FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR FID
FID's new Executive Director, Mr. Stephen Parker, is a British national
and a Fellow of the [British] Library Association. He is Editor of the
quarterly journal, Information Development, (published by Bowker Saur)
and author of several books and numerous reports, conference papers and
articles on various aspects of information management and information
development. In 1976 he was awarded the International Federation of
Library Associations' Sevensma Prize for an essay on 'Regional
cooperation in developing countries'.
Mr. Parker has had a longstanding interest in and concern for library
and information development in developing countries. He began his career
in public libraries in the United Kingdom, but soon took up his first
overseas post as British Council Librarian in Bangkok, Thailand, from
1961 to 1966. He spent the next three years as the first Director of the
Botswana National Library Service and Library Adviser to the governments
of Swaziland and Lesotho, before returning to the United Kingdom as
Lecturer in Charge of Overseas Students at the School of Librarianship,
Northwestern Polytechnic, in London. This was followed by two years at
the College of Librarianship Wales, where he carried out research for
his Fellowship thesis on 'Unesco and library development planning'. This
was awarded a mark of distinction by the Library Association's Board of
Advanced Studies in 1978, and subsequently published by the Library
Association under the same title.
In 1975, Mr. Parker set up his own consulting firm, Library Development
Consultants. In the next 18 years, he carried out consulting assignments
in more than 40 countries in Africa, the Arab States, Asia, Europe and
Latin America and the Caribbean, and also spent a year at Unesco
Headquarters as Editor of the Unesco Journal of Information Science,
Librarianship and Archives Administration. Resident in the Netherlands
since 1993, Mr. Parker became Publications Manager at the IRC
International Water and Sanitation Centre in The Hague in 1994. In
addition to working as Executive Director of FID, he will for the time
being continue to be responsible on a part-time basis for information
projects at IRC, including IRC's website and electronic news service.
In his first full week at FID, the new Executive Director was 'dropped
in at the deep end of the pool' with meetings of the FID Executive
Committee, the Global Information Alliance, the FID Council and the
FID-IDRC Impact Project Advice Group. In a brief statement to Council,
Mr. Parker expressed his pleasure at returning to work in the
international information environment, and identified the FID
membership, FID publications and the FID website as three key areas to
which he expected to give priority during the coming months.
Martha Stone, President of FID, expressed her extreme pleasure at being
able to introduce the new Director to the FID Council meeting, held in
The Hague, May 14-15. She stated that at this critical time in the
evolution of FID, she was fully confident that Mr. Parker's experience
and commitment to the field of information science would contribute
significantly to the meeting of FID's important program objectives.
For further information please contact:
FID Secretariat
Email: [log in to unmask]
Fax: +31 70 3140667
Tel: +31 70 3140671
Mail: P.O. Box 90402, 2509 LK THE HAGUE, Netherlands
The Hague, May-June 1998
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