Ellen Remona Tise, Senior Director of Library and Information
Services at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, will be the 2009 Mortenson
Distinguished Lecturer on October 22, 2009 at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Ms.
Tise is the president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
(IFLA) for 2009-2011.
Her professional experience includes serving as University Librarian at the University of the
Western Cape from 2001 – 2005 and prior to that was Deputy University Librarian at the University
of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She also previously held the position of Systems Librarian at
the University of the Western Cape, as well as posts at Brakpan City Library and the University of
the Free State.
She has served on the Governing Board and Executive Committee of IFLA, the IFLA Free Access
to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) Advisory Board, and the IFLA Africa Section
Standing Committee. Ms. Tise was Chairperson of the National Organizing Committee for the IFLA 73rd
World Library and Information Congress, held in Durban, South Africa in August 2007.
Teresa Hackett is the Manager of eIFL-IP "Advocacy for
Access to Knowledge: copyright and libraries", a programme of eIFL.net, an international consortium
that supports and advocates for the wide availability of electronic resources by library users in
developing and transition countries. The eIFL-IP programme seeks to protect and promote the
interests of eIFL libraries and their users in copyright issues at national level and in
international policy fora.
Teresa was the Director of the European library association (EBLIDA) from 2000-2003; before that provided technical support to the European Commission library research programme, and was part of the team to establish electronic information centres at the British Council in Germany. Teresa has a special interest in legal issues in information work, especially in the electronic environment. She is currently a member of the Copyright and Other Legal Matters Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA-CLM). Teresa is a chartered librarian and in 2004 completed a post-graduate diploma in legal studies at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Teresa is a native English speaker and speaks Irish, German and Dutch.
Clara Budnik has been executive director of the Foundation for Democracy and Development in Santiago, Chile since 2006. Prior to that, she worked 14 years in Archives and Museums within the Chilean Directorate of Libraries, serving as the director during the last six years. Mrs. Budnik is an active member of three committees within the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions: Public Libraries, Latin American and Caribbean, and Freedom of Access to Information and Free Expression. She has been a consultant to the Organization of American States, assisting in creating networks for centers of documentation. She was a professor in the School of Librarianship at the University of Chile and has worked with various institutions in Venezuela promoting books and reading.
Alex Byrne is the 2005-2007 president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and pro vice chancellor for teaching and learning and vice president for alumni and development at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. Dr. Byrne's publications are primarily in information management, community empowerment, and human rights, with particular regard to freedom of expression and access to information.
Jorge Orlando Melo Gonzalez is director of the Department of Libraries and Fine Art at the Banco de la República and of the Luis Angel Arango Library.
Mr. Melo is one of Colombia's most distinguished public intellectuals, a librarian, and an accomplished historian. He was born in Medellín, Colombia, graduated as a Bachelor in Philosophy from the Universidad Nacional de Bogotá in 1962, and after receiving an MA in Latin American History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he went into teaching. He lectured on Colombian and Latin American history at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Universidad de los Andes and Universidad del Valle, and published books and articles on different topics of Colombian history.
He became one of the leaders of the group known as the “new historians,” who renovated the writing and teaching of the discipline. He participated in several collective projects and encyclopedic works and directed some of them, such as the Historia de Medellín and the Historia de Antioquia. For his research, and also for several efforts of making history available to wider publics, he became one of the best known Colombian historians. In 2000, one historical periodical selected him as one of the 10 most influential historians of the 20th century in the country.
Jorge Orlando Melo worked also as a university administrator. He was dean of research and vice president for academic affairs in the Universidad del Valle, and was influential in the improvement of the library system of the university, and in early efforts of using computer technology for catalogs.
In 1990, he went into public administration as adviser on human rights and advisor for Medellín to the president of Colombia. In Medellín, as one of the programs geared to develop alternatives for young people, the office of the adviser supported and funded a program for improving 39 libraries in the poorest neighborhoods, where the rank and file of drug organizations were being recruited. From that period on, he became convinced that libraries had an important role in overcoming some of the difficulties of the country, as they offered creative alternatives for time use of youth, an effective tool for improving education quality, and a way to develop cultural abilities basic for democracy: independent search of information, critical thinking, and so forth.
In 1994, he was appointed director of art and libraries of the Bank of the Republic; the main responsibility was the direction of the largest library of the country, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango. During the period 1994-2004, the library, which already was well developed and had a modern OPAC system, changed in many ways. Book collection increased from 280,000 to 1,050,000 volumes, lending was introduced in 1997, the catalog was put on the Web in 1996, and a virtual library was initiated in 1995. Today, the library is one of the 10 most visited sites in the country. The branches in other cities of Colombia went from 11 to 18, and total number of visitors to the 19 libraries of the network moved from 4 million to 6 million (not including art exhibitions and concerts). Today, the library offers national affiliation and lending (books from any library are delivered to patrons in 27 cities), local home delivery and pickup, and some uncommon services: the music reference room, besides sound and video machines, has 10 cabins for reading of scores, three of them with pianos.
The library has a growing art collection and many temporary art exhibitions. In 1996, a permanent exhibition of coins and bills was opened (Museo Numismático) and, in 1997, a permanent exhibition of Colombian art was opened with more than 300 works. In 2000, the Library opened the Museo Botero, formed by the personal collection of Fernando Botero, more than 75 works of international art and 125 of his own paintings and sculptures, donated to the Banco de la República. In 2004, a new art building, the Museo del Banco de la República, was opened as part of the library. The library also has consolidated its role in music: The main Concert Hall of Bogotá is part of the library, and every year around 90 concerts, many by internationally well-known artists, are presented there.
In 1995, the library proposed to the mayor of Bogotá a joint program for improving the local library network of Bogotá, which received under a million visits every year, when the Luis Angel Arango Library alone received 2.5 million. The program started in 1996 and made some modest advances. In 1998, a new mayor decided to develop an ambitious program for public libraries. By 2002, three new large and beautiful libraries had been built, and nine more libraries were redesigned. In 2004, total visitors to the municipal network were over 5 million. Jorge Orlando Melo was a member of the Advising Committee since the start of the program.
In 2002, he wrote a proposal for a National Plan of Libraries. Although some efforts had taken place before, they had not been very effective. The government adopted the program, and, in 2003 and 2004, 350 of the 1,180 Colombian municipalities received a basic book and video collection from the government; the local authorities providing buildings and staff. More than 150 more municipalities will receive a library in 2005. The libraries, with 2,500 books and around 200 DVDs and VHS tapes fully catalogued in computers connected to the Internet, are changing the cultural and civic life in many towns where no cultural facilities existed before. At the end of the program's first phase, in 2006, half the municipalities of Colombia, those which did not have a library or had a very poor one, will have benefited from this program, which was funded mainly by the Banco de la República. Jorge Orlando Melo also has been a member of the National Council for Books and Libraries, which directs the program, since 2002.
Pancras J. M. Ssebuwufu was chief academic and administrative officer of Makerere University, the premier institution of higher education in Uganda and a traditional leader of higher education in East Africa. Throughout the tumultuous years of the Amin and Obote regimes, Ssebuwufu defended the high standards in science and technology he has espoused throughout his academic career.
A native of Kampala, Uganda, Ssebuwufu earned his bachelor of science degree from Makerere University and his doctoral degree at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in physical chemistry in Ireland before returning to Makerere as a lecturer in chemistry in 1979. He was named senior lecturer and department chair in 1985. As department chair, he initiated, reformed and designed new curricula in pure chemistry, industrial chemistry and chemical engineering. He was the vice chancellor from 1993 to 2004.
Ssebuwufu chaired the Uganda Management Institute and the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, and was director of the National Agricultural Research Organization. In 1996, he was named Administrator of the Year by the major daily newspaper, The New Vision.
He has authored or co-authored some 20 scholarly articles and papers, and has served as a consultant to the Ugandan government and several private firms on a wide variety of chemistry-related issues.
Jésus Lau received a PhD in information studies from the University of Sheffield in England, a master's degree in library science from the University of Denver, and a law degree from the University of Sinaloa in Mexico.
Dr. Lau has held leadership positions such as director of libraries, dean of academic affairs, and information services and accreditation dean in Mexican institutions at the Veracruzana University, Juarez University and the Technological Institutes of Monterrey and Durango. He is currently the university librarian at the Veracruzana University, Veracruz Campus, and coordinator of the Virtual Library Project.
He has authored four monographs, edited nine books, and written more than 100 articles and conference papers in Mexico and other countries, received the National Researcher Award in Mexico, and the Librarian of the Year Award of the Border Regional Library Association from Texas.
He is a member of the Special Libraries Association Board of Directors, chair of the OCLC Advisory Committee on College and University Libraries, chair of the IFLA Information Literacy Section, member of the IFLA University Libraries and Other General Research Libraries Standing Committee, member of the board of the Trejo-Foster Foundation for Hispanic Library Education, and chair of the Mexican Library Association International Relations Committee
Marianna Tax Choldin retired as the C. Walter and Gerda B. Mortenson Distinguished Professor in the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign in 2002. In 1991 she became the founding director of the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs. She has traveled all over the world to work with librarians, promoting improved library services, new technologies, and especially freedom of information. In conjunction with her activities as Mortenson Distinguished Professor, she served as chair of the multifaceted library program of the Soros Foundation, which has distributed millions of dollars to libraries and librarians in more than 30 countries.
Educated at the University of Chicago, Choldin received her bachelor's degree with Phi Beta Kappa in 1962 and her doctorate in 1979. She served on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for over 30 years. Among her responsbilities, she has served as an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and has been director of the Russian and East European Center and head of the Slavic and East European Library. In her own research Professor Choldin studies censorship in Russia, the Soviet Union, and the postcommunist world. The author of numerous articles and books, she is best known for A Fence Around the Empire: Russian Censorship of Western Ideas Under the Tsars and The Red Pencil: Artists, Scholars, and Censors in the USSR (co-edited with Maurice Friedberg). In 1995 she was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.
In 2000, Professor Choldin became the third recipient of the prestigious Pushkin Medal awarded by the Russian government. The Pushkin Medal recognizes extraordinary contributions to Russia in the sphere of culture and education. The award was established in 1999 by President Boris Yeltsin to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Pushkin, the great Russian poet. This honor has previously been bestowed on the late renowned scholar of the humanities and academician Dmitry Likhachev, and American philanthropist George Soros.
Marianna currently resides in Chicago.
Martin E. Marty is one of America's foremost theologians and religious historians. He spent his career at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus.
Professor Marty is a fellow of the oldest scholarly societies in this country, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and the recipient of many medals, including the National Humanities Medal and the National Book Award. He has received 67 honorary doctorates.
He is the author of more than 50 books, among them Modern American Religion and The One and the Many: America's Search for the Common Good, and editor of the newsletter Context and contributing editor of The Christian Century.
Professor Marty directed the recently completed five-year Fundamentalism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which studied comparative fundamentalist religious movements around the world. This lecture derived from that project.
Professor Marty gave his 2001 Distinguished lecture a paradoxical title: "Religion on the Global Scene: The Killer that Heals." In light of the events of September 11, 2001, the topic takes on new significance.
Ekaterina Genieva has never been afraid to pursue unpopular topics. As a student at Moscow State University in the early 1970s she wrote her dissertation on James Joyce's Ulysses, then banned in the Soviet Union. She has spent nearly three decades at the Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow, a safe haven in Soviet times for intellectuals forbidden to work elsewhere. A religious believer, she supported the liberal priest, Father Alexander Men, until his murder (almost certainly by the KGB) in 1990 and has memorialized him with international conferences and publications each year since his death. She mounted exhibitions on anti-Semitism and other uncomfortable subjects, and during the coup attempt of August 1991, she defied the KGB and made the library's printing press available to publish banned newspapers.
In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, Dr. Genieva has emerged as director of what is arguably the most active library in Russia, the Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow, and as one of the leaders of cultural reform. She serves on President Yeltsin's Council for Culture and Arts. Perhaps her most visible post is president of the Soros Foundation in Russia, which has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars under her leadership.
Dr. Genieva's 1999 Mortenson Distinguished Lecture is entitled "Whither Russia? The Role of Libraries in the Transformation of a Society."
Edwin Thumboo, a native of Singapore, is chairman and director of the Centre for the Arts, University of Singapore. He is a poet, scholar, teacher, and social critic, and an authority on creative writing in Asia and Africa. Professor Thumboo is the author of many books and articles and has received numerous honors and fellowships at home and around the world.
Michéle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, a graduate of the Sorbonne, has spent the last 20 years in her native Haiti working with a variety of grassroots organizations to build civil society. In 1991 she was a consultant to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on government structure and land reform. A major thrust of her work has been to promote literacy. In 1993 Japan's Yoko Tada Foundation for Human Rights awarded her its Human Rights Prize. Currently she is executive director of the Fondation Connaissance et Liberté, the Soros Foundation in Port-au-Prince.
In the 1997 Mortenson Distinguished Lecture, "Haiti: Reading the Minds of Democracy," Ms. Pierre-Louis reflected on Haiti's difficult history, the heavy burden of illiteracy, and the importance of libraries and education for the country's future.
In 1971 Talat S. Halman became the minister of culture in his native Turkey, the first person ever to hold this cabinet post. From 1980 to 1982 he served as ambassador for cultural affairs. He was also Turkey's deputy permanent representative at the United Nations. From 1991 to 1995 he was a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO, and for two years chaired its planning commission.
He is the author of numerous books and articles in English and Turkish. Honors and awards include Columbia University's Thornton Wilder Prize and other literary prizes; a Rockefeller Fellowship in the Humanities; the UNESCO Medal; and the Knight Grant Cross, G.B.E., The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, conferred upon him by Queen Elizabeth II. Professor Halman is currently a professor in the Department of Middle East Studies at New York University.
Hans-Peter Geh studied history, political science, and English literature at the Universities of Franfurt am Main and Bristol. He received his library education and training at the City and University Library of Frankfurt am Main and at the College of Librarianship in Cologne. He served as president of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) from 1985 to 1991, and is currently president of the European Foundation for Library Cooperation. He is also a member of the International Commission for the Revival of the Ancient Alexandria Library.
In the 1995 Mortenson Distinguished Lecture, "Preserving the Written Intellectual and Cultural Heritage: An Obsolete Task of Libraries?" Dr. Geh discussed the enduring importance of old and rare materials, illustrating his points with examples drawn from his own experience.
Juan Rada studied economics and sociology at the Universidad Católica de Chile, followed by postgraduate studies at the University of London, where he obtained his PhD. His areas of specialization are technology management and the impact of technology on management and companies.
From 1979 to 1989 he was a member of the faculty of the International Management Institute in Geneva, where he was also director general from 1986 to 1989. From 1989 to 1992 he was the founding director general of IMD (one of Europe's leading management schools) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and professor of technology management. From 1992 to 1993, Dr. Rada was vice president of Digital Equipment Corporation International (Europe), responsible for strategic alliances and new iniatives. Since January 1994 he has been managing director of the Environmental Partnership, an organization devoted to the implementation and promotion of environmental initiatives.
In the 1994 Mortenson Distinguished Lecture, "The Metamorphosis of the Word: Libraries with a Future," Dr. Rada presented a richly textured, thoughtful, and provocative perspective on libraries and information.
Robert Wedgeworth's long and distinguished career began in the 1960s as a pioneer in the then-new field of library automation and quickly progressed to expertise in the area of the international book trade. In 1972, he was appointed executive director of the American Library Association, a post he held for 13 years. From 1985 to 1992, he was dean of the School of Library Services at Columbia University, and in 1992 was appointed interim university librarian at the University of Illinois. He is also president of the International Federation of Library Associations, which represents over 1,300 library associations and institutions in more than 135 countries.
Mr. Wedgeworth's many honors and awards include five honorary doctorates, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the prestigious Joseph Lippincott Award from the American Library Association. In 1993, he was appointed to the Library of Congress's Copyright Advisory Group.
In the 1993 Mortenson Distinguished Lecture "At the Heart of the University: The Making of a Global Library," Mr. Wedgeworth discussed the evolution of our own great library and considers its future in an environment in which computer and telecommunication links to information technologies play nearly as important a role as a library's on-site collections.
Dr. Julieta Campos was born in Havana, Cuba in 1932. After completing undergraduate studies at the University of Havana in 1952, she spent a year on scholarship at the Sorbonne in Paris and received a certificate in contemporary French literature. Ms. Campos returned to Cuba and received a PhD from the University of Havana in 1955, and shortly thereafter emigrated to Mexico. In the next years she collaborated in magazines, including Octavio Paz's Plural, editing the important literary journal Revista de la Universidad de Mexico, and translated numerous works of fiction and nonfiction into Spanish. Dr. Campos has traveled extensively in Europe, Latin America, and North America. She was elected president of the P.E.N. Club of Mexico in 1978.
Julieta Campos has gained wide acclaim for both her fiction and her literary criticism. Her novels include Death by Water, A Redhead Named Sabina (for which she won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1976), Celina or the Cats, and Fear of Losing Eurydice. Collections of criticism have been published as The Mirror's Eye, The Novel's Function, and The Persistent Legacy.
In the 1992 Mortenson Distinguished Lecture Dr. Campos discussed the clash between the values of the industrial and traditional societies and the ensuing cultural and economic poverty for those who are losing the battle—namely, those living in traditional societies.
Dr. Neville Edward Alexander holds bachelor's and master's degrees in German philology and history from the University of Cape Town and a PhD in German philology from the University of Tübingen. He has taught German, history, and sociology in Cape Town, and has tutored, lectured, and organized projects for the South African Committee for Higher Education (SACHED).
From 1963 to 1974 he was incarcerated on Robben Island, where he occupied himself with teaching and other educational tasks, and from 1974 to 1979 he was under house arrest in Lotus River, Cape Town.
Dr. Alexander is executive secretary to the Health, Education, and Welfare Society of South Africa (HEWSSA) Trust in Cape Town and has held various research and teaching positions in South Africa, Germany, and the United States. Active in numerous community, civic, labor, and political organizations, he is currently chairperson of the Worker's Organization for Socialist Action (WOSA). Dr. Alexander's publications deal with literature, language policy, African history, and South African education and politics. His most recent book is Education and the Struggle for National Liberation in South Africa, a collection of essays and speeches.
Although Dr. Alexander focuses on South Africa in his Mortenson lecture, his topic and concerns are applicable far beyond that country. The complex issues he discusses here are reflected in the interplay between politics and intellectual freedom everywhere.
James H. Billington, one of the country's foremost scholars and experts on Russia, was sworn in as librarian of Congress in 1987. An author and historian, Dr. Billington came to the Library of Congress from the directorship of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
Dr. Billington is the author of Russia Transformed: Breakthrough to Hope (1992). He has accompanied several congressional delegations as well as a library and a church delegation to the former Soviet Union.
In June 1988, he accompanied President and Mrs. Reagan to the Soviet Summit in Moscow. In 1993, he joined a bipartisan delegation of the U.S. House leadership on a trip to Ukraine and Russia.
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Last modified by: Sara Thompson on 11/2/09
