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Leaders in Information Management Celebrated at Agatha Bystram Award Ceremony

Ottawa, September 14, 2005 - In recognition of outstanding contributions to information resources management, Library and Archives Canada and the Council of Federal Libraries have selected two winners this year for the annual Agatha Bystram Award for Leadership in Information Management. The Awards ceremony was held today at the Ottawa Congress Centre on the occasion of the annual Fall Seminar of the Council of Federal Libraries.

The first winner, Monica Hourihan, of the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS) Initiative at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, has taken a lead role in establishing a community-driven national information system for shelter service providers. Homelessness is the most extreme manifestation of poverty, social exclusion and marginalization, and it often combines some of the most severe health, social, income and developmental conditions that individuals and families can face. The HIFIS system helps facilities with operational and planning activities while also serving as a source of comparable data on the characteristics of the homeless population across Canada.

From the National Research Council of Canada, the second winner is the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) Secure Desktop Delivery (SDD) Project team. CISTI's clients wanted to have documents delivered directly to their desktop. Unfortunately, Canada's copyright legislation allowed electronic transmission of a document only if the end-user received a paper copy. The SDD Team came up with a solution: by restricting the number of times users can display and print the digital image, the Project met the needs of both end-users and publishers.

"Congratulations to the winners for their remarkable work in the field of information management," said Ian E. Wilson, Librarian and Archivist of Canada. "The Agatha Bystram Award recognizes that demonstrating leadership in information management means more than doing a regular job well: it involves breaking open barriers and changing paradigms."

Instituted by the Council of Federal Libraries in 1995, the Agatha Bystram Award recognizes the contribution of Agatha Bystram (1934-1994), a distinguished member of the federal library community and one of the most respected pioneers in the management of federal information. The Award is presented each year to employees of the Canadian government who are innovators in the management of federal information resources.

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Information:
Pauline M. Portelance
Media Relations Officer
Library and Archives Canada
613-996-6128