The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are open to all members of the Dalhousie campus and surrounding community. When feasible, recordings of the lectures are posted here for wider circulation. For the full schedule, visit the Public Lecture page of our website.

iMarine in Support of FAO’s Blue Growth Initiative: The Information Requirements*

Lecture Details
Thursday, October 8th, 2015 from 4:30-6:30pm
University Hall, MacDonald Building, 6300 Coburg Road (across from the University Club, Studley Campus)

Reception to follow the lecture – co-sponsored by the Dalhousie President’s Office, Dalhousie Libraries, and the Dalhousie Faculty of Agriculture (5:30-6:30pm).

*Co-sponsored by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization

Abstract: In order to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the UN, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has recently launched its Blue Growth initiative. A key challenge for the promotion of Blue Growth is the need for facts-based decision making across multiple scientific disciplines, a challenge which a data infrastructure such as iMarine can help articulating. iMarine aims at developing collaborative science, and the platform has demonstrated a strong potential to deliver cost-efficient solutions by pooling together data, software, methodologies and expertise. Beyond the technological demonstration, its uptake however requires the development of a comprehensive sustainability plan, including governance, data policies, marketing, outreach, and capacity building (www.i-marine.eu/Pages/Home.aspx).

Biography: Marc Taconet is the Chief of the Statistics and Information Branch, FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, and Secretary of the FIRMS partnership. A member of the FAO Rome-based staff since 1987, Mr. Taconet has led the development of the Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS), played a leading user-community role in several European Union-funded projects, and chaired the iMarine board.

The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are open to all members of the Dalhousie campus and surrounding community. When feasible, recordings of the lectures are posted here for wider circulation. For the full schedule, visit the Public Lecture page of our website.

The Strategic Opinion Leader: Everyday Political Talk and Digital Media

Elizabeth Dubois
Oxford University

Lecture Details
Tuesday, May 12th, 2015 from 1:30pm-2:30pm
Room 3001, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 6100 University Avenue

Abstract: Are digital tools enabling a “just-in-time” informed citizenry who don’t have enough time to engage in the political process? When equipped with a wide selection of tools to aid them in their information sourcing and sharing practices political opinion leaders take up a strategic approach to communication. This strategic approach means that the minority of citizens who are highly politically aware limit their political communications to non-aware audiences widening the gulf between the engaged public and the apathetic. This study makes use of a sequential mixed-methods approach (social network analysis, online survey, trace interviews) and brings into question the process of “personal influence” and theories about how citizens become politically aware.

Biography: Elizabeth Dubois is a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. Her PhD research focuses on personal influence and political networks in a hybrid media environment. Ms. Dubois is a member of Balliol College and a current Clarendon Scholar. Before joining the Oxford Internet Institute in 2011 as an MSc student, she completed a BA (Hons. Specialization in Communication) at the University of Ottawa. As a Killam Fellow through the Fulbright Foundation (Canada) in 2010 she studied at American University in Washington, DC. Ms. Dubois works as a Research Assistant on the “Fifth Estate” project and as a Teaching Assistant for Research Methods at the Oxford Internet Institute. Previously, she served as a communications specialist and researcher in the Parliament in Ottawa. Representing a major Canadian political party she has lead delegations to United Nations talks on climate change and has worked on multiple election campaigns.

The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are open to all members of the Dalhousie campus and surrounding community. When feasible, recordings of the lectures are posted here for wider circulation. For the full schedule, visit the Public Lecture page of our website.

Open Data and Open Governance in Canada: A Critical Examination of New Opportunities and Old Tensions

Dr. Jeffrey Roy
School of Public Administration, Dalhousie University

Lecture Details
Tuesday, March 10th, 2015 from 4:00pm-5:00pm
Room 3089, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 6100 University Avenue

Abstract

As governments develop open data strategies, their efforts reflect the advent of the Internet, the digitization of government, and the emergence of meta-data as a wider socio-economic and societal transformational. This lecture will seek to both situate and examine the evolution and effectiveness of open data strategies in the public sector with a particular focus on municipal governments in Canada that have led this movement domestically. It will also delve more deeply into whether and how open data can facilitate more open and innovative forms of governance enjoining an outward-oriented public sector (across all government levels) with an empowered and participative society.

Biography

Jeffrey Roy is Professor in the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University. He is a widely published observer and critic of the impacts of digital technologies on government and democracy. Dr. Roy has worked with the United Nations, the OECD, multinational corporations, and all levels of government in Canada. He is a featured columnist in Canadian Government Executive, and his most recent book From Machinery to Mobility: Government and Democracy in a Participative Age was published by Springer in 2013. Dr. Roy’s research has been supported by several funding bodies including the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada and the IBM Center for the Business of Government.

The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are open to all members of the Dalhousie campus and surrounding community. When feasible, recordings of the lectures are posted here for wider circulation. For the full schedule, visit the Public Lecture page of our website.

Talking up, talking down, talking all around

JonArno Lawson
Poet

Lecture Details
Monday, March 2nd from 10:30am-11:30am
Room 5053, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 6100 University Avenue*

*Embedded into INFO 6250: Services & Resources for Young Adults

Abstract
Ontario poet, JonArno Lawson will be discussing how he writes and assembles his books, and the process of publishing, as well as his interactions with students in the workshops he conducts. His most recent book, Sidewalk Flowers (Groundwood Books), illustrated by Nova Scotian, Sydney Smith, will be launched on February 28, 2015 at the Halifax Central Library: https://www.facebook.com/events/338321103020778.

Biography
JonArno Lawson is an award-winning author. His first book of poetry (Love is an Observant Traveler) was published in 1997 by Exile Editions with the advice of Canadian novelist, Timothy Findley. In the decade and half since, Mr. Lawson has published numerous books for both adults and children. He has won the Lion and the Unicorn Award (three times) for his poetry books for children, as well as a Bronze Moonbeam award. A dual Canadian and American citizen, Mr. Lawson lives in Toronto with his family which includes three children, and is visiting Dalhousie University during a Canada Council Funded Tour in Nova Scotia.

The Information Management Public Lectures give attention to exciting advances in research and professional practice. The topics are diverse reflecting the importance and global extent of Information Management in today’s society. The lectures are open to all members of the Dalhousie campus and surrounding community. When feasible, recordings of the lectures are posted here for wider circulation. For the full schedule, visit the Public Lecture page of our website.

Not Bound by Time: Book Production in the Seventeenth and Twenty-First Centuries

Lecture Details
Wednesday, February 25th, 2015 from 4:30pm-5:30pm
Dalhousie Art Gallery, Dalhousie Arts Centre, 6101 University Avenue   *Co-sponsored by the Dalhousie Art Gallery

Abstract

Historian Dr. Stijn Van Rossem will begin this lecture by drawing on his research on the organization and operation of the printshop and bookshop of the Verdussen family in Antwerp in the seventeenth century. He will take us inside the Verdussen’s business, the Red Lion, to illustrate how this firm conducted its business over successive generations and through various typographical innovations in response to cultural, economic, and political change. Then, Andrew Steeves, designer and publisher at Gaspereau Press, in Kentville, Nova Scotia, will show how a small literary press of the twenty-first century has more in common with the Verdussens than well-established conventions and practices employed in today’s mainstream publishing trade. Together, Van Rossem and Steeves will demonstrate that innovation in a twenty-first century printing firm draws heavily on historic roots of four centuries earlier.

Biographies

Dr. Stijn Van Rossem is a book historian, graphic design professor, and exhibition curator. He graduated from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven with Masters degrees in History and Education, and in 2014, he completed his PhD in History at the Universiteit Antwerpen with a dissertation on the publishing strategies of the Verdussen family of printers in Antwerp from 1589-1689. Dr. Van Rossem has been a Visiting Professor at the School of Arts, Gent, Belgium, for several years where he teaches courses on the history and theory of graphic design. In addition, he is a Visiting Professor at the Plantin Typographic Institute in Antwerp and in 2013 he was the Director of the Museum of Letters and Manuscripts in Brussels. Dr. Van Rossem has spoken about his research at conferences, symposia, and workshops throughout Europe, the UK, the United States, and Mexico, and his papers have been published in several European and North American scholarly journals. In 2014, he chaired the international conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing held in Antwerp. Dr. Van Rossem was recently awarded a Fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, Rhode Island, which he is pursuing in 2015.

Andrew Steeves was born in Westmorland County, New Brunswick. After taking degrees in Criminology and English at the University of Ottawa, he moved to Wolfville, Nova Scotia, completing a Master’s degree in English at Acadia University in 1996 and publishing his first poetry book, Cutting the Devil’s Throat, in 1998. In 1997, he established Gaspereau Press with Gary Dunfield and immersed himself in the book arts—reading, writing, editing, design­ing, typesetting, printing, binding, marketing, selling and talking about books. His unique publishing philosophy and integrated editorial-design-production process are as culturally enriching as the books they foster and have helped establish Gaspereau Press as one of the most respected literary publishers in Canada. As a typographer, Steeves has won 42 national book design awards from the Alcuin Society. As an author, his most recent publication isSmoke Proofs: Es­says on Literary Publishing, Printing and Typography (2014).