The Cutting Edge: A New Beginning

This issue marks the introduction of a new addition to Information Outlook. The Cutting Edge will bring you timely information about new technologies, trends, tools, and techniques that are shaping our workspace and reshaping how we perform our jobs. Over the next year, we will touch on topics such as Digital Object Identifiers, Portals, Metadata, Geographic Information Systems, Self Organizing Maps, XML, and a host of other technologies that may impact us in one form or another over the coming years.

How do you fit in? Quite simply, you are our eyes and earsthe very stimulus that impels us to search for more knowledge. Collectively, we hold an enormous wealth of information. We communicate informally with those we work with and with our colleagues in the profession. Sometimes we make presentations at chapter or national meetings, but rarely do we purposefully write up our findings and present them to the world. This is the chance and the time to do just that. Technologies are developing and changing at such a rapid pace that no one person can stay on top of everything that is happening. We, the profession, depend on your insight and experience to keep us informed of these trends both nationally and internationally.

Where do I fit in? As the column coordinator for The Cutting Edge, I will be your interface to the magazine's publishing process. Send your ideas for columns to me at txm@ams.org and we will begin an exchange of ideas that helps to shape your final product. If we already have a similar topic under consideration, I will work with you to define another topic of interest to the readership. Any and all inquiries are welcome.

It might be appropriate at this point to tell you a little about myself. During my time in the field, I have worked at the Rhode Island Supreme Court Law Library and set up an archive for the University of Rhode Island Chapter of the American Association of University Professors. I also worked for a short time with Harvard University's Baker Library at the Graduate School of Business Administration. I've also worked with the newly formed Metrowest Massachusetts Regional Library System. In each of these positions I learned something new and exciting about our profession. From preserving an institution's history through the birth of an archive, to the creation of databases and a web site for Metrowest, technology was never more than a click away in any of these positions.

Last year I accepted a position with the American Mathematical Society as an electronic publishing specialist. Among other products, we produce the MathSciNet web-distributed database, and a stable of electronic and paper journals. The rapid advance of technology, and the near ubiquity of the Internet, are salient factors in a shifting work environment at the AMS. Changes in work flow and knowledge dissemination occur on a regular basis. Undoubtedly, changes like this are occurring in your workplace too.

Growth in technology is change and change leads us to opportunity. To take advantage of this, we need to constantly stretch our mindsgrasping always for new and deeper understandings. In The Cutting Edge, we hope to open a dialog where, through our literature, we inform each other of new movements on the technological horizon. What new products are available, how do they add value to our workplace, which ones are not working and from which ones should we stay away. For instance, is the growth of portal technology truly facilitating the dissemination of knowledge throughout the corporate hierarchy? Or, how is it that Digital Object Identifiers identify, authenticate, and protect intellectual property? It will be especially informative to hear from our international colleagues about emerging technologies and how this might be changing the flow of work and transfer of information. Perhaps, as in Swaziland where intellectual freedom and censorship clash, the Internet will be a prime factor in the transfer of information to a people esurient for knowledge. We might also look into Singapore's "Vision of An Intelligent Island" and how this initiative might affect that nation's information infrastructure by interconnecting computers in virtually every home, office, school, and factory. In The Cutting Edge we have the freedom to look both globally and locally.

During the first few months of the column, I will be reaching out to many of you, both personally and in groups, to ask that you share your experiences with the readership. However, as time moves on, I hope each of you will take some ownership over this part of our magazine. Write a column, send in your ideas for columns, suggest an author for an article on a hot topicparticipate! Practitioners in the field, new writers, established writers, graduate students, and international colleagues, share your knowledge with us; we are hungry to learn from your experience. For more information, contact Tim McMahon (txm@ams.org).