Reflecting on the CSSP Meeting - American Society for Information

P R E S I D E N T ’ S
Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology – February/March 2015 – Volume 41, Number 3
b y
SANDY HIRSH
2015 ASIS&T President
Director and professor
School of Information
San José State University
sandy.hirsh<at>sjsu.edu
S a n d y
EDITOR’S SUMMARY
Just after ASIS&T’s 2014 Annual Meeting in Seattle, the meeting of
the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) drew representatives
from about 60 organizations, many facing challenges similar to those
our Association faces. For ASIS&T president Sandy Hirsh, important
takeaways included the realization that many, like ASIS&T, are
changing to become more inclusive and that all the CSSP societies
benefit from the organization’s collective voice to promote public
awareness of science. Shared best practices on strategic planning,
governance, public and international outreach, diversity and
relationships with other organizations will be valuable. Progress
within ASIS&T continues on the goals of strategic planning,
membership management and advocacy. All are being actively
pursued following focus group input and member feedback. The
website redesign is nearly complete and serves as a stimulus for
broader reassessment and updating efforts.
P A G E
H i r s h
he new year is a time for reflection and goal setting. In
this spirit, I will reflect on and share some of the insights
I gained from attending the Council of Scientific Society
Presidents meeting, and I will look forward to what is ahead for
our association in 2015.
T
Reflecting on the CSSP Meeting
professional organizations
After our Annual Meeting in Seattle, I attended a very
stimulating and productive meeting of the Council of Scientific
Society Presidents (CSSP), an organization of the presidents of
about 60 scientific federations and societies. During the meeting,
we heard from many distinguished speakers, including France
Córdova, director, National Science Foundation; John Holdren,
director, White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy; Joe Palca, National Public Radio; Neil Gershenfeld,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Hunter Rawlings III,
president, Association of American Universities; and Andy
Reynolds, deputy science and technology advisor to the
Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State. These speakers
addressed a range of timely and important topics that are
relevant to ASIS&T and scientific societies in general. Here are
some of my key takeaways:
strategic planning
■
KEYWORDS
Association for Information Science and Technology
meetings
governance
Different societies – similar issues: Even though the societies
belonging to CSSP are diverse and range significantly in
size – from those with fewer than 1000 members to those
with more than 100,000 members (the American Chemical
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I am very grateful
for our members’
engagement,
support and
volunteer efforts,
which make ASIS&T
a successful and
vibrant
organization.
■
Society has more
than 160,000
members), one
of my biggest
takeaways was
that scientific
and professional
societies are
generally
experiencing
similar issues and
are evolving in
ASIS&T president Sandy Hirsh gets a moment with
John
Holdren, White House Office of Science and
similar ways. For
Technology Policy.
example, many of
these societies have recently changed (or are considering
changing) their names and membership from “American
Societies” – just as ASIS&T did – to be more inclusive and
representative of their international membership. Several
are also wrestling with whether to change their names as
their field’s terminology has evolved.
Importance of awareness and advocacy: Scientific societies
are very concerned with public awareness of science and
how to ensure there is broad support and awareness about
their contributions and impact. This concern for public
awareness connects well with one of our strategic initiatives
this year – the work that the Information Professionals
Taskforce is engaged in, specifically its focus on broadening
employer and public understanding and awareness of the
information professions. The CSSP focuses a great deal of
its efforts on advocacy (for example, meeting with
members of Congress, doing Capitol Hill briefings) to
address such concerns and to ensure continued investment
in science. The collective voice of this organization – over
1.4 million scientists and science educators – is powerful
and allows smaller associations like ASIS&T to effect change
at a national level that would not be possible otherwise.
Best practices: I especially found it valuable to share best
practices with other associations. For example, here are
some of the topics I thought were interesting and relevant
for ASIS&T:
• How other associations handle strategic planning (for
example, frequency of major strategic planning
initiatives, how funding for strategic initiatives is
handled, who is responsible for leading strategic
planning initiatives)
• Association governance (board size, succession
planning, board training)
• Public outreach (staffing for these efforts, strategies
used, costs for PR initiatives)
• Relationships with related associations (how/whether
they partner, give discounts for belonging to multiple
associations, hold joint meetings)
• International practices (frequency of holding meetings
outside the United States, cultural differences)
• The importance of diversity and inclusion (including
ideas for ways to achieve them within associations).
I will apply some of these best practices and the new
knowledge I gained to benefit our own association.
■
Looking Ahead to 2015
In my last President’s Page, I discussed my three goals for
my year as president. Specifically
■ develop a strategic plan for the Association,
■ identify ways to attract, engage and retain members,
especially practitioners, students and international members
and
■ advocate for the information professions.
All of the committees and task forces are hard at work to
move these initiatives forward. We have some preliminary
findings from the strategic planning focus group interview
sessions and poster-board questions that were collected during
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Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology – February/March 2015 – Volume 41, Number 3
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the Annual Meeting in Seattle, and we will be holding
additional focus group sessions as well. More information will
be shared soon regarding progress on these initiatives.
One of the biggest changes that will greet us early in 2015
is our completed website redesign. The new website is
applying responsive design principles, enabling the site to
render well on mobile devices. This new design detects the size
of the device being used such as cellphone or tablet and
automatically adjusts the display for that device. Going
through the development process with Seven Heads (the design
team) has prompted us to update more than just our website,
but also some of our practices and procedures – many of which
had not been assessed in years. We expect to start the transition
from the current site to the new site in mid-to-late February.
For some time, as we work out bugs, both sites will continue to
be available. It may take longer than February to finish migrating
all of the content to the new site (www.root.asist.org). On the
new site, the contact button currently functions to allow anyone
to make comments or suggestions regarding what they like or
don’t like about the design and functionality. We are interested
in your feedback.
In closing, as I reflect on our Association, I am very
grateful for our members’ engagement, support and volunteer
efforts, which make ASIS&T a successful and vibrant
organization. I am looking forward to working with you in
2015 on the strategic goals we have set so that we can continue
to build on the strengths of the Association and ensure that
ASIS&T remains strong for many years to come. ■
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