New Year Greetings

Wish you all Happy New year 2007 !!

Dr. J K Vijayakumar

SLA Marion E Sparks Award for Professional Development

The Chemistry Division of the Special Libraries Association is sponsoring a student/new member scholarship essay competition in 2007. The award is named to honor Marion E. Sparks, a chemistry librarian at the University of Illinois from 1913 until her death in 1929. Ms. Sparks contributed a great deal to the field of chemical information, her achievements include teaching courses on chemical information, and authoring and publishing what is argued to be the first book to formally address chemical literature and libraryinstruction.

AWARD: AWARD: The winner will receive $1,500 to attend the 2007 SLA Annual Conference June 3-6 in Denver, CO. The winner will also receive a certificate of achievement and will be introduced at the Chemistry Division Business Meeting & Breakfast. This award is intended to reimburse the winner’s expenses for attending the convention, including: registration, airfare, lodging, food and/or the continuing education course (registration in one of the Chemistry division CE courses — “Chemistry for the Non-Chemist Librarian” or “Chemical Information Sources, Requests, and Reference”, or any other continuing education course is recommended but not required).

ELIGIBILITY: All student members of the Chemistry Division and all individuals who became members of the Chemistry Division since January 2006 are eligible to enter the contest. Preference will be given to library school students and recent MLIS graduates.
TO ENTER: Compose an essay to address the candidate’s objectives for professional development and the outcomes if a person be granted the award. Essay should not exceed 400 words or two typed doubled-spaced pages. Please include a resume and the names of two references.

Click Here for more details...

SLA BFD International Travel Award

SLA Business and Finance Division

International Travel Award sponsored by ISI Emerging Markets™

The SLA Business and Finance Division, with the sponsorship of ISI Emerging Markets™, is offering ONE (1) award in the amount of US$ 2,000, plus a complimentary CE course registration for a course offered by the Business and Finance Division, to a business information professional from a developing country to help cover expenses at the 2007 SLA Annual Conference, to be held in Denver, Colorado, USA from June 3-6, 2007.

The conference theme is “Make Your Future Happen at SLA 2007”

ELIGIBILITY

· Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of a non-G8 country.

· The 2007 Denver conference must be the first SLA conference attended.

· Applicants must indicate the amount and source of any additional funding which, combined with the Travel Award, will permit them to cover their expenses to attend the Annual Conference.

· The recipient may not accept a travel award for the 2007 conference from any other SLA Division or Chapter.

APPLICATION PROCEDURES

Prepare a written statement, in English, of approximately 750 words, answering the following questions:

1. What is the biggest challenge facing the information profession in developing countries?
2. What skills must the new business information professional possess?
3. What do you hope to gain from the conference?

Include a current Curriculum Vitae.

POST AWARD REQUIREMENTS

· Recipients will write a brief article (approximately 500 words) for publication in the Fall 2007 issue of the Bulletin on their conference experience.

· Recipients will agree to serve on one of the B&F Committees or Sections, such as the B&F International Relations Committee or the College & University Business Libraries Section, during 2007-08.

NOTIFICATION

· All applicants will receive notification of award status no later than February 1, 2007.

· Winners MUST attend the B&F Division’s Annual Business meeting in Denver.

Submit the above documents, along with your address, telephone number, and email address, in Rich Text Format (RTF) or Microsoft Word by EMAIL no later than Friday, January 12, 2007 to: slabfinternational@yahoo.ca
Robert Clarke
International Relations Chair
SLA Business and Finance Division McGill University 3459 McTavish StreetMontreal, Quebec H3A 1Y1 Canada Voice: (514) 398-5725 Fax: (514) 398-6273 Email: slabfinternational@yahoo.ca

Or visit http://www.slabf.org/division_awards_desc.html

ASIST SIG-III 2007 INTERNATIONAL PAPER CONTEST

The American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T), International Information Issues Special Interest Group (SIG-III), is pleased to announce its eighth competition for papers to be submitted for the 2007 Annual Meeting, which will take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 18-25, 2007.

The theme of this paper contest is: "Joining Research and Practice: Social Computing and Information Science"

The theme may be addressed at either the country or regional level issues. Papers could discuss issues, policies and case studies on specific aspects of the theme, such as, but not limited to the following:

- Egovernance in developing countries, Factors, issues, case studies etc pertaining to rural/urban digital divide and the information infrastructure (connectivity, access, hardware, cost implications, emerging trends etc.) in developing countries.

-Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and digital libraries – Collecting, preserving and disseminating IK.

-Social, ethical, political, legal, and economic and cultural issues: issues related to the role of information in society, such as information policy, access, security, privacy, and intellectual property, as well as the social uses and abuses of information technologies such as the Internet and World Wide Web in bridging or separating diverse communities.

-Information organization, management, access, and retrieval.

-Information seeking and use: the role of information in professional and daily lives, use of various types of information technology, and social contexts of information seeking.

-Information technology, social equity and development: IT and governance, IT and the new economy, including the future of work and implications of technological hardware and software developments; the role of ICTs in conflict management, etc.

For more details, Visit Click here

My Professional Visit to German Libraries

German Goethe Institute and Bibliothek and Information International provided me financial support to undertake a 2 weeks professional visit to German Libraries during August 2006. I visited selected Libraries from Hannover, Gottingen, Kiel, Cologne, Hiedelberg and Frankfurt. My detailed report titled Transformation in Libraries and Librarianship in Germany: Report based on a Professional Visit is made available by Goethe Institute (Mexico) here and Bibliothek and Information International made it available here

















I am infront of the statue of Rabindra Nath Tagore at South Asia Institute Library, University of Heidelberg
















I am in front of Goettingen State and University Library.

More pictures are here

ASIST InfoShare Student Membership Award 2007

The ASIS&T International Information Issues Special Interest Group (SIG III) is pleased to announce that for 2007 they will be able to sponsor a group of deserving information science PhD and Masters students who STUDY and RESIDE in developing countries for complimentary ASIS&T memberships.

SIG III solicit nominations of student candidates for the InfoShare Student Membership Award. Please send recommendations of deserving students to Vika Kravchyna (vika.kravchyna@arius3d.com ). Please include a Curriculum Vitae (or equivalent) and a brief description of why this person is deserving of membership, including their willingness to promote ASIS&T within their networks. Awardees will be decided by a vote of the SIG III officers at the end of 2006.Each membership award will be for one year, with the possibility of renewal for a second year if the new member proves to be a strong advocate for ASIS&T in their home country during the course of the year.

Awardees will be asked to submit a report on their activities by next year Annual Meeting, which may include, but are not limitedto: - sharing ASIS&T publications that you receive (the Bulletin of ASIS&T and JASIS&T) with other colleagues - promoting the SIG-III paper contest among your colleagues - serving as a contact/coordinator for ASIS&T members traveling to your area who may be able to speak about ASIS&T and information science- sponsoring lectures on information science topics in your area on behalf of ASIS&T - organize student chapters and keep in touch with other student chapters around the worldWe look forward to welcoming new members to ASIS&T from across the globe, with your help.

Please start thinking about student candidates among your networks and send your nominations to Vika Kravchyna (vika.kravchyna@arius3d.com ).

Deadline for all nominations is December 15, 2006.

UN National Competitive Examination in LIS

From: Anne Fraser frasera@un.org
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:14:27 -0500
Subject: United Nations National Competitive Examination in Library and Information Management

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL

The United Nations is seeking individuals to take the National Competitive Recruitment Examination (NCE) in Library and Information Management. The competition is open to Nationals of participating countries. Applications from Arabic-speaking candidates are particularly sought after. In order to be eligible to apply, you must be 32 years old or younger as of 31 December of the year of the exam. Eligible candidates should submit their applications as soon as possible, on exceptional basis they will be accepted until the end of 2006.

All information on eligibility criteria and on how to apply is available on: http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/examin/exam.htm

Anne Françoise Fraser
Department of Public Information
United Nations,
New York City, NY 10017

E-LIS repository for LIS introduces Statistics.

A a new Statistics module is implemented in E-LIS, E-prints in Library and Information Science.

The purpose of thestatistics is to promote E-LIS repository and authors self-archiving aswell, by demonstrating the accessibility and usage of deposited documents by access and downloads .

Usage statistics (abstracts, downloads) are now available by the following elements:

• Most viewed eprints in the last four weeks
• Most viewed eprints in this year
• Most viewed eprints in the last year
• Most viewed eprints in all years
• Repository-wide statistics by year/month
• Repository-wide statistics by country

You can see the implementation of the Statistics at http://eprints.rclis.org .

E-LIS is an open access archive for scientific or technical documents, published or unpublished, on Librarianship, Information Science and Technology, and related areas. E-LIS relies on the voluntary work of individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and is non-commercial. It is not a funded project of an organization. It is community-owned and community-driven. We serve LIS researchers by facilitating their self-archiving, ensuring the long-term preservation of their documents and by providing word-wide easy access to their papers.

E-LIS is based in the voluntary work of an international team of information management specialists. See here

ICDIM - IEEE International Conference on Digital Information Management

The ever First IEEE International Conference on Digital Information Management - ICDIM will be organised by Digital Information Research Foundation (DIRF) at Christ College, Bangalore, INDIA during 6-8 December 2006. This is the first of its kind in India, as a multidisciplinary conference on digital information management, science and technology. There will be several Workshops and Tutorials being organised as a part of this conference.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Hess from University of Munich, Antony Satyadas from IBM USA, Prof. Ajith Abraham from Chung-Ang University Seoul and Prof. Charles A. SHONIREGUN from University of East London will be the Plenary Speakers of ICDIM.

ICDIM Program Chair Dr. P. Pichappan from DLIS, Annamalai University (DIRF President and Editor of JDIM) reports that there are around 95 papers accepted for presentation, out of 225 submissions. The papers of the ICDIM will be published by IEEE and are indexed in IEEE Xplore, INSPEC, COMPENDEX and many other databases. From this year, papers are likely to be indexed by Science Citation Index also. The team under his guidance are working hard to make ICDIM a grand success. Attending this conference is going to be an entirely different experience for professionals and researchers.

The second ICDIM will be held during December 11-13, 2007 at Lyon, France. Besides the university at Lyon, it is likely to be co-sponosored by Munich University, Germany and Institute of Knowledge Sharing, Denmark.

Visit ICIDM site at http://www.icdim.org/

(Dinosaur OR Phoenix)? AND (Die OR Fly)!

The Academic Librarian: Dinosaur or Phoenix? Die or Fly in Library Change Management

An interesting Theme for a Library Conference to be held during 11-12 April 2007 at Hong Kong. This conference is being organised by the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library System.

Visit http://www.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/conference/aldp2007/info/index.htm for more details........

Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE)

Scientific literature offered free to developing countries (ACCESS Newsletter of iGroup Reports.........................

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation gave USD250,000 to Yale to help establish Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE), a digital internet library for developing countries.

OARE will provide access to peer-reviewed scientific literature of leading international publishing houses. Organizations eligible to use OARE include approximately 1,000 public, non-profit institutions in more than 100 underdeveloped nations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe. Literature in environmental chemistry, economics, law and policy, and other environmental subjects such as botany, conservation biology, ecology and zoology will be available through a portal presented in world languages including Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

Yale's OARE activities will be directed by Oswald Schmitz, Professor of population and community ecology and Associate Dean of academic affairs at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES), and Ann Okerson, Associate University Librarian for collections and international programs.

Read full news at http://www.aardvarknet.info/access/number56/monthnews.cfm?monthnews=05

Two IFLA/ALP Scholarships for Asia Oceania

1. Scholarships Asia and Oceania

Middle level professionals and technical specialists (computing staff) working in libraries/information centres in Asia and Oceania may apply. The candidates must be less than 46 years old. They must have an undergraduate degree and basic IT skills. The scholarship will enable the recipient to gain experience and hands-on exposure in a professionally advanced environment at a recognized institution in Asia and Oceania. The scholarship period will not exceed six weeks.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

In addition to economy class return airfare, the recipient will be given a moderate per diem allowance to cover meals and accommodation.

REPORT

The recipient must submit a detailed report of approximately 2000 words to the ALP and host institution.

ADMINISTRATIVE FORMALITIES

Administrative formalities such as arranging leave, visa, etc. will be the responsibility of the recipient.

CLOSING DATEThe applications should be received at the latest by 31 December each year.

More Details at http://www.ifla.org/VI/1/admin/scholarasia.htm

2. Training attachments Asia and Oceania

The four-week Training Attachments are designed to afford an opportunity to middle-level library and information workers (below forty years of age) from developing countries who wish to gain experience and hands-on exposure from more advanced environments. The areas identified for such training are library management, information technology, preservation, rural librarianship and literacy work.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

In addition to economy class return airfare, the recipient will be given a moderate per diem allowance to cover meals and accommodation.

REPORT

The recipient must submit a detailed report of approximately 2000 words to the ALP and host institution.

ADMINISTRATIVE FORMALITIES

Administrative formalities such as, arranging leave, visa, etc. will be the responsibility of the recipient.

CLOSING DATE

The applications should be received at the latest by 31 December each year

More Details at http://www.ifla.org/VI/1/admin/trasia.htm

ASIST SIG III New Mentorship Program

For the past seven years, SIG for International Information Issues has been organizing the very successful International Paper Contest and InfoShare Award. If you are interested in participating in our Mentorship Program (as a Mentor or as a Mentee), please feel free to contact Nadia Caidi (nadia.caidi@utoronto.ca) or the Incoming SIG III Chair, Duncan Omole (domole@worldbank.org) for more information about this program or how you can help.

Visit http://www.asis.org/SIG/SIGIII/mentorship/mentor.htm

Visit SIG III Website at http://www.asis.org/SIG/SIGIII/index.htm

JSTOR Free Access to Africa

As part of JSTOR's mission to create an archive of scholarly literature and extend access to the archive as broadly as possible, JSTOR has adopted a plan to waive participation fees for any academic or not-for-profit institution on the continent of Africa. This plan affects new participants, as well as institutions that currently participate in JSTOR.

For more information about JSTOR's Open Africa Program, please contact participation@jstor.org or Visit http://www.jstor.org/about/africa/openafrica.html

Hope it will be extended to other third world countries in Asia, Latin Amrica and Caribbean.......

Free Access to LIS Journals from SAGE

Sage publication - official publisher of the IFLA journal - is offering FREE ACCESS to the IFLA Journal and other Information Science journals until 30th September 2006.

The journals are

The IFLA Journal
Journal of Information Science
Journal of Librarianship and Information Science
Business Information Review
Information Development

Visit here

Librarian Exchange and Librarians Without Borders

Two new Initiatives for strengthening International Librarianship

www.LibrarianExchange.NET is an international service for librarians, professors and administrators. Networking is provided to help bring about temporary exchanges of homes and positions. Could be within the same country or with other countries. There are currently particpants from over 30 countries. Registration is free if you sign up before 15 September 2006. Visit www.LibrarianExchange.NET to submit your registration at your early convenience.

Librarians Without Borders, an organization that was born in February 2005 by a group of socially-minded librarians who wanted to address the vast information resource inequity existing between different regions of the world. Our vision is to build sustainable libraries and support their custodians and advocates -- librarians. Visit http://www.lwb-online.org/

India Goverment Blocking BLOGs

Bangalore: Thousands of Internet users in India have been unable to access blogs (or Web logs) since the weekend.

Throughout Monday, angry customers of almost all major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the country exchanged mails and flooded user group sites with postings to report that blogs, created using the free space provided by Web services like Geocities, Typepad and Blogspot (a Google initiative), could not be opened. Many were told that the blog sites had been blocked in response to a directive from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Read the Full News in The Hindu News Paper and in Rediff News


CERT-IN's Director, Dr Gulshan Rai, said he was unaware of the problem and would not be able to respond "off-hand". In a telephone interview, he told this reporter, "Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?"

Bloggers certainly think of it as a problem though, and are all set to react.

All About Librarian recruitment

Western European Studies Section (WESS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) have formed a committee to address the current and long-term shortage of academic librarians. They are particularly interested in advising scholars and teachers with foreign language training and advanced degrees that careers in academic librarianship provide additional options for using their training in an academic setting.

The WESS Committee on Recruitment to the Profession would like to call your attention to their Web site and ask you please to share the URL with your members in whatever way you feel is most appropriate: http://www.columbia.edu/~klg19/WESS/

New Blogs from ALA, SLA and ASIST

I would like to introduce 3 new Blogs from leading International LIS Associations. Offcourse they should be encouraged and supported.

Andrew K. Pace, who writes the popular "Technically Speaking" column in each issue of ALA's American Libraries magazine, launched the Hectic Pace technology blog in conjunction with the Annual Conference in New Orleans.

SLA CEO Janice Lachance has launched a new channel to communicate with SLA members and other information professionals around the world. The blog, InfoX -- At the Crossroads of People and Information, is open now with its first post.

ASIS&T IA Summit2006 blog is available here

Google Librarian Newsletter Latest Issue

Google Librarian Newsletter Latest Issue is available for access. Visit here

US-India Summit on Education, Research and Technology

On May 31, 2006 the California Institute for Telecommunications and
Information Technology (Calit2) hosted, on behalf of the University of
California, a U.S.-India Summit on Education, Research & Technology in
San Diego. The invitation-only meeting brought together 150 distinguished
participants from industry, academia, government and non-governmental
organizations in the U.S. and India to identify new areas of collaboration
between the two countries in high-tech education and research.

The U.S.-India Summit arose from a series of agreements involving institutions
from both countries. In 2005 twenty American universities signed a
memorandum of understanding to collaborate on distance engineering
education with Amrita University and other Indian institutions, The University of
California signed a subsequent agreement in March 2006 to promote
research collaborations with Amrita and other Indian universities, and
Indian science and technology agencies.The Indo-U.S. Science and
Technology Forum will play an essential role in promoting and facilitating
the collaborative research activities arising from the UC-India agreement.

The conference presentations Video Archive is accessible here

Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has approved the launch of UN-GAID [Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Development].

As stressed by the 2005 World Summit and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), information and communication technology must be effectively integrated into development activities if the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, are to be achieved within the agreed time frame. Says the Press Release!!

After WSIS : First Step came from Africa

After the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held at Tunis, the ever first International Conference from Information Sector held at Adis Ababa under the aegis of UNECA, IFLA etc.

A report is available here.
Resolutions are here.
Presentations are here.

Telephone Reference Service

Library Reference Service changed a lot, along with aall other Library services, to survive the Internet. Here is a story of TelRef (Telephone Reference Service) of New York Public Library appeared in New York Times newspaper.

Harriet Shalat, the chief of the service, heard questions like Why, in the age of search engines, would anyone bedevil a human being with such questions? And what human being would choose to be so bedeviled?

She replies "We are detectives," she said. "We know more than people think we know. We're not little old ladies stamping books and telling you to be quiet."

Paul Duguid, an adjunct professor at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley, said there would always be a place for such human search engines."If you have a good search question, Google is great for answering it," Mr. Duguid said. "If you don't have a good question, you will get 17 million responses and you will wish you hadn't asked."

So, still there are avenues??

Read full article TelRef (Telephone Reference Service) © New York Times

Elsevier Innovative Library Access Program for Asia

The Elsevier Foundation’s ILA Program provides resources to libraries in developing countries that improve access to scientific, technical and medical (STM) knowledge. The Foundation looks to award organizations that leverage their STM collections to improve quality of life in those countries. In the initial phase of the ILA Program, they endeavor to focus on the developing Asia region, with the intent to expand into other locations.

Visit here.

Or Contact

John Regazzi, Chairman
The Elsevier Foundation
360 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10010-1710, USA
telephone: 212-633-3900
facsimile: 212-633-3965
e-mail: foundation@elsevier.com