International Assoc of Agricultural Information Specialists Inc

Since 1955 IAALD has connected information professionals from around the world through its World Congresses. It is through these face to face meetings that the conversation begins and then social networking allows the conversation to continue long after the attendees go home.  Please help us connect our colleagues from around the world to begin this conversation by donating to our IAALD Travel Grant Fund.  These funds will be used to bring our colleagues from low income countries to meet and interact with like minded colleagues from around the world.  Past travel grants planted the seeds for cooperation among the African agricultural information professionals and provided contacts and tools to librarians from India, Argentina, China, the Czech Republic, Jamaica, and Indonesia.   Here is what past recipients say about their experience:

 

Osvaldo from Argentina:  The IAALD World Congress provided an excellent opportunity to meet and exchange ideas and knowledge with specialists from all over the world.  Having been selected for this travel grant represented a very important step in my career and I am deeply grateful for the support provided by IAALD in order to attend the World Congress. It was an unforgettable experience and of great importance to my professional development, that it has resulted in a greater efficiency in the performance of my duties.

 

Mila, The Philippines: Receiving a grant to attend the IAALD Congress in 2005 is a very rare and valued opportunity for me as a Librarian in a Third World country.  Library services in my country are lagging behind counterparts in the developed world.  Hence, exposure to innovative library resources and services is very limited.  The grant enabled me to hear from eminent speakers and to gain new knowledge and skills, which, otherwise, would have escaped me.  Best practices learned from the Congress were adopted in my workplace and were shared with fellow local librarians and effectively, more librarians benefited from the grant.  And most important of all, meeting fellow Librarians from other countries to forge friendship and collaboration is one of the most fulfilling accomplishments in a Librarian’s life.   

Eva, Uganda: Going to the IAALD World Congress, introduced me to a wealth of information and technology used by  information specialists in the field of agricultural information that l had known little about. l was able to learn a lot from the papers presented and also discuss issues that are pertinent to information storage and retrieval systems. The exhibitions were informative and [showed] good innovations that supplemented the papers presented and provided more information about their dissemination and use. l was able to learn a lot from the professionals from all over the world most of whom have kept in touch and shared information. 

Margaret, Ghana: I was a beneficiary of a travel grant to IAALD’s 11th World Congress in 2005.  My participation enabled me to meet colleagues from all over the world and to listen to the excellent papers that were presented. Using web 2.0 technologies for information provision for example was introduced to me for the first time at this conference. Practical things that others were doing in their organisations using social media were discussed and this paved the way for me to also experiment with similar technologies in my own organisation.   A positive result [of this conference] was the conception of a vibrant association –IAALD –AFRICA chapter which was inaugurated in May of 2006.

 

Vera, Czech Republic: During the Congress I was present at the full program, I received the first information about journals published by PLOS Library, I gained the latest information about large repositories, I was present at the brainstorming concerning library services and I visited the library of the University of Kentucky.  My participation was a core for the understanding of many various global problems in agriculture solved all over the world. After coming back I had been disseminating the information about my participation at the Congress to groups such as the  Czech professional organization SKIP (Union of Librarians and Information Specialists) in Brno.

 

While there is still benefit to meeting face to face, social networking will allow the conversation to continue long after the attendees go home.  Please help us connect our colleagues from around the world to begin this conversation.