On behalf of the Conference Committee, please join us for the 86^th Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting.

We are excited that the ASIS&T Annual Meeting will return to Europe, hosted in London, one of the world’s most vibrant capital cities. We look forward to many stimulating paper presentations, workshops, and panels with lively discussions and pleasurable social occasions.

This year’s theme for our Annual Meeting is ‘Making a difference: Translating Information Research into Practice, Policy, and Action’. Information is one of the most powerful tools for achieving social justice. It plays a pivotal role in tackling crisis situations, creating robust democratic processes, over-coming social and economic disadvantage, and increasing our global assets of education, knowledge, and culture. Challenges to social justice often come first in the form of challenges to information: censorship, fake news, hollowing out of information services, and denial of access to information. Promoting the power of information to develop human happiness, equality, and wellbeing means tackling these problems and finding ways to release the transformational power of information research.

To achieve positive change, we need to consider what processes are effective in developing new ways of working with information, appreciate the challenges of translating excellent research into excellent practice and policy, and understand how to evaluate the difference we have made to the lives of others. As the premier international conference in the field, the ASIS&T Annual Meeting is a forum to assist in addressing these issues as we continue to push forward the positive contributions of information and technology. This includes the introduction of a new category of contribution for this year’s conference, that of research in practice papers to present examples of how research has been translated into practical outcomes.

We have three keynote speakers for our Annual Meeting. Sharing the opening plenary session, we have Alison Phipps and Tawona Sitholé from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Their keynote is entitled, Librarians as Lifelines: In Praise of Critical Information Care.

Our closing plenary keynote speaker, Stuart Hamilton is Head of the Libraries Development for the Local Government Management Agency in Ireland. His keynote is entitled, If You Don’t Get It the First Time, Back Up and Try It Again (Party): How Information Research Must Be Harnessed to Improve Library Advocacy.

We are most grateful to our conference leadership team for all their insight, dedication, and hard work. Thanks to paper chairs Vivien Petras and Rebecca Reynolds, poster chairs June Abbas and Dana McKay, panels & alternative events co-chairs Alison Hicks and Alex Poole, and doctoral colloquium co-chairs Pnina Fichman and Howard Rosenbaum, we have a stimulating and inspiring programme.

We look forward to an important and exciting conference in London. We hope to see you there!