28 January 2005

Information industry business leaders honoured

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) will be presenting two of its prestigious industry awards at the Information Online Conference Dinner on Wednesday 2 February 2005 in Sydney.

The ALIA Fellowship has been conferred on business and academic leader, Dr Marianne Broadbent, in recognition of her outstanding career within and outside her profession. Through her research, her publications, presentations, professional contributions and independent consultancies, Dr Broadbent has made a unique contribution to the literature and the theoretical and practical bases of the profession, particularly in the newly-emergent discipline of information management. Her most recent publication The new CIO leader: setting the agenda and delivering results published by the Harvard Business School Press and co-authored by Ellen Kitzis was already into its second impression less than one month after its release date. This is not her first best-seller: Marianne is also co-author of Leveraging the new infrastructure: how market leaders capitalise on information technology, also published by Harvard Business School. She has been awarded two 'Best Paper' awards at international research conferences.

Following six years in regional and global roles with Gartner, Dr Broadbent accepted the position of Associate Dean at Melbourne Business School from January 2004. While leading the school's elite Executive MBA for senior managers, she concurrently was appointed to the chair of Management (Information Systems). Gartner recently approached her to take on a new global role. On 7 February 2005 she will be rejoining Gartner as senior vice-president - research business strategy.

The distinction of Fellow is conferred by the ALIA Board of Directors on a member who has reached an exceptionally high standard of proficiency in library and information science and has made a distinguished contribution to the theory or practice of library and information science.

The Redmond Barry Award has been conferred upon John Dwight, executive chair of DA Information Services and DA Library Technologies. John Dwight has been a leader in enhancing the library and information services sector in Australia, and promoting the Australian sector in the international arena for the past twenty years. The award acknowledges the outstanding contribution John has made to the profession through his activities at DA in providing leading-edge products and services; his excellent understanding of and responses to the needs of Australian libraries in providing information services in line with international developments; and his support for the activities of ALIA for many years.

The Redmond Barry Award is peer-nominated and the Association’s highest honour that can be bestowed on an individual without a library professional background. The Award commemorates the name and services to Australian libraries of Sir Redmond Barry [1813–1888], regarded as the founder of the State Library of Victoria. Previous recipients include Ian Renard, Jim Soorley, Alfred Gans, Professor Stuart Macintyre, the Honourable Barry Jones, and the Honourable E G Whitlam, AC QC.

Information Online 2005 is the leading event for the online information industry in the Asia-Pacific region and will be held at Darling Harbour, Sydney from 1–3 February 2005.

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) is the professional organisation for the Australian library and information services sector and represents 5500 individual members, 900 institutional members and the interests of 10.7 million library users.

Full details are available on the Australian Information and Library Association website at http://online.alia.org.au.