Happy Birthday, INASP!

Greetings again. I hope that all is going well for you.

As you may know, AuthorAID is a project of INASP (the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications). AuthorAID is 5 years old, and INASP is 20 years old. In honor of its 20th birthday, INASP held a symposium last week. I was fortunate to attend.

The symposium, which occurred on June 20, was titled “Research, Information and Development: These truths we hold to be self-evident . . . ?” The symposium included 3 main sessions:

• “Technical solutions to information access: Build it and they will come?”
• “Delivering scholarly literature: The world at your fingertips?”
• “Doing the right thing: Trust me, I’m a policy maker?”

Each of these sessions had 4 speakers. In addition, there was a keynote speaker at the end.

The symposium was in Oxford, England, where INASP has its headquarters. The speakers and other participants came from many countries; almost all continents were represented. The symposium program and participant list are available online.

The participants included INASP country coordinators from a variety of countries. Some of these country coordinators had organized AuthorAID workshops that I had facilitated. I was very happy to see these country coordinators again.

At the end of symposium, a leader of INASP made final remarks and opened a large box. The box contained a large birthday cake. During the reception that followed the symposium, the participants enjoyed talking with one another and eating cake.

Happy birthday, INASP! May you have many healthy and productive years to come.

Until the next post—

Barbara