INFORUM 2008 Keynote and Guest Speakers
Ralph Catts
University of Stirling
Ralph Catts is an Australian academic based at the Institute of Education, University of Stirling, Scotland. He is also an honorary fellow in the School of Education, University of New England, Australia. He has a substantial record of research in two fields. One is the role of generic skills in lifelong learning with a special focus on information literacy theory and evaluation of information literacy programmes. He was a member of the team that developed and then revised the Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework for Higher Education and he designed the Information Skills Survey (ISS), which is used to evaluate the effectiveness of IL programmes in Higher Education. He has published on both the theoretical framework for IL and on the implementation of IL in Higher Education Curricula. His second area of research is into access and equity in educational provision especially for disadvantaged people and communities. Since moving to Scotland he has played a pivotal role in the development of a collaborative research network that is focused on the effects of social capital on outcomes of schooling. He is developing quantitative indicators of social capital in schools with a focus on indicators of relevance in deprived communities.
James McGinty
Cambridge Information Group
Jim McGinty was named Vice Chairman of CIG in November 2004, after serving as President of CIG since February of 2000. As Vice Chairman, Jim along with Bob Snyder is responsible for the strategic direction and overall management of all CIG companies. Jim moved to CIG from CSA (now ProQuest), where he was President from 1992 to 2000. While at CSA, Jim led the company to the forefront of Internet publishing. During Jim’s tenure, CSA experienced a three-fold growth in revenue, and its customer base increased by 1200 institutions in over 30 countries. Prior to joining CSA, Jim spent over 20 years with Dun & Bradstreet. His last assignment was Managing Director D&B North Pacific Business Information Group based in Hong Kong. Jim holds a B.A. and M.B.A. from St. John’s University in New York and received an Honorary Doctorate from his alma mater in 1984.
Debbi Boden
University of Worcester
Debbi Boden is Deputy Director of Information and Learning Services at the University of Worcester where in addition to her role as Deputy she manages the Learning and Teaching Technology Unit, Liaison Librarians and ICT team. Previously she was Faculty Team Leader at Imperial College London where she led on the projects to create the College's Online Information Literacy Programmes, Olivia, PILOT and PILS. Debbi is also Chair and founder of the CILIP CSG Information Literacy Group whose aim is to promote IL across all sectors, and who organise the LILAC conferences. Debbi has been involved in the development of LolliPop which is an online programme to teach enquiry desk staff in all sectors about IL and to help them develop the skills to transfer that knowledge into the work place. She is now involved in a project (SirlearnaLot) to help develop librarians teaching skills. Debbi is also co editor of the Information Literacy Cookbook and co author of the chapter on IL in Higher Education.
Patrick Danowski
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
Patrick Danowski is computer scientist and scientific librarian at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. He works in a project of the German Science Foundation at the Union Catalog of serials. His traineeship as librarian, he did at Zentral and Landesbibliothek Berlin, while he did the masterstudy of library- and informationscience at Humbold University. He is blogging since september 2006 about library 2.0 and other themes in his weblog "Bibliothek 2.0 und mehr" (translatet: Library 2.0 and more). His interestes are in open access (in combination with cultural heritage), open source, libraries and Wikipedia and certainly library 2.0.
Stephanie Krueger
ARTstor
Stephanie Krueger is Associate Director for Library Relations at ARTstor. She managed Library Relations for DRAM, a non-profit music resource (2006-2007), and spent five years at JSTOR in several capacities, including Assistant Director for International Library Relations. During this time, she worked closely with grant-funding bodies to support scholarship in many countries. She has published articles about her work in the Russian Federation and about the challenges facing academic digital music projects. Before selecting non-profit technology initiatives as her area of focus, she worked in the online media industry, designing several high-profile web sites for automotive and media partners. She holds Master degrees in Information (University of Michigan) and Educational Technology Leadership (George Washington University) and was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany (University of Leipzig).