Annual Report 2002

January 13, 2003

On behalf of the Directors of the Alliance for Innovation in Scientific and Technical Information, I am pleased to submit the 2002 Annual Report.

We began the year by awarding funding for our first group project:  an AISTI e-print server developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory.  We ended the year with an in-depth look at ourselves and our history facilitated by an outside professional trained in corporate strategic planning.

It was also our second year under the stewardship of an executive director, Corinne Machado.  The position of executive director consolidates membership services, publisher negotiations, accounting, the miniconference, and board meetings, freeing Directors to concentrate on innovation and education.  We were able to offer a new membership category especially for libraries interested in collaborating, but not necessarily taking part in the business side of AISTI.

Our quarterly Board meetings have been reconfigured to contain three components: a "digital ideas club" where members share their ideas on electronic libraries; an "innovation forum" where we explore the future of electronic scholarship with outside experts; and our business meeting.  The fall "miniconference"  invited a group of international speakers to share their views on the next steps in electronic sci-tech information.  With an audience of only 70, each participant was able to interact with leaders in our field.

Finally, all of these improvements in our organization have been incorporated into our new web site:  www.aisti.org.

AISTI matured in 2002, adding in important ways to its stature in the sci-tech information world.  We look forward more successes in 2003.

Margaret Alexander

Chair, 2002 and 2003