National recognition for Curtin staff member

Congratulations to Peter Green, e-library development librarian with Curtin Library and Information Service, for his outstanding contributions to the academic library community which have earned him the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) Achievement Award for 2003.

Peter gained national recognition for his work on developing federated authentication practices and improving access to Australian research through the Australian Digital Theses program. Peter has performed in an exemplary fashion, demonstrating qualities of vision, leadership and persistence. His knowledge and competence straddle both librarianship and computer science giving him exceptional insight into the two complex themes of authentication and digitisation.

One of the persistent problems confronting CAUL Libraries over the past decade has been managing authentication, authorisation and access to meet licensing and statutory requirements while providing an ever increasing volume of online services and resources to the academic community. Peter has been project manager of the West Australian Group of University Librarians Authentication Project since early 2001. This project was established to provide a way forward in this area, particularly in regards to authentication in a collaborative environment involving not only the libraries of five universities but also the IT bodies of these universities. The unprecedented co-operation has been achieved in part as a result of Peter's ability to communicate equally well with staff in the technical areas as with the librarians.

Peter has played a significant role over the last five years in the establishment of the Australian Digital Theses (ADT) program. His work at Curtin helped establish the technical foundation for ADT, with Curtin as one of the foundation sites. His work allowed Curtin to quickly grow its presence in ADT and provide a significant portion of the nationally available content. He also provided significant input into the ADT Program Expansion and Redevelopment funding proposal, led by UNSW, which has been successful in attracting funding under the Research Information Infrastructure. Peter is managing the implementation of an Institutional Repository at Curtin and the inevitable inclusion of digital theses into institutional repositories will further contribute to improving access to the research output of Australian universities.

The Council of Australian University Librarians Achievement Award recognises significant progress in the areas of information resources and services; scholarly communication; best practice; and advocacy, marketing and communication. Peter will be presented with a cheque for $5 000.

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