WTO Group, Biographies

Kjell Nilsson, Sweden (coordinator)

Frode Bakken, Norway
Toby Bainton, UK
María Pía González Pereira, The Netherlands
Liam Ronayne, Ireland

Ruth Rikowski (observer)

Kjell Nilsson, Sweden (coordinator)

Email: kjell.nilsson@bibsam.kb.se

http://www.kb.se/BIBSAM/english/first.htm

Since July 1988, Kjell has been the Director of BIBSAM, the Swedish Royal Library´s Department for National Co-ordination and Development. This position involves a number of honorary offices. Kjell has for several years taken an active part in the standardisation work of the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS) and ISO, and since January 1998 has been chairman of the Committee on Statistics and Performance Evaluation, SC8, within ISO/TC 46, Information and Documentation.

Kjell is also a member of IFLA's Committee on Copyright and Other Legal Matters, EBLIDA's Expert Group on Copyright, the Library Board of Luleå University of Technology, and the board of the Swedish University Computer Network.

His academic qualifications consist of an MA degree combining English, French, Russian, linguistics and administrative technique.

Frode Bakken, Norway
President Norwegian Library Association (Norsk Bibliotekforening)
Email: Frode.Bakken@hit.no

http://www.norskbibliotekforening.no/

Frode Bakken is a librarian by profession and has worked in public, county, college and research libraries. Frode is currently President of the Norwegian Library Association (from 2000), previously holding the post from 1996 to 1998. An observer on the EBLIDA ECUP steering group 1996-1999, Frode was the official EBLIDA representative (together with Emanuella Giavarra) at the WIPO copyright conference in Geneva in December 1996.

In addition, Frode has been active in IFLA since 1991 and has been member of Standing committees on Document Delivery and Interlending (1991-1997) and Public Libraries (1997-2001). From 1998-2001 he was a member of the IFLA Copyright and other Legal Matters committee. In this IFLA committee, he was a member of the WTO working group from 1998-2001 and gave a presentation on WTO and libraries at the IFLA Jerusalem conference in 2000. In 2000 he published an article on libraries and trade policies in the Swedish journal Ikoner.

Since 2001 he has been a member of the IFLA/FAIFE committee (IFLA Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression). Frode was a co-member of the IFLA, Council of Europe and UNESCO mission to Kosovo in 2000 to evaluate the library situation and is co-author of the IFLA/FAIFE report "Alleged destruction of books in Serbian in Mitrovice/Kosovska Mitrovica" (Copenhagen 2000) together with Carsten Frederiksen. He was also the official EBLIDA representative at the Kosovo library consortium meeting in Pristina, Kosovo march 2001.

Toby Bainton, UK

Email: toby.bainton@sconul.ac.uk

http://www.sconul.ac.uk

After studying languages, Toby Bainton qualified as a librarian and worked in the university libraries in London and Cambridge for 14 years before becoming the director of the university library in Reading (England). Eight years later he was appointed Secretary of SCONUL, the professional association which represents the directors of all the university libraries and all the major national libraries in UK and Ireland.

María Pía González Pereira, The Netherlands
Director EBLIDA
Email: eblida@debibliotheken.nl

http://www.eblida.org

Liam Ronayne, Ireland
Email:  library@donegalcoco.ie

http://www.donegallibrary.ie/

Liam Ronayne is the Convenor of the European and International Affairs Panel of the Library Association of Ireland. He was President of the Library Association of Ireland for a 3-year period: 1995-1998, and before that was Vice-President for 4 years.

He was a member of the working group which produced Branching Out: a new public library service a landmark policy document prepared for the government on the future of public libraries in Ireland, and is currently a member of the Committee which oversees and co-ordinates the implementation of the report's recommendations on behalf of central government. He also chaired the working group which prepared National Network-Local Service: standards for the public library service in the Republic of Ireland, published by the Library Association of Ireland.

He is County Librarian for Donegal in the northwest of the country.
 

Ruth Rikowski (observer), Ireland

Email: rikowski@tiscali.co.uk

Ruth Rikowski has been a librarian/information professional for about twenty years and has worked in various public and private sector organisations, including public libraries, for a number of years before moving onto systems/IT work. This involved implementing library computer systems at organisations such as the Tate Gallery, London and Clifford Chance, London, a large international law company. Ruth also worked on a Support Desk in a library software company (then called Dynix).

Over the last couple of years, Ruth has been researching, writing and teaching on three different topics - globalisation, knowledge management and computer studies, and has held Visiting Lectureship posts at the University of Greenwich, London and South Bank University, London. She has published articles in various journals such as Managing Information (an Aslib publication), Business Information Review, Information for Social Change, Public Library Journal and The Commoner. Ruth was the editor of a special issue of Information for Social Change, Winter 2001-02 on the theme of 'Globalisation and Information'.  Ruth is currently the Book Reviews Editor for Managing Information. Ruth's first degree is in Social Studies from University of East Anglia and she has an MSc in Information Science (Computerised Systems) from University College London.
 

                                                                                                                                                                                   Created: 22 April 2002
Last updated: 10 October 2003