This is a presentation (of 10 slides) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 in the session sponsored by the Curriculum SIG titled "Preparing Students for the International Information Society: Studying the Global Context in LIS" at the 2005 ALISE Conference, Boston, MA. The experiences of the students and the instructor in the first Summer Institute in Florence-2004 "Florentine Art and Culture, Resources and Documentationâ offered by Pratt-SILS are candidly discussed. As part of this course students had access four libraries in Florence: Uffizi, the Biblioteca Nazionale, the Medici and Harvard's Berenson Library. Cultural Informatics is explored.

Quality Assurance System has been implemented in Thai universities since 1997, initiated by the Ministry of University Affairs. According to the National Education Act 1999, the Office of Education Standards and Evaluation was set up to respond for external assessment while educational institutions do internal assessment. The Information Studies Programs, Chiang Mai University uses QA system and mechanisms as tools to improve quality. Two main elements need strongly support are faculty de-velopment and research.

Information Studies programmes in the ASEAN region cater to a range of economic and technological situations. They not only prepare information professionals for the modern networked global economy, but also emphasize the role of an information professional as an agent of change for guiding and stimulating the development of remote or backward regions and help them access and use global information sources. This paper examines the issues of the socio-economic context of Information Studies programmes, the convergence and divergence of the discipline, information technology in the curriculum, the quality of students, and obsolescence and change in Information Studies programmes.

The presentation includes 14 slides that were given in Session 2.4 - Community Connections: Advancing LIS Education and Practice Through Partnership, at the 2005 ALISE Conference. It introduces recent collaborative funded research projects that have build up community information programs. In particular, it highlights an IMLS-funded research project at the University of Michigan, describes and advocates the development of course-based community connections.

This study has made an attempt to explore the library and information science (LIS) education system in Bangladesh. This paper also identifies the different levels of LIS education, continuing education and training facilities in Bangladesh. At the same time we have tried to find out the existing problems, which create barriers for quality education as well as professional development. In the conclusion, some necessary recommendations have been given for the development of LIS education system and professional development in Bangladesh.

Globalisation raises many issues which are relevant to information management. These include the creation and implementation of international standards, records management, archives and library operational needs of multinational companies and international organisations, the transborder flow of information and the increasing international mobility of information management professionals. This paper considers the tensions that ensue from increasing globalisation in terms of small countries, specifically New Zealand, in terms of the provision of education for information management.

This is a PowerPoint presentation (20 slides) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 in Session 4.1: Continuing Education Programs in the U.S. and Canada, sponsored by the Continuing Education SIG at the 2005 ALISE Conference, Boston, MA. The presentation reviews issues of continuing education (CE) from different perspectives. By introducing the experience of the Dalhousie University's Library Science Program in CE, it discusses common problems and highlights some successes. It also advocates collaborative research with other LIS schools and with library associations.

As networked digital information proliferates and modern society's need to have access to information irrespective of location rises, the education needed for the digerati, defined loosely as the digital intelligentsia, the whole class of expert digital information professionals, becomes an important area about which all information professionals should stay informed. This paper describes the three concepts - interdisciplinarity, interactivity, and interoperability - that are an integral part of digital library research and their use in the curriculum development, teaching, and learning of a specific area of study within Library and Information Science (LIS), namely knowledge organization (KO). KO, studied intellectually, self-referentially, and immersively, it is argued, can provide the foundation for the modern digerati. This is a preprint of a paper published in Education for Information 23 (4): 233-243. The paper elaborates a presentation made at the IMLS Workshop on Digital Libraries Education (JCDL 2005).

LIS education focuses on developing manpower suitable to the demands of the contemporary information environment. There is need to audit the LIS curriculum for its relevance to the 21st century hybrid environment. This paper analyzes the opinions of young and experienced professionals on existing LIS coursesâ ability to meet the demand and increase employability. The paper proposes a general framework to overcome the lacunae.

This presentation was presented in Session 6.4 â Reports of Current Research (Juried Papers), at the 2005 ALISE Conference. It uses 20 slides to summarize current situations and developing trends of information technologies. It raises an important issue in the development â globalization, which emphasizes the efficiency of modern technologies in delivering information to people around the world. Africa is used as a case to illustrate how local policies have played important roles in the process of information globalization.