2008 August Newsletter

Contents:

18 th Annual Mortenson Distinguished Lecture

Wednesday, September 17, 4:00 pm
Teresa Hackett, Manager at eIFL-IP (Electronic Information for Libraries – Intellectual Property) will be the 2008 Mortenson Distinguished Lecturer.  Her lecture, “Libraries Advocating for Access to Knowledge: our role in the global A2K movement,” will be held Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at 4:00pm in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, room 126. A reception will follow the lecture.

The lecture will examine the role of libraries, especially from the global south, in the “access to knowledge” movement. Access to knowledge (A2K) is essential for the functioning of open and democratic societies, economic development and innovation, culture and creativity. As the mission of libraries is to provide access to the world’s cultural and scientific knowledge for current and future generations, libraries are natural partners in the global A2K movement. With comparisons drawn with the beginnings of the environmental movement more than fifty years ago, A2K is an umbrella that has brought together diverse groups, including consumer and disability organizations, the free software community, public health activists, as well as libraries, united by the common desire for fair access to knowledge and knowledge-based goods in the digital age.

Teresa Hackett is the Manager of eIFL-IP’s “Advocacy for Access to Knowledge: copyright and libraries,” a program 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 program seeks to protect and promote the interests of eIFL libraries and their users in copyright issues at national levels and in international policy forums.

Teresa was the Director of the European library association (EBLIDA) from 2000-2003; before that she provided technical support to the European Commission library research program, and was part of the team to establish electronic information centers 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.

Fall Associates Program

The Mortenson Center plans to welcome 21 librarians for the Fall Mortenson Associates Program.  The librarians are from Bahrain, Colombia, Ghana, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, Palestine, South Korea, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.  The program will be from September 2 to October 31.  The Mortenson Associates will present a program at the Illinois Library Association conference in Chicago and will travel to OCLC and to the Illinois State Library.

Fall Africa Group

Eleven academic librarians from Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda will spend one month at the Mortenson Center.  They arrive September 20 and depart October 21 and are funded by grants from the Carnegie Corporation and MacArthur Foundation.  A special program focusing on library automation is being developed for them.

Africa Project Updates

The Carnegie Corporation has awarded Susan Schnuer another three-year grant to continue assisting university libraries in sub-Saharan Africa with library technology.  A request for an additional grant has also been submitted to the MacArthur Foundation to continue Mortenson Center work with university libraries in Nigeria. In May Susan organized two teams of librarians to visit and work with the university libraries in Nigeria and Ghana.  Good progress is being made on automation activities in these universities.

Institute of Museum and Library Services Grants

The “Thinking Outside the Borders” grant for library leadership institutes that was funded by IMLS with the Illinois State Library ends this fall.  A final publication has been developed and is being finalized for publication by the Illinois State Library.

The proposal developed with the Asian Library and the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) entitled, “Think Globally, Act Globally: Developing Resources and Expertise through Communication, Collaboration, and Exchange between China and the United States” has been submitted to IMLS.  Susan Schnuer traveled to China in May with Paula Kaufman, Shuyong Jiang, Jesse Delia, and Haipeng Li from CALA to discuss possible collaborative activities with the Chinese Ministry of Culture.

Presentations and Outreach

IFLA/OCLC fellows from India, Morocco, Nepal, South Africa and Uganda were at the Mortenson Center May 13.  Thanks to Adriana Cuervo, Roxanne Frey, Lee Galaway, Al Kagan, Jo Kibbee, Rae-Anne Montague, Diane Schmidt, and Sara Thompson.  George Needham and Nancy Lensenmayer from OCLC accompanied them.

Barbara Ford participated in the Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) conference in Jamaica and presented a workshop on the IFLA/UNESCO Internet Manifesto Guidelines on June 4-5 with another colleague.  She also presented a poster session on MC Select.

On July 11 Barbara Ford spoke to 17 Chinese academic librarians about the Mortenson Center, library associations, ALA and IFLA.

Susan, Barbara, and Sara Thompson (GA in the Mortenson Center) presented a poster session at the IFLA conference in Quebec City in August.   Barbara spoke at the Women, Information, and Libraries Discussion Group program at the IFLA conference.

Center Staffing

Muzhgan Nazarova is working at the Mortenson Center during the fall to assist with programming for the two groups that will be at the center.  She has her Ph.D. from UIUC and was an instructor at the Mortenson Center in 2000-2001.

Additional Information

Please contact Barbara J. Ford (bjford@illinois.edu) or Susan Schnuer (schnuer@illinois.edu) for more information.