New executive director for FID
New executive director for FID
FID's new executive director, Mr Stephen Parker, is a British national and a Fellow of the 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 IFLA's Sevensma Prize, for an essay entitled"Regional co-operation in developing countries". Mr. Parker has had a long-standing interest in, and concern for, library and information development in developing countries. He began his career in public libraries in the UK, but soon took up his first overseas post as British Council Librarian in Bangkok 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 UK as lecturer in charge of overseas students at the School of Librarianship, Northwestern Polytechnic,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. During 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 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 Web site and electronic news service.
For further information please contact the FID Secretariat at fid@python.konbib.nl
