou Qing
Address: 1555 Huai Hai Zhong Lu, Shanghai 200031, China
Email: silf2010 [at] libnet.sh.cn
Tel: +86.21.6445.4500 Fax: +86.21.6445.5006
Website: http://www.libnet.sh.cn/silf2010
New Professionals Discussion Group and Management of Library Associations Section
Boras, Sweden
August 9, 2010Theme: “The Global Librarian”
This satellite conference will be held immediately prior to the World Library and Information Congress in Gothenburg, Sweden, August 2010.
The IFLA New Professionals Discussion Group and the Management of Library Associations Section invite proposals for presentations. First time presenters and new professionals are encouraged to apply.
In order to meet publication deadlines (for inclusion on the IFLA website) proposals must be submitted by February 10, 2010.
Conference Themes and Focus:
New librarians are positioning themselves as library leaders in academia, libraries, and professional associations. This event aims to address key themes and leading trends to provide library services while changing attitudes and expectations on the way. The conference organising committee wishes to showcase examples of best practice in how to develop new leaders, services, and inclusion of new professionals in decision-making processes through both research based scholarly presentations and experiential and practical stories of successes and lessons learned. The organisers are particularly interested in receiving proposals for presentations on any of the following, or related, key themes and issues:• How to internationalize careers,
• New librarian paradigm,
• Mobile librarian,
• Real-time librarian, and
• Advocating for library associations to include new professionals in their agendaWe welcome and encourage proposals from first-time conference presenters, librarians, library school students, and information workers new to the profession.
Conference Location and Dates:
The conference will be held in Boras, Sweden. The conference venue will be the University of Boras which is conveniently located one hour by train from the WLIC venue, Gothenburg. More details will follow in the next few months. The satellite conference will start at 8:30 a.m. with registration, and will end at 4:30 p.m. with a networking session.Format & Structure:
The conference will be arranged to include keynote opening and closing speakers along with a mix of panel/plenary sessions.Conference Language:
The conference will be conducted in English. All papers and presentations will be required to be in English.
And as always, you can check out the International Calendar of Information Science Conferences (ICISC) for upcoming conferences across a broad range of Information Science-related topics.
Blog post contributed by Aaron Bowen
Welcome to the SIG-III Blog’s new location!
Greetings everyone,
I would like to announce a change to the SIG-III Blog: it has moved. The new address is
http://sigiii.wordpress.com/
Due to server hosting changes at NEASIST, the SIG-III Blog has moved to its new location. Please update your links and RSS feeds. (Also, thanks to NEASIST for hosting the SIG-III Blog since 2006!)
This change has prompted the second appearance change in six months, but the new appearance retains all of the functionality of the old site — the prominent links to the “About us” section and RSS feeds in the upper right, the search bar underneath that, and the hierarchical post categories in the right sidebar. Beyond that, the new URL is the only other change.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Aaron Bowen
SIG-III Social Media Administrator
SIG-III wins SIG-of-the-Year award!
Image by Lulu_witch, used under the Creative Commons license.
I’m with the hamsters — we have reason to celebrate! I’m glad to announce that SIG-III has won the SIG of the year award for 2008-2009. The following is from yesterday’s official announcement from ASIS&T:
The 2009 SIG of the Year is SIG International Information Issues (SIG III). One of the jury members summed up the appeal of SIG III very well: “SIG-III has a well-established pattern of service to the international community as well as to the Society. Their membership makes up in enthusiasm what it may lack in size, and they have a large and very task-oriented executive committee. They communicate effectively with their membership through a bi-monthly newsletter, alternating with one to the executive committee. They bring new members into the association through their InfoShare program, and their paper competition is an excellent mechanism for bringing scholars to the conference who would be otherwise unable to attend. Their international reception is one of the highlights of the annual conference, and they make good use of the event as a venue for fundraising for their many awards. As a SIG, they have very high visibility and as a consequence they make all members, not just their own SIG, aware of ASIS&T’s potential role in international scholarship.” Unlike many other SIGs, III recognizes that the work of this society is not solely accomplished at this annual meeting, but consists of small activities throughout time and space and across national, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. Congratulations to SIG III, and particularly to Aaron Bowen, chair, and all the other officers of SIG III, for being this year’s ASIS&T SIG of the Year.
Also, in an informal e-mail, SIG Cabinet Director KT Vaughan let me know that this is the fifth year straight our SIG has won this award. Thank you all for a wonderful and productive year!
With this announcement, I would also like to pose a challenge for you all. The challenge is two-fold:
One, I would like to call upon everyone to introduce the SIG to any of your colleagues interested in international information. In our current world of ubiquitous information, it is easy to have less familiarity with a body of research, with a current trend, or with a professional organization than we would like — being in the same boat myself, I’m all too familiar with this issue. I find that when I have a personalized introduction to a body of scholarship, trending topic, or professional society, I have more incentive to pay attention to it, and I remember more about it. With that in mind, I invite you to introduce SIG-III (and ASIS&T more broadly) to any of your colleagues who either aren’t yet familiar with the organization, or have only a passing familiarity.
Two, my fellow SIG Officers any myself would love to hear about your research and conference presentations. If you are publishing a paper or giving a presentation on an international information-related topic, tell us about it! We are always glad to know about our members research endeavors, and to facilitate connections between researchers where they have common research interests. You can let either me or incoming Chair Kate Johnson (cjohn24 [at] uwo [dot] ca) know about your work.
Beyond that, if you will be at this year’s ASIS&T Annual Meeting, I look forward to seeing you in Vancouver!
Contributed by Aaron Bowen
ICTs and Development: March 11-12, 2010 in New Delhi
ICTs and Development: An International Workshop for Theory, Practice, & Policy. 11-12 March 2010 | New Delhi.
_______________________
Unpublished, original empirical papers are invited for the forthcoming international workshop on ICTs and Development: An International Workshop for Theory, Practice, & Policy to be conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, India, during 11-12 March 2010.
The workshop aims to provide a forum for scholars to share their empirical research with academic experts, policymakers, and activists from the regional and international development community. Papers should examine how mobile phones, computers, and the Internet influence the empowerment of marginal individuals and communities, including whether ICTs create and enhance livelihood opportunities for people in the developing world.
Papers should be in the range of 5,000-8,000 words (including abstract and bibliography) and should include a clear discussion of the implications of the findings for development policy and/or practice.
No more than twelve papers will be selected by the workshop organizers for presentation.The first author of each paper chosen will be given air fare and lodging/meals.
The workshop is part of the project, ICTs and Urban Micro Enterprises: Identifying and Maximizing Opportunities for Economic Development, and is supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada.
The organizers are committed to finding an appropriate publication venue for all papers accepted for the workshop.
The conference website is here.
_______________________
Deadlines:
Submission of manuscripts: 1st October 2009
Announcement of results: 1st December 2009
Submission of final version of the paper: 1st February 2010
For submission of manuscripts and other enquiries, please write to ICTD2010 [at] gmail [dot] com
_______________________
Workshop Organizers:
Dr. P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Prof. Mark R. Levy
Michigan State University
International Reception Announcement
Image by Josh Bancroft, used under the Creative Commons license.
This year’s International Reception will be held on Monday, November 9, 2009, at 8pm. At the reception you will be able to meet and congratulate this year’s International Paper Contest winner and mix with colleagues from all over the world.
This year’s contest winner is Muhammad Rafiq, from Pakistan. His paper is titled “[The] LIS community’s perceptions towards open source software adoption in libraries,” and is set to be published in the September, 2009 issue of the International Information and Library Review, edited by Toni Carbo. Come meet with Muhammad Rafiq, and pick up one of the copies of IILR that Elsevier has generously donated to the event.
SIG-III will hold its annual InfoShare Silent Auction at the event. If you have items you would like to donate to the Silent Auction, please contact InfoShare Officers Abebe Rorissa (arorissa [at] albany [dot] edu) or Sarah Emmerson (saemmerson [at] yahoo [dot] com), and bring your items to the conference with you.
We will also have our annual Raffle Ticket Sale at the Reception. The prize in the Raffle is a gift basket put together by the local chapter of ASIS&T, with locally produced products and goodies. If you have something small and new that you could contribute for the basket, please contact Abebe or Sarah and bring it to the conference as well.
All proceeds from the Silent Auction and Raffle Ticket Sale will go to the SIG-III InfoShare Fund, which offers ASIS&T memberships to information professionals in developing countries for whom the cost of membership would otherwise be a financial burden.
Thank you for your support! Come enjoy yourself at the International Reception! International attire is encouraged!
Aaron Bowen
Chair, SIG-III
New SIG-III Newsletter published!
Image by Adrianne Lacy, used under the Creative Commons license.
The SIG-III Officers are pleased to announce the publication of the July, 2009 edition of the SIG-III Newsletter. The Newsletter is our formal record of the activities in which the SIG partakes, and the new edition represents the latest chapter in the chronicle of the SIG’s history. The contents of the new edition are
- ASIS&T Annual Meeting
- InfoShare Recipients
- International Reception
- International Paper Contest Results
- Published/Accepted International Paper Contest papers in IILR
- International Conferences Calendar in 2005 and 2009 — a comparison
- Updates to the SIG-III Website and Blog
- 2008-2009 SIG III Officers
- SIG III Listserv and Web Site
You may download it here, or visit the SIG-III homepage and click on “Newsletter” in the left-side nav bar.
Contributed by the SIG-III Officers
Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent
It’s a little over a month old, but I’ve not yet posted about the following report by Bruce Etling, John Kelly, Rob Faris, and John Palfrey, so I will do so now. It is titled Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent, and is published by Harvard’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society.
Image by dweekly, used under the Creative Commons license.
I’m being kicked out of my office this afternoon while some of my university’s tech people work on my Internet connection. While I am without my computer I will work on SIG-III’s annual report, but I hope to be able to steal a bit of time away to read this report as well. If you’ve read it and have any thoughts or reactions, leave a comment below — I’d love to hear what you think.
On the same topic, I’ll also point to Nasrin Alavi’s We Are Iran. As with Etling et al’s report, I’d love to hear any thoughts you have on Dr. Alavi’s book. She’s even put a sample chapter online as well.
Contributed by Aaron Bowen
In the news this week: the Question Box
Image by SlinkyDragon, used under the Creative Commons license.
Ken Banks at IT World writes about the Question Box — a service allowing a person to ask a question through a telecom box placed in a village, and then receive a response from someone on the other end of the line who has a computer in front of him/her. Banks explains:
It works like this: A villager presses a call button on a physical intercom device, located in their village, which connects them to a trained operator in a nearby town who’s sitting in front of a computer attached to the Internet. A question is asked. While the questioner holds, the operator looks up the answer on the Internet and reads it back. All questions and answers are logged. For the villager there is no keyboard to deal with. No complex technology. No literacy issues. And during early trials at least, no cost. Put simply, Question Box, as it’s called, provides immediate, relevant information to people using their preferred mode of communication, speaking and listening.
You can see photos of the Question Box and of people using it on the Question Box Project’s Flickr photostream.
Banks also notes that the Grameen Foundation this week launched its AppLab initiative in Uganda. (AppLab stands for application laboratory, and is essentially a project to get people in different locales around the developing world building information access applications for mobile devices such as cellphones. Their about us page has more detail). Kiwanja posts an insider’s view of the project’s rollout in Uganda to his blog.
August message from the SIG-III Chair in July
Hello everyone,
Yes, I realize I’m very early with this message, but enough has been going on over the past week that I want to share it with you all now.
The most important piece of news is that we have three winners for the International Paper Contest. Please congratulate Muhammad Rafiq, Muhammad Arif, and Saima Kanwal on their winning papers! I have announced them over the SIG-III Blog.
This post provides the perfect transition to my next topic: the SIG-III Blog’s new look. You will see that I’ve updated the layout and graphical content of the blog. I’m very excited about its new appearance, and I hope you all will stop by, leave a comment on one of the posts, and/or subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed.
Last but not least, InfoShare Officer Sarah Emmerson and I have developed a Facebook page for the SIG, which will serve as a useful compliment to the blog. If you are on Facebook, we would love to have you join our group! You may find it here.
As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thanks everyone, and enjoy the weekend!
Aaron Bowen
Chair, SIG-III
