Dear colleagues, I am writing to encourage you to submit high-quality articles to Information & Culture: A Journal of History, of which I am now the editor. The journal is in its 46th year and is currently published under the title Libraries & the Cultural Record. The journal currently publishes in the areas of the history of libraries, archives, museums, conservation, and information science. Under the new title, which goes into effect this winter, we will expand the scope of the journal to include any historical study about information broadly conceived (as well as all the areas in which it is already publishing). The intention is not to compete with IEEE Annals of the History of Computing; for example, articles that are primarily about computing technology are better sent there. One way of understanding the scope of the journal is to say it is about the history of any topic that would be researched or taught in one of the interdisciplinary information schools. Here, for example, is the list of research areas in my information school at the University of Texas at Austin: Digital Libraries Human-Computer Interaction & Information Architecture Organization and Retrieval of Knowledge and Information Preservation and Conservation of Physical and Digital Artifacts Development, Management, and Evaluation of Collections and Services Cultural Heritage Development and History and Management of the Cultural Record Information Policy, Ethics, and Advocacy User Behavior Health Informatics Information Work and Workers Social Informatics and Digital Media Appropriate topics that might interest you are *historical* topics related to cyberinfrastructure, information work and workers, the use of information (and information technology) in organizations, information as a concept, information (and IT and Internet and digital media) policy, and the social shaping and impact of information in societies. But thre are many additional relevant topics. The journal is available through JSTOR and Project MUSE, and it is indexed by a number of the leading indexers, including the Social Sciences Citation Index; so there is wide access by academics to papers published in the journal. Typical articles are 6,000 to 8,000 words but we can accommodate shorter and longer papers as well. I am looking for manuscripts now, to balance again the backlog of library history manuscripts in hand. People who can submit early in areas of information history other than library history will get expedited treatment for their manuscripts so that we can have a balance of topics appear in the journal in 2012. The journal has been a leading journal in library history for many years, and I expect this to remain a top-quality journal. I have recently broadened the editorial board to fit with the new scope. Some of you may know some of the new board members, somme of whom are Wolfgang Coy (Humboldt University, Berlin), Paul Edwards (University of Michigan), Tom Haigh (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Richard John (Columbia), Jennifer Light (Northwestern), Bonnie Mak (illinois), Tom Misa (Babbage Institute), and Fred Turner (Stanford). The full editorial board list can be found at http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/~lcr/about/editors.php . The web pages still reflect the journal in its current configuration. If you have any questions about whether manuscripts you are preparing might be suitable, please be in touch with me or with the managing editor, Heather Graham, who is copied on this message. I look forward to receiving and publishing your materials. Bring those manuscripts on! Bill Aspray
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Bill Aspray