Bulletin, August/September 2012


ASIS&T European Chapter Participates in LIDA Meeting

by Emil Levine

Diane SonnenwaldASIS&T president Diane Sonnenwald traced her career in information science as guest of honor at the special program celebrating the 75th anniversary of ASIS&T at the Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) meeting in June in Zadar. Currently head of school and professor in the School of Information and Library Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland, Sonnenwald credited her early employment at Bell Communications Research, specifically experience in long-range strategic planning, technology transfer and programs to support education in minority universities, as influencing her career. (For a PowerPoint slide presentation of Sonnenwald’s talk, please visit this site: http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Sonnenwald-Talk-career-overview-Jul2012.ppt.)

Several other sessions sponsored by the ASIS&T European Chapter were dedicated to ASIS&T and information science in Europe. In ASIS&T in Europe: Past and Future of ASIS&T, a panel of six speakers highlighted the opportunities and difficulties of maintaining a chapter of an American association in Europe. Tefko Saracevic, Rutgers University, New Jersey, provided an historical perspective that emphasized what American information science owed to European documentation pioneers. Speakers specifically mentioned Paul Otlet and Bozo Tezak. Subsequent talks traced the history and evolution of library and information science in Great Britain, Italy, Austria, Germany, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and Croatia. Panel members included Nicholas Belkin, Rutgers University; David Bawden, City University, London; Isto Huvila, Uppsala University Sweden and Ĺbo Akademi University, Finland; ASIS&T-EC Chair Fidelia Ibeikwe-SanJuan, University of Lyon, France; and Christian Schloegl, University of Graz, Austria.


ASIS&T panel on Information Science in Europe. From left, Isto Huvila, Fidelia Ibeikwe-SanJuan, Nicholas Belkin, David Bawden and Tefko Saracevic

 
ASIS&T-EC members and guests at the chapter’s board meeting held at LIDA. From the left, ASIS&T president Diane Sonnenwald; chapter chair-elect Adam Girard; chair Fidelia Ibeikwe-SanJuan; Makiko Miwa; and Theng Yin-Leng

Presented Papers – Information Science in Europe
Presentations included Schloegl’s Information Science in Europe: A Scientometric Analysis; Lyn Robinson and Bawden, both of City University, London, speaking on So Wide and Varied: The British Origins of Information Science; and Elena Corradini, University of Parma, Italy, discussing the Evolution of Information Science in Italy. Franjo Pehar and Tatjana Aparac-Jelušić, LIDA co-chair, both of the University of Zadar, presented the History and Origin of Information Sciences in Croatia: With a Special Emphasis on Growth of Regional and International Activities. Huvila; Preben Hansen, Swedish Institute of Computer Science; Jeppe Nicolaisen, Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark; and Nils Pharo, Akershus University College of Applied Sciences presented Library and Information Science in the Nordic Countries: From the Present to the Future. 

Chapter Advisor Emil Levine read a motion passed in the chapter meeting citing the lifelong contribution of Michel Menou to ASIS&T in Europe and worldwide. 

“ASIS&T-EC – on the 75th anniversary of ASIS&T – recognizes the lifetime devotion and accomplishments and contributions to international information science by Michel Menou. These include creation of the ASIS&T-EC, capacity building and use of agricultural information and training/education of thousands of persons worldwide in various aspects of information science.”

The 158 participants at LIDA 2012 came from 24 countries and included 19 PhD students. LIDA 2014 will be held in Zadar in June, the preliminary topic being eBooks: Effects, and eBooks: Technology. See the LIDA 2012 full program at http://ozk.unizd.hr/lida/ and the proceedings at http://ozk.unizd.hr/proceedings/index.php/lida2012.