Asian Chapter News Official Newsletter of Asian Chapter of the Special Libraries Association Website: http://units.sla.org/chapter/cas Vol. 6 | Issue 1 | Spring-Summer 2010 Message From the President Warm greetings to everyone!! Inside this issue: I am very pleased to send you this newsletter, which has been a long awaiting after the 2008 edition. I appreciate the efforts being made by • Message from the President 1the editors of the newsletter and all of our board members for bringing • SLA Asian Chapter Board 2out this edition. Members - 2010 The Asian Chapter has been expanding successfully, and we have more • Winners of 2010 Special Libraries 3 than 200 members from across Asia, North America, Europe and other Association (SLA) & Asian countries. We wish to send thanks to our Past President Mr Shaheen Chapter Award and the 2009 Board Members for all their hard work, commendable • TCS Library & Information Centre 4achievements under a strong leadership. wins SLA's 'Centre of Excellence' In 2010, the Board and I made specific objectives for further success. The objectives • Trip Report: libraries and library 4include the following: "More Communication”, “More Membership Strategies”, and schools in Singapore and China “Better Action for Mandatory Activities in the Chapter". We have already made good • SLA Centennial Conference 2009 6progress, and this newsletter is one of the reflections of our commitment towards “More by P.K.Jain Communication”. • My experience attending the SLA 8We always think about our members benefit and I am sure that we will come up with 2009 Annual Conference in DC by further benefits of joining the SLA memberships this year. One benefit is that the SLA Xiang Yuanyuan award that gives you a chance to attend the SLA Annual Meeting. We have been • SLA Asian Chapter Events in India 9nominating as many deserving candidates in our chapter to SLA Honors and Awards as we during 2009-10 could. We also have our chapter awards and this year we have established three Asian • SLA President visits TCS, India 10 Awards and three awardees will attend SLA 2010. We would like to increase more chapter • SLA Workshop on “Future of the 11 awards in the near future. We welcome your thoughts on this important issue. Furthermore, even if you don't win an award, other benefits are available via the Internet, Information Profession: Embedded such as Click University Webinars http://www.sla.org/content/learn/members/ Librarians and Beyond” webinars/index.cfm, “23Things” learning sites, Second Life http://wiki.sla.org/display/ • Report of the ICoASL - 2008 12 SLASECONDLIFE/Home, and members' exclusive free e-book “ebrary”. Many members • Society For Library Professionals 14 have been using Click University Webinars for their own learning, enhance their • Book Release 14 knowledge and sharpen the skills and expertise. • Upcoming Events in Asia 14 In terms of workshops and conferences in the Asian Chapter, we have lots of plans both • Asian Chapter in News 15 locally and internationally. So check our website regularly at : • Editors' Note Register for SLA 2010! 16 http://units.sla.org/chapter/cas/ and subscribe to our listserve email ([email protected]). • Click University Courses - Webinars 16 Finally, you might find many interesting activities of the Asian Chapter and information in Editorial Team: this newsletter. Feel free to join our activities and send your feedback to us. We want to Editor : Jane Macoustra hear your opinions. We value your suggestions and comments. Members : Louise Pemberton In addition, if your colleagues or other information professional are interested in our M Nandeesha chapter, please feel free to forward this newsletter along with details of how they can join Shantanu Ganguly us. Tariq Ashraf Yaqub Ali Warm Regards, Co-ordinator : P K Jain Kyoko Sato President, ISSN: 1793-2289 (Print) SLA Asian Chapter ISSN: 1793-2297 (Electronic) [email protected] SLA Asian Chapter News | Vol. 6 | Issue 1 | Spring-Summer 2010 1 SLA Asian Chapter Board Members - 2010 Position Name Terms Elected Positions (Executive Board) President Kyoko Sato, Japan 2010 President-elect B P Prakash, India 2010 Past President Maqsood Ahmad Shaheen, Pakistan 2010 Secretary K V Satyanarayana, India 2009-2010 Muhammad Umar Farooq, Pakistan Jeanette Reagan, Australia 2010-2011 Director Rubina Tariq, Pakistan 2009-2010 Shantanu Ganguly, India 2009-2010 Treasurer Jay Bhatt, USA 2010-2011 Appointed Position (Advisory Board) Membership Chairman Debal C Kar, India 2009-2010 P K Jain, India 2009-2010 P K Jain, India (Chairman) Debal C Kar, India 2009-2010 Award Committee Kyoko Sato, Japan 2009-2010 Scott Davidson, Singapore 2010-2011 Sponsor Representatives (nominated by sponsors) Events Chairman Salek Chand, India (Chairman) 2010-2011 & Committee Muhammad Shahid Soroya, Pakistan 2010-2011 P K Jain, India 2009-2010 PR/Marketing Chairman Sanjay Kataria, India 2010-2011 Strategic Planning of the Chapter Sushma Arora, India 2009-2010 Manish Ranjan, India Webmaster / Wiki master Sneh Sharma, India 2010-2011 Sushma Arora, India Jane Macoustra, United Kingdom (Editor) Louise Pemberton, China Newsletter Editorial Board M Nandeesha, India 2010-2011 Shantanu Ganguly, India Tariq Ashraf, India Yaqub Ali, Pakistan Sponsorship Chairman N K Wadhwa, India 2010-2011 P K Jain, India (Mentoring Role) Training Chair Sushma Arora, India 2009-2010 Country Representatives Hong Kong Frank Chu K P Singh India Lata Suresh Meera Gaikawari (West India) Japan Dave McCaughan Pakistan Muzammil Tahira Nooruddin Merchant China Xiang Yuanyuan (Cindy) Indonesia Tanya Torres Philippines Mary Ann Jimenez Santiago,Marites Bangladesh Nomanul Haq Malaysia Harvinder Kaur 2 SLA Asian Chapter News | Vol. 6 | Issue 1 | Spring-Summer 2010 Winners of 2010 Special Libraries Association (SLA) & Asian Chapter Award Dr. Harish Chandra Librarian, IIT, Chennai, India E-Mail: [email protected] Winner of “SLA Asian Professional Award” Sponsored Balani Infotech, IGroup and Asian Chapter, SLA Mr. Parveen Babbar Assistant Librarian, IGNOU, Delhi, India E-Mail: [email protected] Winner of “SLA Asian Librarian Award” Sponsored by IEEE and Asian Chapter, SLA Ms. Wan-Ching(Renee), Wu Student, Dept. of LIS, National Taiwan University, Taiwan E-Mail: [email protected] Winner of “SLA Asian Early Career Award” Sponsored by Business & Finance Division and Asian Chapter, SLA Mr. Shantanu Ganguly TERI, Delhi E-Mail: [email protected] Winner of “Bonnie Hidlitch International Librarian” Award by S&T Division, SLA Mr. P K Jain Librarian, IEG, Delhi E-Mail: [email protected] Winner of "Sci-Tech Achievement Award" by S&T Division, SLA. He has been invited to speak at the SLA 2010 Conference in New Orleans and also invited by the University of Alabama, USA to deliver a lecture. Ms. Sneh Lata Sharma TCS, Gurgaon E-Mail: [email protected] Winner of "International Travel Award" by B&F Division, SLA Ms. Sushma Arora TCS, New Delhi E-Mail: [email protected] Winner of “Award for Outstanding Achievement in Business Librarianship” by B&F Division, SLA All the above awardees will receive travel grant to attend SLA 2010 Conference during 13-16 June 2010 in New Orleans, LA, USA and will attend the same. Congratulations to all the Winners SLA Asian Chapter News | Vol. 6 | Issue 1 | Spring-Summer 2010 3 TCS Library & Information Centre Trip Report: libraries and library wins SLA's 'Centre of Excellence' schools in Singapore and China By Barbie E. Keiser* The TCS Library & Information Centre* [LIC] has been felicitated with the 'Centre of Excellence (CoE)' On my recent trip to Singapore and China, I visited a award by Special Libraries' Association [USA]. The few libraries. While these short trips to one or two award was conferred in the 'Management' category, countries cannot tell the whole story of what's going during the SLA international conference held at on throughout the region, I've been coming to Asia Washington, DC in June 2009. All the CoE Judges since 1990 and I observed challenges in managing found the application to be of outstanding quality libraries in these countries that may exist elsewhere and extremely well presented. too. As such, what follows is a trip report that details my observations of libraries and library schools in By winning this prestigious award, TCS joins the parts of Asia. league of libraries of Wharton School, Microsoft, Verizon, Nike, Ernst & Young, University of Michigan, National Geographic and Stanford Determining new products/services University. It is also for the first time that the award to offer has crossed the American shores since its inception Colleagues throughout the region clearly wish to be in 2002. responsive to information needs of their libraries' various constituencies, but feel ill-equipped to gauge the information needs, wants, opinions, and expectations of users (or understand where non- users are going to get their information). Assessing the information needs of usersand reasons for non- use of a libraryis critical as staff design and develop new products and services. Since we cannot simply add to our “to do” lists, this information will be invaluable in determining how existing services should be modified to meet the new realities, and L to R : Ms Sushma Arora, Mr B.P.Prakash, which can be eliminated Ms Terri Brooks, Mr Satyanarayana, Ms Sanjukta Ray There are many tools for gathering this type of information with an appropriate level of detail, and a TCS Global LIC Head, Mr. B.P.Prakash accepted the mix of mechanisms is best to assure input from all award on behalf of TCS and presented an overview of types of users (plus non-users), including surveys, the LIC structure, activities and services to the SLA focus groups, interviews, and usability studies. delegates and dignitaries. The LIC team members Across the board, librarians understand how to Ms. Sanjukta Ray (Kolkata), Ms. Sushma Arora conduct needs assessments and report findings from (Delhi) and Mr.