[Air-l] January 2002 executive committee report

[Steve Jones]

January 15, 2002
Report of the a(o).i.r. executive committee
Prepared by Steve Jones



AoIR Executive Committee
President: Steve Jones
Vice-President: Nancy Baym
Secretary: Ulla Bunz
Treasurer: Benjamin Bates
Open Seats: David Silver and Barry Wellman
Appointed Seats: Matthew Allen and Leslie Shade
Student Seat: Lisbeth Klastrup
Publications Officers: Jeremy Hunsinger and Charlie Breindahl
2002 Conference Coordinator: Monica Murero
2002 Conference Program Chair: Klaus Bruhn Jensen
Ethics Working Group Chair: Charles Ess


1.  Introduction & General (Jones)

Below is the monthly report from AoIR executive committee members.


2.  Executive Officers' Reports

2.1 President (Jones)

2.1.1 As you will see below there is good progress being made on a 
number of initiatives, and there are others "bubbling under" that I 
hope will soon come to fruition. Considering the level of activity 
since the 2001 conference, it is clear that AoIR has entered into a 
new phase of its evolution. What I suspect we will see in the next 
few years is continued growth and activity, and it will not be 
without its costs. Among the things I noticed during and after the 
2001 conference was an interesting desire expressed by members to 
have AoIR grow, but to also maintain its current sensibilities, which 
are, I think, rooted in sharing and openness. That desire was 
probably most evident in the numerous comments I received after the 
conference that in the future we provide opportunity for lunch and 
other "open time" during conference days, but that we also have more, 
and longer, sessions. Now, there is no necessary reason that AoIR 
will continue to grow. It looks as if it will, but it may not. There 
are no guarantees. It may be, however, that at some point in the near 
future, AoIR will come to look increasingly like the "big" scholarly 
organizations that we know, one that holds meetings in large cities 
in big hotels, has affiliations with numerous other scholarly 
organizations, and is, for many, their "first choice" for affiliation 
and conference-going, recognized by disciplinary peers who themselves 
are not members and do not do Internet research. It is certainly my 
hope that, no matter how big or small AoIR is or will be, that the 
kinds of interactions that we have seen at our two conferences, 
during conference planning, on air-l, and among the members of the 
executive committee, will continue as they have. No matter the size, 
it is the quality that counts, and I continue to be pleased and 
appreciative of the quality that each individual's efforts has 
brought to this association.


2.2 Vice President (Baym)

2.2.1 I've been advising on conference planning for 2002 and 2003 
(things look good!) and otherwise savoring spending enormous amounts 
of time with my children over the holidays and very little doing work.


2.3 Secretary (Bunz)

2.3.1 Did a few secretarial things, like signing documents, looking 
up information in the member list, and answering other individual 
requests regarding logistics and administrative issues.

2.3.2 Added my five cents Euro on air-l, and air-meet.

2.3.3 Volunteered as a reviewer.

2.3.4 Submitted a paper for AoIR 2002. Incidentally, I'd like to 
encourage other members and non-members to submit their ideas too!

2.3.5 Together with David Silver and Matt Allen, finished editing the 
"list of list" plans and posted our idea to air-l. Remember to send 
suggestions for valuable lists directly to David Silver at 
dsilver at u.washington.edu .

2.3.6 Received a few more "Internet Cafés at airports" emails from 
around the globe and added the information to my small but growing 
database. Please keep those coming!



2.4 Treasurer (Bates)

2.4.1 Things continue apace.  Since the last report, we've had about 
a dozen payments, roughly equally split between renewals and new 
memberships.  I've sent out renewal notices to those whose 
memberships are expiring in the next month.  We've paid a couple of 
bills related to taxes and various filings.



2.5 Open Seats (Silver, Wellman)

2.5.1 Silver: I have been working with Matt Allen and Ulla Bunz in 
developing the first stage of the 'list of lists' project for A(o)IR. 
We have developed the survey and have begun to send it out to a 
number of lists, including air-l.


2.5.2 Wellman: Put my e-head together with Jeremy and other 
interested folks to try to develop a humane way of minimizing 
reposting of entire digests to lists and posting HTML code which is 
difficult for plain ASCII readers to plow through. Worked with 
organizers of AOIR03 (Toronto) in planning.



2.6 Appointed Seats (Allen, Shade)

2.6.1 Allen: Am sorting things out for a year of study leave, while 
also handling new enrolments here at Curtin. Am working with DS and 
UB on the list of lists project

2.6.2 Shade: Nothing to report.


2.7 Student Seat (Klastrup)

2.7.1 On sickleave from December 20th-January 20th due to RSI. Back 
in Copenhagen after 3 months visit to the Department of Humanistic 
Informatics in Bergen, Norway. Everywhere I go, people seem to know 
A.i.R :)



2.8 Publications Officers (Hunsinger, Breindahl)

2.8.1 Hunsinger: too busy as usual:)
I wish more people would take advantage of the members webpage, post 
things like conference announcements, etc.
I should have the conference papers up soon, probably next week.
I have been working quite diligently in getting a newly structured 
system for conference management, but it is coming along fine.
I've been working with Klaus on conference related things.
I added the links to the conference pages.
I think i added the picture archives this month, though i may have 
done it last month.
I worked a bit with Ben on some individual member issues.

2.8.2 Breindahl: I was hit with multiple software update syndrome 
combined with a hacker incident. I had to get a new 100 GB harddisk 
and stay in my physical office for several weeks, installing and 
configuring software. Found an old version of Adobe Premiere, but 
didn't manage to do much Real Work (tm). Routine updates of aoir.org 
are in the works.



2.9 2002 Conference (Monica Murero, Coordinator; Klaus Bruhn Jensen, 
Program Chair)

2.9.1 Murero: The organization of 2002 AoIR conference is proceeding very well.

2.9.2 Jensen: I have been working with Jeremy Hunsinger and volunteer 
reviewers in preparing the review system for October 2002 conference. 
I am grateful to the review teams and pleased to be able to report 
that, as submissions are beginning to come in, the system for 
processing them are in place. Next up is the review process itself, 
which will begin as submissions come in, and which will enter a more 
intensive phase after the February 15 deadline.



2.10  AoIR Ethics Working Group (Charles Ess, Chair)

2.10.1 Nothing to report.