ASIST really goes international

The first ASIST annual meeting under the new, non-national affiliation was held last week in beautiful Montreal and it was a raging success. Not only was the content much improved but the spirit of fun that emerged last year in hurricane-blasted Baltimore was sustained and enhanced. For me, the year was about internationalization and while the name change was important, the proof was in the attendance. By the start of the conference we knew 38 countries would be represented, a major increase over previous years, with attendees from as far away as Australia, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago. We had 40 attendees from various European countries and 89 from Canada. It was a pleasure to meet so many and to turn the attendee numbers back up into positive territory after several years of decline (we passed the 600 mark once walk-in registrations were counted). Kudos to the program committee and to the local help provided by the School of Information Studies at McGill who put in a lot of effort here, culminating in a fabulous dinner celebrating CAIS and ASIST at the university’s Faculty Club on Tuesday evening. If anything, the program suggests we need to think again about adding in Wednesday to the conference program, there is just too much happening in the evenings to get to everything. Regardless, this was the best ASIST conference in years, and the stage is set to move further into international leadership in the years ahead.