President’s Message, May 2025
Hello friends,
At the start of May, the ASIS&T Board held its annual Board Strategy meeting. This was a two-day meeting where we considered many sources of input from you, including your responses to our annual membership survey, your inputs into the development of our new strategic plan for ASIS&T, and your responses to our survey on our organisational values. More on all these items will come later, but we greatly appreciate all your inputs on these important requests for views.
Many of your responses indicated how much ASIS&T is appreciated as a community of scholars, peers, friends and collaborators. We all contribute to making this community work, contributing as authors, reviewers, mentors, listeners, critics, educators, leaders, officers, and well-wishers. Some contribute more at this time, some will contribute more later or have done so in the past. Whilst some roles seem more visible than others, all roles are important: it may be that question you summon up courage to ask at the Annual Meeting that changes someone’s research journey, or answering our annual membership survey that provides an insight that catalysts a new initiative, and we have all appreciated a nodding head in the audience. Contributions are cumulative and all contributions add up to a thriving community.
What is important is that there are ways to contribute to the ASIS&T community and to engage with others. Some ways to contribute are regular events such as our Annual Meeting and our awards juries. There are lots of opportunities to contribute here. We are always looking for peer reviewers for our Annual Meeting and Steve Sawyer, Editor-in-Chief of JASIST, is especially happy to welcome committed new reviewers. Reviewing is part of a conversation about research: don’t feel shy about contributing to this conversation, especially if you have already published yourself – do reach out and offer your help with this conversation. I especially say this to colleagues outside North America, Canada, and Europe: all voices offer something to this joint conversation and enrich our exchanges. A reminder that at this year’s Annual Meeting we offer the chance to present and listen to presentations in more than 200 languages. Other opportunities come via participation in our SIGs and Chapters. There are events and discussions created by the SIG and Chapter leaderships but also opportunities for you to suggest or offer new discussions and ideas so please get in touch with your ASIS&T communities if you have ideas for activities.
A very specific type of engagement is mentoring. I have benefited hugely in my career from the kindness of others, in providing advice, pointing me to opportunities, or recommending me for activities such as reviewing. Most of these were spontaneous and kind gestures to a new and generally bewildered young academic. I have also, like many of you, sought out advice from role models and received generously in time and guidance. ASIS&T is reinvigorating our mentorship scheme and it’s heartening to see so many of you offer to be a mentor or to be brave enough to sign up for mentorship.
We will shortly be launching a new webinar series for those members who are reaching the mid to later stages of their careers (but we hope it will also be useful for early career colleagues to think about what a second half of their career might look like). These webinars will be created by some of our senior members, colleagues who have often held substantial leadership roles, on topics such as how to negotiate salary and conditions, how to lead a school, and how to plan a case for promotion.
Communities thrive and survive if they believe in what they are doing and believe in each other. Some of the communities to which we belong are being strongly tested right now, but we are all fortunate that you all are helping to make ASIS&T a strong and vibrant research community.
I leave you with a poem from the Scottish Victorian poet, William Topaz McGonagall, often honoured as the worst poet writing in the English language, but someone whose career is a triumph of faith over experience. It is called ‘The Chicken is a Noble Beast’ and has brought me much comfort in difficult times.
“The chicken is a noble beast,
The cow is much forlorner,
Standing in the pouring rain,
With a leg in every corner.”
Best wishes for a happy week!
Ian