The following is a transcript taken from the interview between Dr. Sam Chu and Dr. Md. Anwarul Islam, Chair of South Asia Chapter (2019-2020).
Please tell me some important and exciting things about the SA Chapter.
South Asia is a region of the world comprising the 8 countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan, and Afghanistan... [V]ery little collaboration has happened among the South Asian countries in the areas of library and information science (LIS) education and Schools. The LIS schools and education in South Asia are quite different from those in the Americas and Europe in the aspects of accreditation, cultural emphasis, and other requirements. Considering the necessity of collaboration among these large numbers of LIS schools, and a large population in this region, we took this opportunity to start the South Asia Chapter of ASIS&T in 2018.
When was SA Chapter established? For what reasons?
Before establishing this South Asia Chapter, ASIS&T was not familiar in South Asian countries... It was needed for the Information Science community to get connect[ed] with the Information Science community globally. ‘South Asia Chapter for ASIS&T’, the seed was planted in 2017 when Naresh Agarwal (President-Elect, ASIS&T) discussed this at AM in Washington DC. Later, I have been awarded ‘New Leader Award 2017’ of ASIS&T and took this project to establish this chapter. Professor Kanwal Ameen was the first chair and I was the co-chair of this chapter. Professor Ameen helps to internationalize this chapter and it has got huge international attention due to the number of international events organized by Professor Ameen.
[T]he South Asia chapter is now the 2nd newest regional chapter established in September 2018. The chapter aims to provide a networking platform among information science professionals in this region, help increase ASIS&T membership in South Asia, and to help enhance the quality and diversity of LIS education. So after establishing this chapter, our annual meetings, regional conferences, seminars and workshops, many people from the SA region are now joining ASIS&T.
The reason that fueled us to establish this chapter is to connect the South Asian Information Science community, to the mainstream and big Information Science community of ASIS&T.
What has the chapter achieved so far?
The first achievement of this chapter is that it is gradually becoming familiar to the LIS/IS communities in this region… [N]ow we are a community with more than fifty members from South Asia. Many graduate students, researchers, faculty members and information professionals are joining annual meetings, presenting papers and many member countries are arranging regional symposiums, seminars and webinars under the sponsorship of the SA Chapter. This is how the chapter is growing.
Secondly, under this SA platform we got the opportunity to know about the Information Science research trends and opportunities across the world. Different SIGs, Chapters and ongoing webinars on different areas of information sciences, South Asia Chapter members get familiar with many research areas. International collaborations have increased among the countries. Until now, a good number of international symposiums have been organized by this chapter in the member countries.
Thirdly, we are putting focus on recruiting new members by providing current and potential benefits of becoming members in ASIS&T through email, social media posting and others. Posting the chapter updates in social media particularly, our Facebook page, helped to recruit new members. We encourage our current members to recruit new members through sharing the chapter information in their home country, communicate with the library/information association and establish a link with local communities for promoting ASIS&T in local events. We are compiling a list of library and information science associations and schools from the member countries to add this list in the SA chapter website. It would help us to reach wider communities of these countries. Sometimes, we offer membership for potential members which are funded by anonymous donors.
It's wonderful that SA Chapter won an award last year. Please share with us the secret of SA Chapter success.
Yes, it was wonderful to see that a newly established chapter got the ‘Chapter of the Year Award 2020’. We are delighted and inspired to work more by getting this award. There was something that fueled us to involve and evolve for this chapter, and it was the team work and wonderful support and suggestions we got from the chapter advisor Dr. Naresh Agarwal. Being a new chapter, it is always needed support from the experienced people from ASIS&T.
We have a good team where the communication officers regularly communicate with the chapter community to get their insight and opinions on different purposes. Over the years, we have actively involved our valued members through different communication channels. We have largely communicated through email and social media. We often reach out to the chapter members through email by inviting them in joining meetings as well as share the chapter updates using our Facebook page, Twitter and online meeting (Zoom). We do meet with the chapter officers in regular intervals.
Last year in ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2019 in Melbourne, we presented a panel paper ‘Mobilizing international ASIS&T chapters’ in the International Incubator Sessions. We had talked our plan how we aim for the 2020, and we executed some of those plans for SA Chapter. In 2020, SA Chapter arranged a couple of webinars individually and some under the collaboration with SIG-Social Media. We have organized seminars in India and international symposiums in Bangladesh which were jointly sponsored by the SA chapter and member countries.
The South Asia Chapter of ASIS&T and the Department of Information Science and Library Management (ISLM), University of Dhaka, Bangladesh jointly organized a daylong international symposium entitled “Empowering the Library and Information Professionals for Achieving the SDGs”. The symposium was held on 10 February 2020, and the keynote speech was given by Dr. Samuel K. W. Chu, Associate Professor, Teacher Education and Learning Leadership, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong. The event was well attended as the theme of the symposium created a center of attention among the library/information communities in the region. More than two hundred participants attended this international symposium from home and abroad. Scholars, academicians and professionals from Malaysia, India, Bangladesh and National Information Officer from the United Nations Information Center (UNIC) delivered a number of presentations covering various aspects of the theme.
Finally, what I feel is that our dedication to this newly established chapter, commitment, teamwork, planned activities, support from headquarters and suggestions and guidance from the Chapter advisor made this chapter as the best chapter of the year.