KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Picture of Schubert Foo Schubert Foo Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Schubert Foo is Professor and Associate Chair of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Strathclyde, UK. He is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered IT Professional, Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and Fellow of the British Computer Society. He is a Board Member of the National Archives of Singapore and the National Library Board. He has published in excess of 150 publications in the areas of multimedia technology, Internet technology, multilingual information retrieval, digital libraries and knowledge management. He is a Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Information Science, Journal of Information and Knowledge Management, International Yearbook of Library and Information Management, among others.

Picture of Micheal Geist Michael Geist University of Ottawa, Canada

Professor Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He has written numerous academic articles and government reports on the Internet and law, was a member of Canada's National Task Force on Spam, and is an internationally syndicated columnist on technology law. Dr. Geist is the editor of In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law, the editor of several monthly technology law publications, and the author of a popular blog on Internet and intellectual property law issues. He serves on the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's Expert Advisory Board and on the Canadian Digital Information Strategy's Review Panel. His numerous awards include Canarie's IWAY Public Leadership Award, and he was named one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40 in 2003.

Picture of Peter Lor Peter Lor University of Pretoria, South Africa

Prof Peter Johan Lor has been a practitioner, researcher, manager and teacher in libraries and library science schools in South Africa. When the National Library of South Africa was created in 1999 he became South Africa's first National Librarian. In February 2005 he was appointed Secretary General of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), based in The Hague, the Netherlands. Concurrently he is an extraordinary professor in the Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria. Lor is the author of some 120 professional and research publications. His recent research focuses on library and information policy issues, international librarianship and international information flows.

Picture of Andy Powell

Andy Powell Eduserv Foundation, UK

Andy Powell is Head of Development at the Eduserv Foundation, where he is responsible for specifying and delivering the Foundation's programme of internal research and helping to oversee external grant making activities. His primary areas of interest include: metadata, repositories and resource discovery; access and identity management; service architectures and Web 2.0; elearning, eportfolios and the use of 3-D virtual worlds such as Second Life in education. Andy was the principal technical architect of the JISC Information Environment. He has been active in the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative for a number of years. Andy jointly authored the DCMI Abstract Model and several other Dublin Core technical specifications. More recently he jointly authored the DC Eprints Application Profile for the JISC. He was also a member of the Open Archives Initiative technical committee.

Picture of Stuart Weibel Stuart Weibel Senior Research Scientist, OCLC Programs and Research, USA

Stuart Weibel has been in OCLC Research since 1985 and has been an active participant in Internet standards development on metadata and Identifiers. From 1995 to 2004, he led the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) as an open, international, consensus building organization focused on development of cross-disciplinary metadata standards for the Web. His current interests include the impact of social networking on library services and the increasing importance of canonical, globally-scoped persistent identifiers as anchors for library assets on the Web. Dr Weibel is currently Scholar in Residence at the University of Washington Libraries and the Information School. He blogs at http://weibellines.typepad.com.

Picture of Luke Wroblewski Luke Wroblewski Yahoo! Inc & LukeW Interface Designs, USA

Luke Wroblewski is currently Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc. and Founder of LukeW Interface Designs. He focuses on the use of design methodologies, skills, and principles to define the strategy and design of new and existing products. Luke has authored a book on Web interface design principles titled "Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability" and numerous articles on design methodologies, strategies and applications. Previously, Luke was the Lead User Interface Designer of eBay Inc.'s platform team. Luke also taught interface design courses in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois and worked as a Senior Interface Designer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, birthplace of the first popular graphical Web browser, NCSA Mosaic.

FURTHER INFORMATION

For further enquiries regarding the VALA2008 Conference, please contact the VALA2008 Conference Office.

VALA2008 Conference Office
WALDRONSMITH Management
61 Danks Street West
Port Melbourne VIC 3207
AUSTRALIA
Telephone: +61 3 9645 6311
Facsimile: +61 3 9645 6322

E-mail: info@wsm.com.au