The Global Information Village Plaza is now in its third year of existence. This new edition differs substantially from the previous ones. The new format will feature a request for questions rather than answers. Questions will be purposefully formulated in a "What If?" format intended to elicit provocative debates and open dialogue among participants. The Global Plaza will however maintain its successful interactive format, aimed at giving ASIS&T members an opportunity to express their personal views about the challenges and opportunities that they encounter in the so called "information society" both at a personal and professional level. As in the past, the overall theme will revolve around the recurring themes of the information society (whose information society?); areas where more research is needed; links to existing resources, initiatives, policy statements, etc. To keep up with the spirit of the Global Information Village Plaza, personal submission of "What If questions will be sought from the information professionals' community around the globe. The process is due to run from May through October 2004. It will include posting and discussion on ASIS&T and other professional listservs. The questions will be clustered in a series of posters during a special session. During the session, participants in the Annual Meeting will be invited to first browse through the posters comment and vote on what they deem the five most provocative/relevant questions. Five 'surprise' guests (a scholar, a practitioner, a government representative, a student and a colleague from a developing nation) will be selected by the moderators from among the conference participants and asked to discuss briefly the selected questions. A general discussion will ensue. SIG/III plans to publish a summary of the process and its outcome.
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