Dr Ravi Sharma (1993)

Dr Ravi Sharma was the founding director of the MSc (Information Studies) programme in 1993 in the School of Applied Science. He has since been with Deutche Telekom as Director of R&D for six years, and then with IBM Global Services as the Asean Communications Industry Principal. During this time, he has enjoyed being part of the Internet boom and still has scars from its later fallout. He's happy to be back in NTU as a visiting Senior Fellow in the School of Computer Engineering where he tries to teach and write on knowledge management techniques.

He cordially invites alumni to contact him at asrsharma@ntu.edu.sg.

Dr Roderick Cave (1993-1997)

How very good to hear from you! Sorry about the slight delay in replying; we have been away in Mainz (on the Rhine, in Germany) where I was talking to a book collector, with a fabulous collection of books and prints in his own field) about a new book I’m working on.

I had certainly hoped that I would have the chance to visit Singapore before now, because both the place and many of my old friends and students are frequently in my thoughts. But somehow it has never been possible yet, and it won’t be before the Division’s tenth anniversary celebrations next month.

I can’t send you photos of house nor myself; my scanner is on the blink at present. I look much the same as when I was with NTU, but a bit balder and my beard even greyer! But it’s been an eventful time – two years as Visiting Professor at UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and more recently a lengthy lecture tour this year in the U.S. and Canada. I was lecturing at Harvard, Universities of Toronto, Minnesota, Kentucky, Washington Univ, St Louis, etc. and at some of the nice little ivy league colleges in the north east (Trinity, Hartford, Brown, Dartmouth, Williams). And at some less likely venues too – you’ll be amused that I gave a talk on Chinese ceremonial papers at the new Museum of Asian Art in San Francisco …

What else? Three new books: the British Library published a selection of my papers on printing history as "Fine Printing and Private Presses" (2001) and my "History of the Golden Cockerel Press" (2002) and we are talking about a third book. The Whittington Press issued my "Chinese Ceremonial Papers" at a very high price in 2002 (but NTU OUGHT to buy a copy!) and there are articles on Chinese typefounding and other recondite topics in the pipeline for varuious journals. (Not having to sit on working parties or committees, not having to give conference papers unless I really want to – retirement really has compensations!)

So – please convey my warm greetings to past students, past colleagues and any others who may remember me. My wife and I expect to be in northern Thailand over Christmas, and if I can wangle tickets which allow a side-trip to Singapore at not too much extra expense then, I’ll do so. But if we don’t manage it, why, YOU must visit us in our country retreat, where most of the noise is from horses or sheep or cattle, and we spend a lot of our time not exactly watching the grass grow, but enjoying the slower pace of rural life.

We see Mark Hepworth from time to time; he’s obviously doing well at Loughborough.

Dr Mark Hepworth (1993-1998)

Now at Loughborough University.

URL: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/staff/mhepworth.html (local copy)
Email: m.hepworth@lboro.ac.uk

Ms Margaret Butterworth (1993-1996)

Since leaving Singapore, my life has slowed down somewhat! I have been working on my PhD - on and off - and at last I can say I am almost finished.

What else? My most enjoyable experience has been to become editor of ACCESS, the Australian national journal for teacher librarians. I find this is a good way to extend people's professional development, by publishing articles that are informative and challenging. I think we have a really good product here and I recommend it to all in Singapore with an interest in school libraries. See: http://www.asla.org.au and click on National Journal.

On the personal front, I am very happy living with my partner, John. He is a civil engineer and the brains behing the Derby Tidal Power Project, which will bring cheap electricity to the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia. My daughter, Claire, has just returned from a year teaching English in Japan and now lives in Tunbridge Wells in the UK with her partner, Mark, a writer who has just had a story accepted by the BBC.

On Sundays, I go bushwalking. A photo is attached, taken on the shortest day of the year.

Dr Ross Harvey (1994-1997)

I was a senior lecturer in the Division of Information Studies at NTU from the end of 1994 to 1997. I then returned to Australia to take up an Associate Professor position at Curtin University in Perth. The opportunity to take up a position as Professor of Library and Information Management at Charles Sturt University meant that I moved to Wagga Wagga in June 1999. I'm still there!

Even though I no longer live in Singapore, I greatly enjoy visiting it, and I have managed to do this at least once each year. I do miss the great Singaporean food, so much so that I have learned to cook some of my favourite dishes.

If you want to see the official version of my CV, check out my Web site: http://www.elibank.net

Rachel Salmond (Ross' wife who was a part-time tutor in the Division)

I fronted up at NTU two evenings a week during 1995 and 1996 to take tutorials to ensure that what Ross Harvey said in his lectures in Organising Information could work in practice too.

Back here in Australia I have worked in the University of Western Australia Library, done some more teaching at Monash University and, most recently, have worked on projects in a large Australian government department aimed at improving retrieval of relevant information from their rapidly expanding intranets.

But I still miss Singapore - its food, its crowds, its proximity to the rest of the world and many good friends … not to mention all that regular retail therapy.

Dr Edna Reid (1993-1997)

Dr. Edna Reid is an Associate Professor with Nanyang Business School (NBS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and President of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, Singapore (SCIPSgp). She is one of the founding members of SCIPSgp (www.scipsgp.org). Formerly, she was an Associate Professor in the Information Studies Division, School of Computer Engineering, NTU. After her contract with the Information Studies Division, she became an entrepreneur with an Internet start-up in Malaysia. Her areas of specialization and research are competitive intelligence, web mining and terrorism informatics. Her Southeast Asia instructional programme includes teaching business intelligence and information technology courses.

Edna's current scholarly activities focus on applying elearning techniques to information intelligence skills www.nbs.ntu.edu.sg/Corporate/pdf/wired_age.pdf) and conducting research on web intelligence (www.e-business.fhbb.ch/eb/publications.nsf/id/214). She has publications in several professional journals and an upcoming book chapter entitled 'Using Web Link Analysis to Detect and Analyze Hidden Web Communities' in ICT for Competitive Intelligence, edited by D. Vriens and to be published by Ideal Press in 2003. In 1999, she wrote a book entitled "WHY 2K? a Chronological Study of the (Y2K) Millennium Bug.

In August 2003, Edna will start a new position as a senior research scientist with the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and E-commerce Labs at the MIS Department, Eller College of Business, University of Arizona, USA.

Dr Edie Rasmussen (1995)

Was a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Information Sciences.

Moving to the University of British Columbia to be director of its School of Library, Archival and Information Studies.

Currently External Examiner for our MSc (Information Studies) programme.

URL: http://www.slais.ubc.ca/PEOPLE/faculty/faculty-contact.htm#rasmussen

Dr Francoise Hebert (1996)

What a lovely surprise to get your message. No doubt you were able to track me down through Rod Cave, who spent an agreeable few days in Toronto in March.

The Division seems to have forged full steam ahead since my departure in January 1997. So many developments! I'm delighted with the move to Communications -- there is a natural symbiosis between the two programs, and strength to be derived from the association.

I was fortunate to teach at NTU the same course I taught at the University of Toronto, so comparisons between the two groups come easily to mind. Students at NTU were more focussed on career goals, and they worked harder than the Toronto students. My approach of giving lots of short assignemnts and letting students choose the specific topic of their assignment within broad subject categories (copyright, censorship, etc.) worked better in Toronto, where the library provided greater access to the literature.

Students in my courses in Toronto rarely had exams at the end of a course - the grade was usually based on assignments. AT NTU, 80% of the course grade was based on exams, which means students were urgently focussed on learning what needed to be learned to pass the exam. This diminished the time available for reading the literature for the sheer pleasure of learning. I hope NTU has reduced its focus on exams and lets students roam through the literature instead - a more creative approach to learning.

In the end, my experience of teaching at NTU was interesting and challenging and rewarding. I'm happy I did it but in another life I would do it for two years, not just six months - which was not enough time for me to bring certainty to my teaching. I felt like I was hanging on by the skin of my fingers. I hope all of the students I met are happily graduated and moving forward in their careers.

My professional life has completely changed since then. I'm now the Executive Director of the Alzheimer Society of Toronto, a charitable organization in the health sector whose mission is to enhance the lives of persons with Alzheimer Disease and their families and caregivers. There is a staff of 14 and a million dollar budget, and so much to do! I've been here for just over a year now, and my greatest achievement so far was creating the Toronto Dementia Network database- an inventory of about 300 agencies offering more than 1,000 dementia services in Toronto. Developing the taxonomy of services and the type-of-service maps was an exciting information challenge, and my library and consulting and teaching experience were used to the fullest. We go live on the web in a couple of weeks, and will break out the champagne to celebrate.

Also since Singapore, my husband David and I have bought a stone schoolhouse built in 1877 and converted to a residence in 1967. It is a beautiful, soul-nurturing place with a large garden, the property ringed by 26 huge old maple trees. We're surrounded by prosperous farms and we love to escape there every weekend.

I'm no longer associated with the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto, or with the library world, although any executive job today is about managing knowledge and usng information and information technology to the fullest extent, and there my background is of great help to me.

So sorry I can't join you for the tenth anniversary of the Division. I long to be in Singapore again, and hope to manage a trip sometime in the next few years. The world is shrinking and halfway around the world just isn't that far anymore.

Françoise Hébert, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Alzheimer Society of Toronto
2323 Yonge Street, Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario M4P 2C9
Tel (416) 322-6560 Fax (416) 322-6656
fhebert@alzheimertoronto.org
www.alzheimertoronto.org

Mr Philip Calvert (1997)

After one year as a Visiting Lecturer at NTU, Philip Calvert returned to the School of Information Management at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Since then his only time in Singapore was in 1999 to teach three short workshops on behalf of the National Library Board. He was, though, instrumental in establishing a student exchange between NTU and VUW that has helped eleven students from NTU spend one semester studying at VUW, while five students have travelled in the opposite direction.

As well as teaching on the Master of Library and Information Studies and Master of Information Management programmes at VUW, Philip has been involved with two development projects in Vietnam that have required teaching regular workshops in Hanoi and Hue cities. Philip and his wife Sylvia's family has grown since he was in Singapore and they now have a one year old running around in addition to three older children.

Ms Waltraut Ritter (1999)

Ms Ritter is running her own consultancy firm.

Dr Gobinda Chowdhuri (1997-1999)

Now a senior lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, Dept. of Computer & Information Sciences, where he is the coordinator of the Knowledge and Information Retrieval research group.

URL: http://www.cis.strath.ac.uk/people/biography/gobinda/
Email: Gobinda.Chowdhury@cis.strath.ac.uk

local link

Dr Susan Higgins (1998-2001)

Susan Higgins would like to extend her greetings to students in the School of Information Studies at Nanyang Technological University. No, she doesn't have a pet kangaroo, but living in rural Australia has been quite an experience of wildlife - an achidna has dug a home under the building by her office window at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, and kangaroos and wallabies regularly leap about on campus. Chris Khoo warned her about the hats with corks all around to keep off the flies, and he is right - there are actually hats such as the one he described.

Susan misses Singapore - the food, the warm weather, and most of all, her friends. If you would like to drop her a line, she would love to hear from you. shiggins@csu.edu.au

Dr Tom Hart (2000)

I have been busy during the past 2 years. Suliman's and my book, "Information and Knowledge Society" was published in the Fall of 2001 with a 2002 copyright date. We will begin the revision this Fall. My wife and I celebrated out 40th Wedding Anniversary in May and late June on a trip to Europe for 3 weeks. We flew into Frankfort and took a train to Prague, toured the area for 3 days and then took a river boat for 7 days from Nuremburg on the Canal to the Danube, through Vienna and ending at Budapest. We then took to the train to Munich (3days there) and to Zurich (2 days and to the top of the Jungfrau). Then by train along the Rhine River to Cologne (2 days). While in Cologne we traveled to Detmold and Munster (a northern Germany University city). My wife's maiden name is Diekman and her great grandfather came from Detmold (a capitol of the Lippe area of northern Germany before German unification).

We have a new grandson, Ethan Hart, and our younger son Andrew (with us in Singapore) is now a Senior at Purdue University and an honor student. I am finishing teaching two courses for a six weeks Summer Term, July 31st. I am also finishing a new manuscript, "School Library Media Facilities transformed into Knowledge centers" to be published in 2004 by Neil Schuman as part of the School Library Media Leadership Series. It will have a CD along with the book.

Sorry I can't be there for the 10th Anniversary, but I hope to stay in touch after my retirement in December of 2004.

(Attached are two photos)
1. Sherry and I before the Notre Dame Football game in 2002.
2. Sherry and I in front of Detmold Castle in northern Germany.

Not as spectacular as bungee jumping.

Dr Suliman Hawamdeh

I will be based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I will be starting and teaching in the MSc in Knowledge Managment programme at the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa Campus. Beside that I will be editing a book series on Innovation and Knowledge Management, published by World Scientific.

I will also continue to promote iKMS and establish iKMS USA. Beside continuing to edit the Journal of Information and Knowledge Management, I am the conference chair for the first iKMS International Conference on Knowledge Management (www.ikms.org/ickm) organized by iKMS, Meeting Matters and World Scientific which will take place in Hyatt Hotel in Singapore from 13-15 December, 2004. This means I will be back in Singapore end of next year.

I can be contacted at: suliman@ou.edu

Dr Beth Logan (2001-2003)

Dr Logan -- enjoying the Australian outback and bungee jumping in Sydney.

Dr Logan has returned to Florida, and is in semi-retirement.