Networking the Pacific forum, May 1995 - Provenance magazine 12/17/95

PROVENANCE: Volume 1, Number 1 - December 17, 1995

NETWORKING THE PACIFIC: a Forum

This page is quite image intensive, so if you are using a modem slower than 28.8 bps -- thank you for your patience

This Web magazine is in part the result of the exciting energies generated by the 2 day forum "Networking the Pacific" held in Victoria, B.C., Canada, in May 1995. The forum was convened by Stan Skrzeszewski, ASM Consultants (London, Ontario, Canada) as part of the pre-conference activities of the Annual B.C. Libraries Association Conference.

The forum was attended by about 60 participants, representing private and public sector agencies from across the Pacific Rim. People came from Australia, New Guinea, Singapore, China, Japan, Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Agencies ranged from:

Nationl Libraries (Australia & Canada),

Foundations (Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada),

Development organizations (IDRC),

Library Professional Associations (C.L.A., B.C.L.A.)

Universities & Colleges (Business, Law, Asian libraries),

Government libraries (Beijing, China & Japan),

Information Systems / Internet Companies,

Consulting Companies and

Corporate Libraries ....

Sample pictures from the forum

Left to right: Maria Ng, The Asian Network, IDRC Singapore; Carole Joling, IDRC; Jack Cain, B.C. Trade Development Corp.; Hiroshi Kawamura, U. of Tokyo; and Leonora Crema, U.B.C. & B.C.L.A.

Dr. Jesus Lau, University Librarian & Jesus Cortes, Associate, Universidad Autonoma de Cuidad Juarez, Juarez, Mexico and Pat Cavill, President, Canadian Library Association

Left to right: He Yang, Ministry of Culture, Beijing, China; Leonora Crema, U.B.C. & B.C.L.A. President; Roland Yeo, Netcentre Pte. Ltd., Singapore; Maria Ng, The Asian Network, IDRC Singapore; Warwick Cathro, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

Left to right: Dr. Marianne Scott, Stan Skrzeszewski and Robert Felsing, University of Oregon

Dr. Marianne Scott, National Librarian, National Library of Canada

Margaret Andrewes
Communications Coordinator
ISM Library Information Services (Past President of the Canadian Library Association)

John Evans, University of Papua New Guinea

Follow-up Business

A number of initiative were raised at the forum, including:

Developing an Internet based information network for participants to maintain contact.
Developing an Internet based repository for the dissemination of papers given at this forum.

Ways and Means to Implement Initiatives

In light of the pending budget and staff cutbacks at the National Library of Canada and the International Development Research Centre Canada, these agencies were not able to offer assistance to deal with the first point outlined above.

IDRC's Centre Library Director, Carole Joling, offered to have papers archived at the the IDRC World Wide Web site.

Stan Skrzeszewski has been collating the papers and the papers are being put on the Gopher site as they come in according to Carole.
Members of the B.C. Library Association, Third World Interest Group (TWLIG) present at the conference (including Frieda Wiebe, Hilde Colenbrander and Neal Chan) expressed a willingness to look into ways and means of sponsoring an Internet Listserv or Mailserv. This was discussed with another 3 members of TWLIG attending the forum and the following Conference. TWLIG continues to work on this project, at the time this proto-type goes on the Net.
Since May, in consultation with some of the Networking the Pacific participants and the help of local resources in the Internet industry-- it became feasible to set up PROVENANCE: The Electronic Magazine-- which you have before you now.
Provenance currently functions on the volunteer efforts of a multi-disciplinary, international group of "information professionals" and the generosity of a few corporate sponsors. We will for the forseeable future provide a continued professional forum for members of the Pacific Rim information/library services community to promote information sharing.
A special note of thanks to Stan Skrzeszewski, for his iniatives that have benefited us all.

Neal Chan

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