DLIST Advisory Board
Luz Marina Alvaré
Head, Library and Knowledge Management Unit, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington.D.C., USA.
Luz Marina Alvaré is an award-winning information scientiest-biologist, responsible for the establishment and management of the CGVLibrary: Gateway to Global Agricultural Knowledge, a project of IFPRI and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CIGAR). The CIGAR Mission is to "achieve sustainable food security and reduce poverty in developing countries through scientific research and research-related activities in the fields of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, policy, and environment." IFPRI is one of the 15 international agriculural centers of the CIGAR consortium, a strategic alliance of countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations and centers. The IFPRI vision is a world free of hunger and malnutrition, and it recognizes the importance of providing "international food policy knowledge as a global public good." CGVLibrary came online in August 2006, and already its importance and achievements have been recognized. Luz Marina and her Virtual Library Team were awarded the CIGAR Science Award for Outstanding Scientific Support Team. As a biologist, Ph.D in Biology and a researcher before she became an information manager, Luz Marina knows firsthand the importance of linking information with research. An internationally known scientist/biologist, prior to coming to IFPRI she was Information Manager at CIAT/CIGAR for 10 years.
Subiah Arunachalam
Distinguished Fellow, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, India.
Subbiah Arunachalam (Arun for short) is a Distinguished Fellow and full-time volunteer, since 1996, with a non-governmental organization called the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), in Chennai, India. Arun was trained as a chemist, but came to recognise that his calling was in information science when he was a doctoral student at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. His research interests include the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in development and poverty reduction, science in the developing countries, and bibliometrics and he is active in the Open Access movement, especially in persuading researchers and research institutions in the developing countries to adopt open access archiving. At MSSRF Arun's group is working with the rural poor to see how ICT-enabled development programmes can make a difference to the lives of the rural poor. The Information Village Research Project has won many awards. More importantly, it seems to be bringing in benefits to the local community. Arun is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Information Scientists (UK), which on merger with the Library Association was re-named CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, an Honorary member of the ASIST, American Society for Information Science and Technology, and a life member of the IASLIC, Indian Association of Special Libraries and Information Centers. Arun has been an editor of scientific journals for over 25 years and serves on the editorial boards of Current Contents, Current Science, Journal of Information Science, DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology, and Scientometrics. He is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of OneWorld South Asia, a member of the International Advisory Board of IICD, The Hague, the Executive Committee of the Global Knowledge, and the Executive Committee of ISSI, The International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics.
Leslie Chan
Leslie Chan, Program Supervisor, New Media Studies and the International Studies program at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, Canada.
One of the original signatories of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Leslie Chan has been active in experimentation and implementation of open access publishing projects and with the set up of open access archives using open source software applications. Since 2003, he has been testing and evaluating T-Space, an institutional repository at the University of Toronto that is running the DSpace software. The American Anthropological Association recently re-appointed Leslie to a second term on the Steering Committee of AnthroSource, an electronic scholar's portal that will eventually include all publications from the AAA, as well as publications and databases from federated organizations and cultural institutions. Leslie is a prolific scholar besides his academic responsiblities in New Media Studies and International Studies at the University of Toronto, he serves also as the Associate Director of Bioline International, a non-profit international electronic publishing collaboration with the main objective of improving the visibility and impact of health and other scientific journals from developing countries.
Chris Hagar
Head of Library Development, International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), Oxford, UK
Chris has worked in public and academic libraries in the UK and the USA for over 20 years. Recently Chris gained her PhD in Library & Information Science from the Graduate School of Library & Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As the Head of Library Development at INASP (http://www.inasp.info) Chris is uniquely positioned. INASP is an international NGO whose mission is to enable worldwide access to information and knowledge with particular emphasis on the needs of developing and transitional countries - working with partners and networks around the world to encourage the creation and production of information, to promote sustainable and equitable access to information, to foster and use information and knowledge. Chris is leading INASP's LIS curriculum development project which is working with LIS schools in Africa, Asia & Latin America to develop and update curricula in view of the developments in digital libraries. Earlier this year (2006) Chris facilitated a UNESCO funded project 'Promoting Information Literacy in the South Caucasus.' Chris's primary research interest is in community and crisis informatics - studying information needs, management, seeking, organization and dissemination in a crisis.
Christopher Khoo
Programme Director and Associate Professor, School of Communication & Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Christopher Khoo is Programme Director and an Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Chris joined NTU in Jan. 1996 and he teaches courses on data mining and knowledge discovery, database management system, Web-based information systems, information sources & searching, information storage & retrieval, knowledge classification & organisation, and research methods. Before joining NTU, he worked for eight years at the National University of Singapore Library, in various departments (Cataloguing Dept, Science/Tech Reference, Science Library, and Medical Library) and in various roles (cataloguer, reference librarian, and serials librarian). Chris obtained his MSc in Library & Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1988 and his PhD from Syracuse University in 1991. Chris has an active research agenda and many publications in the broad areas of Knowledge Organization and Description, User and Usability Studies, and Digital Libraries and Information Retrieval. From 1997-2002, Chris was the editor of the Singapore Journal of Library & Information Management and in recent years has chaired the program planning committees of several regional and international conferences in library and information science.
Dennis Ocholla
Professor and Head, Dept. of Library and Information Science, University Of Zululand, Zulu Natal, South Africa
Dennis Ocholla is Professor and Head of the Dept. of Library and Information Science at University of Zululand. He received his PhD in Library and Information Science from Kiev-Leningrad State Institute of Culture in January 1988. Dennis is internationally reputed for his work with the IFLA Social Responsibilites and other groups, has several years of experience in the information professions, has been the vice-chairman of the Kenya Library Association, is the Editor-in-chief of the South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science, and has been an academic since 1988 at universities in Kenya, Botswana, and South Africa. His research and teaching interests are broad and include: Information needs and seeking, information and knowledge management (e.g. IKS), searching and retrieval, information services, LIS education and training, information society technology (e.g. ICT in LIS E&T and social informatics), research methods and bibliometrics / Informetrics and knowledge representation. Dennis is a Member of the Representative Council of LIASA, Library and Information Association of South Africa.
