Registration is closing soon for what must now be the 9th summit (not bad for an idea that was supposed to be the basis of a one-off hot topic meeting for ASIST in Boston in 2000). I’ve not attended the last couple due to an over loaded conference and meeting schedule but I always enjoyed the sheer energy and irreverence (though not so much the occasional irrelevance) of the gathering. The theme this year is Experiencing Information (hum, where have I heard that before?) but it’s sure to be well-attended as usual. Of course the danger of any innovative grouping is falling prey to the standard behavior of conferences. The iSchool community is now running its third annual conference in UCLA next week. I wonder if there is something inherent in intellectual groups that demands the conference structure as a means of establishing a shared reality? Can you be a discipline without a conference? If you have a conference are you a field? No wonder interdisciplinarity is difficult, it just adds to your calendar!
V.M Daniel Regents Professor of Information