The digital melting pot:Bridging the digital native-immigrant divide

The online journal First Monday has published its latest issue:

Volume 14, number 7 , 6 July 2009 which can be found at :

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/current.

Included in this issue is a very interesting article entitled "The Digital melting pot: Bridging the digital native-immigrant divide" by Sharon Stoerger . You can read this article at:

http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2474/2243

The Global University Network for Innovation

The Global University Network for Innovation - GUNI is composed of UNESCO Chairs in Higher Education, research centers, universities, networks and other institutions highly committed to innovation in higher education. More than 100 institutions from around the world are GUNI members.

GUNI was set up by UNESCO, the United Nations University (UNU) and the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) in 1999 with the aim of following up the decisions taken at the World Conference on Higher Education (WCHE) held in Paris in 1998. The goal of GUNI is to contribute to the reinforcement of higher education by the application of the decisions of the World Conference on Higher Education.

You can find interviews, reports and best practices at this useful site for higher education issues.

Tariff for photocopying set by Copyright Board of Canada

In this release from the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), we are told about payment of initially $4.64 per FTE student for reprographic rights. Many of the developing countries will eventually have to go this way if not already.

"TORONTO, June 30, 2009 – The Copyright Consortium of the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, is reviewing last week’s decision by the Copyright Board of Canada, which established the rate that must be paid to Access Copyright, a collective representing certain authors and publishers, in order for schools to photocopy published print materials.

The rate applies to schools operated by school boards in all Canadian provinces and territories except Quebec, and will permit schools to photocopy materials for which the copyright is held by members of Access Copyright.

“We are pleased to have a decision on this important matter; however, we will need time to assess the implications of this tariff on public education,” said Marilyn More, Nova Scotia’s minister of education and chair of the CMEC Copyright Consortium.

Access Copyright filed an application in 2004 requesting that the Copyright Board of Canada establish a rate of $12.00 for each full-time-equivalent student attending a kindergarten-to- grade-12 school. In its recent decision, the Copyright Board set the rate at $4.64 per full-time- equivalent student for the first four years of the tariff, 2005 to 2008. The rate will increase to $5.16 for 2009. The tariff, which applies to all provinces and territories except Quebec, will cost about $20 million per year, based on a student enrolment of about 4 million students.

The decision replaces a five-year, pan-Canadian licence, which expired in August 2004. Under that licence, the negotiated rated was $2.45 per full-time student. “It has been a long process, which has resulted in a comprehensive decision by the Copyright Board,” said Ms. More. “I want to thank CMEC’s Copyright Consortium, in particular, the officials of the consortium’s steering committee, who worked so hard on this issue on behalf of students and teachers.”

“This has been a challenging issue for all parties involved,” said Ms. More. “We have to ensure that teachers have access to a wide variety of print materials for their students. At the same time, our creators and publishers must be fairly compensated for their work, which is of great value to teaching and learning in our schools.”

CMEC is an intergovernmental body composed of the ministers responsible for elementary-secondary and advanced education from the provinces and territories. Through CMEC, ministers share information and undertake projects in areas of mutual interest and concern. The CMEC Copyright Consortium comprises members from all provinces and territories with the exception of Quebec.

Information

Colin Bailey
Assistant Director, Administration and Communications
Cell: 647-308-2380
Tel.: 416-962-8100, ext. 259
E-mail: c.bailey@cmec.ca

Knowledge Exchange comparative report on Costs and Benefits of Open Access

In June 2009 a study was completed that had been commissioned by Knowledge Exchange and written by Professor John Houghton, Victoria University, Australia. This report on the study was titled: "Open Access – What are the economic benefits?: A comparison of the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Denmark." This report was based on the findings of studies in which John Houghton had modelled the costs and benefits of Open Access in three countries. These studies had been undertaken in the UK by JISC, in the Netherlands by SURF and in Denmark by DEFF.

In the three national studies the costs and benefits of scholarly communication were compared based on three different publication models.

The modelling revealed that: the greatest advantage would be offered by the Open Access model, which means that the research institution or the party financing the research pays for publication and the article is then freely accessible.

Adopting this model could lead to annual savings of around EUR 70 million in Denmark, EUR 133 million in The Netherlands and EUR 480 in the UK. The report concludes that the advantages would not just be in the long term; in the transitional phase too, more open access to research results would have positive effects. In this case the benefits would also outweigh the costs.

The full report is available here:
Open Access – What are the economic benefits?

A comparison of the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Denmark

The reports of the three countries can be downloaded below:

• JISC report: Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models: Exploring the costs and benefits
• SURF report: Costs and Benefits of Research Communication: The Dutch Situation
• DEFF report is not available at the website yet. For questions concerning the report, please contact Anne Sandfær at DEFF.
  

Source:http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=316 Knowledge Exchange.

WordPress 2.8 Now Available for Download

For those who maintain blogs, you might be interested in knowing that:

WordPress 2.8 Now Available for Download

WordPress has just released the newest version of their installable blog software: WordPress 2.8

The most notable addition would seem to be the ability to browse themes from within the WordPress Dashboard. With the Theme Browser, you can specify the color you want, how many columns there should be, and fixed or flexible width. You can then select and install themes match those criteria on-the-fly, without leaving the Dashboard.

WordPress 2.8 also offers a re-designed widgets interface, improved speed, and has fixed a reported 790 bugs. The download is available here.

Information Research: an open access electronic journal has just published its latest issue -Volume 14 No 2 June, 2009.

Information Research an electronic journal with FREE access to its articles has just published its latest issue -Volume 14 No 2 June, 2009.

Information Research, is an open access, international, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, dedicated to making accessible the results of research across a wide range of information-related disciplines.

It is privately published and edited by Professor T.D. Wilson. It is hosted, and given technical support, by Lund University Libraries, Sweden. Editorial support is provided by the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, Gothenburg University and Högskolan i Borås.

You can read the latest issue at: http://informationr.net/ir/14-2/infres142.html .

The articles include:

• Ari Pirkola
  The effectiveness of Web search engines to index new sites from different countries

• Bo Jarneving
• The publication activity of Region Västra Götaland: a bibliometric study of an administrative and political Swedish region during the period 1998-2006.

• José Manuel Morales-del-Castillo, Eduardo Peis, Juan Manuel Moreno & Enrique Herrera-Viedma
• D-Fussion: a semantic selective dissemination of information service for the research community in digital libraries.
• 
  
• Rosa Lidia Vega-Almeida, J. Carlos Fernández-Molina & Radamés Linares
• Coordenadas paradigmáticas, históricas y epistemológicas de la Ciencia de la Información: una sistematización.
• 
  
• Zinaida Manžuch
• Archives, libraries and museums as communicators of memory in European Union projects.
• 
  
• Stephen Paling
• Mapping techno-literary spaces: adapting multiple correspondence analysis for literature and art.
• 
  
• Jette Hyldegård
• Personality traits and group-based information behaviour: an exploratory study

Free Access to Over 3,000 e-Books for UK College Students is coming for the start of the next academic year

Source of Image: http://www.amazing-ebooks.co.uk/oldsite/

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

The announcement states:

JISC has funded an ‘e-books for Further Education (FE) project to make over 3000 e-books freely available to every college and sixth form in the UK.

Over the next five years, the project, which also received funding from the Learning Skills Council (LSC), will enable all students in Further Education in the UK to access online course texts to support their studies.

E-books will be made available from the start of the next academic year via the ebrary e-books platform. Subjects will range from Fashion Design to Software Engineering, Health and Social Care to Automobile Electronics, and Beauty Therapy to Practical Lambing. Access will be available whether students are studying in the college, at home or in an internet café.

"A recent study (PDF) carried out by JISC Collections, as part of its national e-book observatory project, indicated that e-books are popular with students because they are ‘more accessible than print books, meaning that users can get at them wherever they are and at whatever time they like’.

JISC Collections’ national e-book observatory project is one of the largest studies of its kind in the UK. It observed the behaviours of students at 127 UK universities; how they accessed, used and downloaded e-books, and received more than 40,000 responses.

Its results suggest that e-books, rather than detracting from the use of traditional textbooks, actually support their use, providing access to information in the student’s own time, enabling further reading on those subjects printed in the core text and potentially improving the way students learn by broadening their analytical and evaluation skills.

Lorraine Estelle, CEO of JISC Collections commented, “This is not the end of the printed text. Rather than replacing printed material, e-books will support students’ studies providing a broader range of reading materials, knowledge and opinions. In this way this project will do more than just provide free course material, it will add a greater value to that already provided by the FE institution.”

Web 2.0 as one milionth word just as it might be out of popular usage!!

Source of image:http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/ctl/Inst_Computing/Web2.0.htm

This thought provoking piece comes from Mashable at http://mashable.com/2009/06/10/web20-millionth-word/ and is written by by Adam Ostrow on June 10th. 2009

"Words from the tech vernacular finding their way into common language – and ultimately the dictionary – isn’t a new phenomenon.

“Blog” was Merriam-Webster’s “word of the year” in 2004, while more recent additions to the dictionary include “Facebook ” .

Usually, these moves are timely publicity stunts of sorts by dictionary makers.

However, the move today by a group called The Global Language Monitor to make “Web 2.0” the one millionth word in the English language is a bit puzzling, considering that term seems to have run its course. In fact, search volume for the term is about 50 percent off of its peak at this point according to Google Trends.

According to the group, their methodology for adding words is based on total number of searches for it, so, it sort of makes sense that they might be a bit late to the party.

That said, the term Web 2.0 was certainly significant – and remains so to some extent – to the recent history of the Web.

However, the things that constituted “Web 2.0” two years ago – like social networking, web-based software, and content sharing – have become so commonplace that it’s rare we refer specifically to them in that context anymore."

So librarians ,maybe, you might want to stop using the term Web 2.0....:)

We do not want to be thought of as being hopelessly out of date!!!

Gender & Development Journal gives FREE access to articles

Gender & Development is the only journal published to focus specifically on international gender and development issues, and to explore the connections between gender and development initiatives, and feminist perspectives. The journal is co-published by Oxfam GB and Taylor & Francis.

The Gender & Development's website offers FREE access to over 450 articles from researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners on a range of gender and development issues.

The articles are FREE to download from:

http://www.genderanddevelopment.org

Recent articles include:

• Engendering adaptation to climate variability in Gujarat, India by Sara Ahmed and Elizabeth Fajber
  
• Gender, water, and climate change in Sonora, Mexico: implications for policies and programmes on agricultural income-generation by Stephanie Buechler
• The bio-fuel frenzy: what options for rural women? A case of rural development schizophrenia by Nidhi Tandon
  
• Malawian women's participation in State politics: what are the constraints? by Alinane Priscilla Kamlongera
  
• Resilience, power, culture, and climate: a case study from semi-arid Tanzania, and new research directions by Valerie Nelson and Tanya Stathers

The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) Grants and Fellowships

TWAS-IACS Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research: For young scientists from developing countries (other than India) who wish to pursue research towards a PhD in certain fields of natural sciences, including biological chemistry, condensed matter physics, inorganic chemistry, materials science, non conventional energy, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, polymer science, spectroscopy and theoretical physics. Application deadline: 30 June 2009.

TWAS-IACS Fellowship Programme for Postdoctoral Research: For young scientists from developing countries (other than India) who wish to pursue postdoctoral research in certain fields of natural sciences, including biological chemistry, condensed matter physics, inorganic chemistry, materials science, non conventional energy, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, polymer science, spectroscopy and theoretical physics. Application deadline: 30 June 2009.

TWAS-CEMB Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research: For young scientists from developing countries (other than Pakistan) who wish to pursue research towards a PhD in molecular biology and molecular genetics. Application deadline: 30 June 2009.

TWAS-CEMB Fellowship Programme for Postdoctoral Research: For young scientists from developing countries (other than Pakistan) who wish to pursue postdoctoral research in molecular biology and molecular genetics. Application deadline: 30 June 2009.

TWAS-ICCBS Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research: For young scientists from developing countries (other than Pakistan) who wish to pursue research towards a PhD in organic chemistry, biochemistry, biotechnology, molecular medicine, pharmacology or physical chemistry. Application deadline: 30 June 2009.

TWAS-ICCBS Fellowship Programme for Postdoctoral Research

For young scientists from developing countries (other than Pakistan) who wish to pursue postdoctoral research in organic chemistry, biochemistry, biotechnology, molecular medicine, pharmacology or physical chemistry. Application deadline: 30 June 2009.

Deadline extended: from 1 June to 1 July 2009

TWAS-CSIR Fellowship Programme for Postgraduate Research: For young scientists from developing countries (other than India) who wish to pursue all or part (SANDWICH or FULL-TIME) of their research leading towards a PhD in newly emerging areas in science and technology for which facilities are available in CSIR laboratories and institutes. Application deadline: 1 June 2009.

TWAS-CSIR Fellowship Programme for Postdoctoral Research: For young scientists from developing countries (other than India) who wish to pursue postdoctoral research in newly emerging areas in science and technology for which facilities are available in CSIR laboratories and institutes. Application deadline: 1 June 2009.

LIVE FREE WEB CAST to explore the process of committing to the consortium for Open Access in Particle Physics Publishing

SPARC and ACRL are hosting Dr. Salvatore Mele, Head of Open Access at CERN and spokesperson for SCOAP3, at a LIVE FREE WEB CAST to explore the process of committing to the consortium, establishing its governing board, the project's conditions for the call for tender, and to answer remaining questions.

You can join SCOAP3,(the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access in Particle Physics Publishing) in this webcast .

SCOAP wants to change how libraries operate where:

Today: (funding bodies through) libraries buy journal subscriptions to support the peer-review service and allow only their patrons to read articles BUT

Tomorrow: funding bodies and libraries could contribute to the consortium, which would pay centrally for the peer-review service and articles would be FREE to read for EVERYONE.

SCOAP3 currently depends on expressions of interest from the U.S.library community before the experiment can move ahead. The proposal is currently supported by more than 130 U.S. libraries, by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, and by libraries, consortia and funding agencies in 18 other countries.

SCOAP3 has a unique potential to transform scholarly communication.The initiative aims to convert the literature of an ENTIRE FIELD to Open Access by re-directing current expenditures in journal subscriptions. It has so far collected pledges for a total of 8.8 Million $/year from partners in 21 countries, corresponding to 63% of

its worldwide budget envelope.

In the U.S., a growing number of leading libraries and library consortia have already signed an Expression of Interest pledging to re-direct their current expenditures in High-Energy Physics journals to the SCOAP3 initiative. If successful, these pledges total 2.5 Million $/year. About 1 Million $/year are still needed to complete the expected U.S. contribution and enable the initiative to move forward.

Please join us for this special event to learn more about how your library can help change the model for scholarly publishing in High Energy Physics.

Register by June 9 at:

http://www.arl.org/sparc/meetings/event_registration.shtml=20

.

For more information, see:

The SPARC-ACRL FAQs at

http://www.arl.org/sparc/publications/papers/scoap3_09april.shtml

The SCOAP3 web page at http://scoap3.org and

The SCOAP3 expression of interest for U.S. libraries at

http://tinyurl.com/scoap3us=20

SPARC

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. SPARCs advocacy, educational and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc/.

ACRL

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), represents more than 13,000 It is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments.

Article from LLRX.com "Can Collaboration Solve Copyright Status Questions? The WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry"

Source of Image: http://media.canada.com/canwest/143/ccpyrgt.jpg (The Patry Copyright Blog at http://williampatry.blogspot.com/)
This interesting article talks about the challenges of determining whether an older book is out of copyright or not. This will determine what we can do with it in the library. Can we digitize it? We need to know its copyright status and cannot assume because it is "old" that it is out of copyright.

Roger V. Skalbeck talks about OCLC's attempt to solve this problem by introducing The WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry . The article is entitled "Can Collaboration Solve Copyright Status Questions? The WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry" and can be viewed at: http://www.llrx.com/features/copyrightstatus.htm

"As Roger V. Skalbeck documents, one of the underlying obstacles to reproducing older books is a central place to look for information about what is protected by copyright and what may have passed into the public domain is lacking. Responding to this need, OCLC recently introduced a beta service, the WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry (CER). It could be a very valuable resource for recording and sharing copyright status information."

EXCERPT:

"For anybody who wants to digitize new content, what else is available? As it turns out, there are many books that might be in the public domain, but determining the copyright status of these materials can be difficult. Items published between 1923 and 1963 may be found to be in the public domain if a specific set of criteria are examined, including such factors such as publication location, copyright renewal, and adherence to certain formalities.

OCLC estimates that there are more than 1.9 million records in WorldCat for books published in the United States between 1923 and 1963. A Copyright Office study from 1961 estimated that the copyrights had been renewed for only seven percent of the books they reviewed. This represents well over one million books that could be digitized without concern for copyright status. Tempering this number slightly, the 1996 restoration of copyright in foreign works appears to have prevented a large number of items from entering the public domain."

On Edublogs Live:FREE WEBCAST - Blogging with Students!

Source of image: http://www.innovationfactory.nl/blog/category/enterprise-20/

You may want to avail yourselves of these FREE webcasts all about blogging.

Please see the announcements below.

"This coming week we have three exciting new Edublogs LIVE web meeting happening on Thursday, Friday and Saturday!

Date: Thursday, May 21 "Student Blogging - Connecting With A Global Audience!"

Join Sue Waters, Edublogs Community Facilitator (http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/) to learn more about using blogs with students in terms of connecting with global audiences, student engagement and how blogging can change the way students learn.

Find out more about the Student Blogging Challenge and see examples of how student blogging skills increase. Sue will finish with a guided tour of the inside of an Edublogs, Edublogs Campus and Blog.mu blog/sites.

Time: Thurs 21 May 8:00 AM EST (New York)/ 5:00 AM PST (Los Angelos)/ 1:00 PM BST (London)/ 10:00 PM AEST (Sydney)

Location: Elluminate Room

To join a live event just click on the following link:

https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=vclass&password=LPCBZLAT4D3Y921591JT

Date: Friday, May 22 "Serendipity - PD out of a "blue sky""

Join Jo Hart (johart1.edublogs.org ) and Phil Hart (philhart.edublogs.org ) as they step you through into an online unconference session where your bring along your suggestions, hot topics or what you would like to learn about. The topic of the day is chosen by polling during the first 10 minutes of the session.

Our Serendity sessions can be the most exciting because everyone is part of the conversation. Check out this archive to see an example of one of these sessions -

http://liveevents.edublogs.org/2009/05/01/personal-learning-networks-adoption-within-schools-impact-on-learning-challenges-faced/

Time: Thurs 21 May 9:00 PM EST (New York) /Thurs 6:00 PM (Los Angelos) PST /Thu 2:00 AM (London) BST /Frid 22 May 11:00 AM AEST (Sydney)

Location: Elluminate Room

To join a live event just click on the following link:

https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=vclass&password=LPCBZLAT4D3Y921591JT

Date: Saturday, May 23 "Authenticity vs. editing student work: a peaceful middle ground for your class blog""

Do you look at other classroom and student blogs and wonder why their student entries all look so perfect? Do you have people telling you that it will dampen student enthusiasm if you have them edit their work? Do you worry about what parents and administrators will say about your students unedited work?

Would you just talk to someone about student blogging? Then come on in to this session where we will look at some approaches and choices you have for meeting these challenges. Join Alice Mercer (http://mizmercer.edublogs.org) from Reflections on Teaching for a fun and fast-paced session. Ms. Mercer has been blogging with elementary (9-12 year olds) students for the last three years, and brings the wisdom from her ever changing teaching practices and practical advice.

Time: Sat 23 May 8:00 PM EST (New York) /Sat 5:00 PM (Los Angelos) PST /Sat 1:00 AM (London) BST /Sun May 24 10.:00 AM AEST (Sydney)

Location: Elluminate Room

To join a live event just click on the following link:

https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=vclass&password=LPCBZLAT4D3Y921591JT

Don't forget the Edublogs LIVE! site (http://liveevents.edublogs.org/) is where you'll find the recordings from our previous shows.

These "LIVE" meetings are an opportunity to gather with other educators in real-time events, complete with audio, chat, desktop sharing, and sometimes even video.

(Special thanks Elluminate - http://elluminate.com/ - for providing this service.)

View this Elluminate tutorial video to prepare your computer to successfully access the Elluminate session: http://www.elluminate.com/support/faq_recordings/FirstTimeUser.jsp .

We will also have experienced Elluminate users in the room to assist you with any questions you might have.

Please let us know any suggestions for show topics or if you would like to book sessions for your teachers and/or students. Please let us know if you like to co-host a show -- just let us know topic(s) plus date and time that works for you!

Get your own FREE 3-user Elluminate vRoom HERE! (http://getvroom.com/?s=CPP0121)

Visit Edublogs Free Live Events at: http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/free-live-web-events/"

FREE ACRL member WEBCAST featuring Clifford Lynch

If you are a member of the ACRL you can avail yourself of this FREE webcast on June 3rd. which is going to be exceptional- after all it involves Clifford Lynch

Here is the announcement from ACRL.

"Don’t miss the second annual ACRL Springboard Event, a FREE interactive webcast for ACRL members on June 3. ACRL knows that professional development is important to our members, and in these tough economic times we are pleased to offer this annual program to “thank you” for your participation.

Join us on Wednesday, June 3, from 12:00 - 1:15 p.m. CDT (10:00 - 11:15 a.m. PDT; 11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. MDT; 1:00 - 2:15 p.m. EDT) for a lively discussion with Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information.

During this free webcast, Lynch will share "some things that keep me awake at night," including cultural memory in the age of economic instability and the implications of the migration of vast amounts of personal history and activity to the digital environment.

Both of these issues have massive implications for today's academic and research libraries.

There will be ample time for audience Q&A to discuss these issues and foster ongoing dialogue.

Clifford Lynch has been the Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) since July 1997. CNI, jointly sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries and EDUCAUSE, includes approximately 200 member organizations concerned with the use of information technology and networked information to enhance scholarship and intellectual productivity.

Prior to joining CNI, Lynch spent 18 years at the University of California Office of the President, the last ten as director of library automation. Lynch, who holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, is an adjunct professor at Berkeley's School of Information. He is a past president of the American Society for Information Science and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Information Standards Organization. Lynch currently serves on the National Digital Strategy Advisory Board of the Library of Congress, Microsoft's Technical Computing Science Advisory Board, board of the New Media Consortium, and the Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access; he was a member of the National Research Council committees that published The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age and Broadband: Bringing Home the Bits.

REGISTER NOW
There is no registration fee for this member event, but please visit www.acrl.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/events/springboard.cfm to RSVP online by May 29 and confirm your space in the webcast. Login details will be sent to you a few days before the webcast.

Questions should be directed to Margot Conahan at mconahan@ala.org or call 312-280-2522.

KUMAREE RAMTAHAL wins one of three ARL bursaries for IFLA 2009 in ITALY

One of my colleagues at the University of the West Indies Campus Libraries has won one of the THREE (3) free Registrations/Bursaries from The Academic and Research Libraries for an information professional from Africa, Latin America and the Asia/Pacific region.

This covers the registration/bursary expenses at the World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, to be held in Milan, Italy from August 23-27, 2009.

The conference theme is "Libraries create futures: building on cultural heritage".

This is not the first time that Kumaree has one a prestigious award. In 2008, she was the joint recipient of the ACURILEAN Star Award 2008 for excellence in Reference Services at the annual ACURIL Conference in Montego Bay, Jamaica .

Congratulations to Ms. Kumaree Ramtahal as she plans for her trip to Italy !