Editorial, Organisers, Acknowledgements, and Table of contents

Abstract

This is a landmark year for ISIC, as 2026 brings both the 30th anniversary of the conference and its first time being hosted in North America (more specifically, Montréal). This anniversary gives the community a chance to reflect on the field, including what has changed and what has stayed the same. Thirty years ago the first ISIC conference took place in Tampere, Finland. The conference name ‘ISIC’ stood for Information Seeking In Context. Today we refer to it as ‘ISIC: The Information Behaviour Conference’. ISIC was conceived as an international conference; since 1996 it has been held in 14 countries across four continents. The 2026 conference marks 15 countries across five continents.