Finding our Future Conferences
Facing the Challenges of an Aging Workforce
Bios and photos
Stephen Abram, B.A. (hon), M.L.S. (top)
Stephen Abram is Vice President of Corporate Development for Micromedia ProQuest and the President of the Ontario Library Association for 2002.
In March 2002 Stephen was named by Library Journal as one of the Top 50 librarians who are shaping the future of libraries and librarianship.
Micromedia ProQuest is Canada's largest electronic publisher. Stephen's role is to be responsible for the long term development of their successful print, microform, CD-ROM, intranet and web-based news, periodical, directory, corporate, engineering and government information publishing lines.
He has been Publisher, Electronic Information for Carswell and Thomson Electronic Publishing in Canada and the U.S., creating some of the leading legal information finding tools in North America in CD-ROM, online and web formats. He has managed libraries, marketing and information resources for Hay Management Consultants, Coopers & Lybrand (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers) as well as positions with the Canadian law firm Smith, Lyons, Torrance, Stevenson, & Mayer, and Suncor.
Stephen has also held positions nationally and internationally for many information industry and librarian organizations, including the Special Libraries Association (SLA), Canadian Library Association (CLA), Canadian Association of Special Libraries and Information Services (CASLIS), Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), and The Electronic Rights Licensing Association (TERLA). He is the 2002 president of the Ontario Library Association. He writes and speaks frequently on new roles for librarians, developing effective knowledge ecologies, product creation and marketing, library technology trends and e-learning.
Stephen was 1992 Member of the Year for the SLA Toronto Chapter. He was made an international Fellow of SLA in 1995. In 1998 Stephen was CASLIS Canadian Special Librarian of the Year. In June 1999 Stephen was awarded the prestigious SLA Management Leadership Award. In June 2000, he was presented with the SLA Public Relations Member Achievement Award in Philadelphia. In June 2001 Stephen received the Alumni Jubilee Award from the Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto.
Stephen spends his copious amounts of leisure time with his two children (a writer son in Grade 12 and a gymnast daughter in grade 9 French immersion) and his wife (author of over 24 books including novel studies, major history textbooks as well as several websites and Phys Ed curricula) and enjoys telling off people who talk during the movie in theatres.
Dr. Ethel Auster (top)
Professor Auster joined the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto after teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and professional experiences in school, special and academic libraries. She has done research in the following areas: information-seeking behaviour of managers; evaluation of online services; information dissemination and use, and downsizing in Canadian academic research libraries. Her current SSHRC-funded project concerns the ways in which public reference librarians maintain their professional competence in an era of rapidly changing technologies. Other areas of interest include management of information organizations; information needs and uses; human resources management in information organizations; and management and evaluation of reference services. She has published in numerous professional journals. Her book Managing Online References Services appeared in 1986; The Online Searcher in 1990; Retrenchment in Canadian Academic Libraries in 1991. Her most recent book Managing Information for the Competitive Edge, co-edited with Prof. C.W. Choo was published in 1996. A former Governor of the University of Toronto, she serves as Chair of the Committee on Doctoral Studies.
Renée Bazile-Jones (top)
Renée Bazile-Jones is the President of unparalleled inc. which helps its clients to create workplace environments, structures, policies and practices that optimize the strategic utilization of human capital.
Ms. Bazile-Jones is known in both Canada and the United States for her work in Diversity Management, strategic planning, and the Management of Change, and her accomplishments have been acknowledged by Who's Who in Business. Renée is an expert on issues of Workplace Harassment. She has over 28 years experience working for such Fortune 500 companies as Xerox, AT&T, and Shell Canada Limited. Renée has worked as a management consultant with Price Waterhouse Associates and William M. Mercer, as well as a Director with the Provincial Employment Equity Commission, prior to founding unparalleled inc.
Renée has worked as a volunteer on ground-breaking environmental scenarios for United Way of America such as What Lies Ahead: Scenarios for the Year 2000, has written and consulted extensively on work in the future, and was a featured speaker at the Couchiching Institutes planning form on The Future World of Work. Renée co-authored Measuring the Impact of Diversity, and has published articles on Aspects of Sexism and Workplace Harassment.. She is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer on Diversity in both Canada and the United States.
Ian Cullwick, CMC, CCP, CHRP (top)
Ian Cullwick is a Partner and national service line leader for Human Capital Advisory Services at Deloitte & Touche LLP. Ian specializes in human resources strategy, compensation strategy, organization design, performance measurement, and performance management. Ian is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario with a Master's degree in Business Administration. He also holds a Master's degree in Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto and a B.A. (Honours) degree from Queen's University. Ian is a member of the Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Canada, the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario and the Canadian Compensation Association.
Recently, Ian served as the Engagement Partner for the Ottawa Public Library Succession and Retention Plan project, with ultimate responsibility for all work performed by Deloitte & Touche on this engagement. He also acted as an advisor focusing on quality control, while lending his expertise in the facilitation of key meetings and working sessions, as well as providing advice with respect to HR Strategy based on his extensive experience in this area.
Donna C. Chan (top)
Donna C. Chan is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario. She holds a PhD and MISt. from the University of Toronto, an MA in Sociology from Carleton University and a B.Math from the University of Waterloo. Her research interests are in the areas of professional development of librarians, particularly informal modes of learning, and aging workforce issues.
Stephen Diotte, CMC (top)
Stephen Diotte is a Partner with Deloitte & Touche LLP in Toronto. His areas of expertise include the management of change, organizational and performance improvement, labour/management relations, and project management. Stephen holds an MBA from the University of Western Ontario and a Master's degree in Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto. He is also a Certified Management Consultant.
Stephen provided consulting assistance to the Ottawa Public Library during the amalgamation of the City of Ottawa, and more recently, as the Project Director responsible for all deliverables for the development of a succession and retention plan at the Ottawa Public Library. He provided key technical support and consulting advice to the Library regarding succession and retention planning
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Julia Goodman (top)
Currently on a two year assignment with the National Library of Canada, Julia Goodman supports the work of the Council of Federal Libraries in her capacity of Development Officer. The Council is engaged in implementing new priorities, relevant to Government Online, and in assisting the library community to renew itself. Julia is permanently based with the Canadian Agriculture Library, where she holds the position of Chief, Acquisitions and Technical Services. In this position she worked on the development of a suite of desktop tools for the staff of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and on AgriWeb Canada, an online directory of Canadian Internet resources in agriculture. In her eleven years with the National Library of Canada at the beginning of her career, Julia worked in the planning function and as a cataloguer and a cataloguing section head.
Dr. Norman Horrocks (top)
Dr Norman Horrocks is Professor Emeritus, School of Library and Information Studies, Dalhouse University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Editorial Consultant for Scarecrow Press, Lanham,Maryland. He has lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Australia, the United States and Canada, been an external examiner for the University of the West Indies, and has visited and spoken at library meetings in Europe, Israel, New Zealand and the Republic of China. He holds LIS qualifications from the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, and has chaired the international committees of the American Library Association (ALA), the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) and the American Society for Information Science and Technology. For his work he has been the recipient of awards for service from the Canadian Library Association, ALA, ALISE, the British Library Association, Beta Phi Mu, the University of Pittsburgh,the Atlantic Provinces Library Association, and the Nova Scotia Library Association. For over thirty years he has been a consultant on equivalency and reciprocity issues within the LIS field.
Dr. Joanne Marshall (top)
Dr. Joanne Marshall joined the School of Information & Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as Dean and Professor in January 1999. Previously, she was a faculty member at the University of Toronto, where she taught courses in health sciences information resources, management of corporate and other specialized information centers, research methods and online information retrieval. In addition to her Ph.D. in Community Health, Joanne also holds a Master of Health Science Degree from McMaster University and a Master of Library Science degree from McGill University.
Prior to her faculty appointment at the University of Toronto, Joanne worked for 15 years as a librarian in various academic and health sciences libraries. She has received a number of awards including the Medical Library Association (MLA) doctoral fellowship, the MLA Eliot Prize for the most significant research in medical librarianship for 1982 and 1992, the Award of Outstanding Achievement from the Canadian Health Libraries Association in 1992, the H.W. Wilson Award in 1997, and the John Cotton Dana Award from the Special Libraries Association in 1998. Her current research interests include:
- health information needs and services;
- value and impact of library and information services;
- information technology and the aging workforce; and
- competencies of library and information professionals.
Ken Roberts (top)
Ken Roberts is the Chief Librarian at the Hamilton Public Library
Dr. Alvin M. Schrader (top)
Dr. Alvin M. Schrader is professor and director of the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. He was recently appointed to a second term as director. In his first term, he led the School through two major reviews that continued the status of the MLIS at the U of A as an internationally accredited degree and recognized the School's high quality graduate program within the University. He has overseen the continuation of the School's faculty renewal and fostered a continuing high level of teaching, research and service to the School's many communities, both professional and academic. Dr. Schrader has been particularly active in the School's relations to the profession as councilor and then president of the Library Association of Alberta, member of the LAA Intellectual Freedom Committee, member of the Canadian Library Association's Executive Council, chair of the CLA's Intellectual Freedom Advisory Committee, and Canadian representative to IFLA/FAIFE, the Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. In his capacity as past president of LAA he co-chaired the 2001 Alberta Library Conference.
He is a research specialist in issues of disciplinary identity for library and information studies, including educational contexts and influences. His profile as an advocate of intellectual freedom is well known in the library community and beyond, and has been recognized by the CLA's Award for the Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada. He has looked at the process of censorship in libraries and has studied the impact of internet filtering on access to information. Dr. Schrader also has expertise in the area of evaluation, most recently as a consultant to the National Library of Canada's National Core Library Statistics Program resulting in publication of the 1999 survey report.
Vicki Whitmell (top)
Vicki Whitmell, Principal Consultant of Whitmell & Associates and the host of the conference, was made aware of the importance of succession planning and retention issues in libraries and information management organizations while in her position as Executive Director of the Canadian Library Association. As Principal Consultant of Whitmell & Associates she assists libraries, information management organizations and associations to look to their future and to make the right strategic choices and decisions.
She believes that organizations must plan now to ensure that the staffing requirements of their organization can be found in the future. Such planning must take into account the strategic vision of the organization, the needs of the individual and the new generation of workers and professionals, and the competitive hiring environment. Vicki also believes that associations and individual members of the profession all have a role to play in ensuring that the profession is renewed and is made attractive to those seeking a career.
Vicki received her MLS from the University of Toronto. Current and future projects are centred around succession planning issues, group facilitiation projects and long term strategies for individual organizations. She will be speaking at the upcoming Vital 3 Link Conference in Adelaide, Australia in November 2002 and at the British Columbia Library Association's Annual Conference in May 2003.
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