April 2, 2018

This winter, the Drexel University Libraries welcomed several international researchers and librarians to campus.  

Dr. Omam Fathuraham, Dr. Kaharuddin and Dr. Ismatu Ropi – all researchers at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Indonesia – visited Drexel University in February to talk to Drexel researchers, faculty and staff as part of their study tour arranged by the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (VLP).

After discussing their research and practices with faculty in the College of Computing and Informatics, the delegation from Indonesia also toured the W. W. Hagerty Library. Danuta A. Nitecki, Dean of Drexel Libraries, shared the vision of a dynamic learning environment and the strategies that the Drexel Libraries is exploring for its future. Dr. Fathuraham and his team are interested in innovative management approaches to redesigning a library, as his institution is currently working to reposition its campus library. 

A few weeks later, Shigeo Sugimoto, a leader in the international iSchool community and a professor at the Graduate School of Library, Information and Media Studies at the University of Tsukuba in Tsukuba, Japan, came to campus to present at the Drexel Metadata Research Center’s Metadata Mixer, held on Thursday, March 8, 2018. 

During his time in Philadelphia, Dr. Sugimoto also visited the W. W. Hagerty Library, where he met with Liaison Librarians Jay Bhatt and Tim Siftar to discuss the Drexel Libraries’ metadata-related activities and support of researcher data management.

And finally, to file under “small world” stories, Haruki Nagata, a former colleague of Dr. Sugimoto and emeritus professor at the University of Tsukuba, also visited Philadelphia a few weeks later to attend the Public Library Association Conference held at the Convention Center. While in town, he met with Danuta A. Nitecki, who he and Dr. Sugimoto hosted in 2009 to speak at a conference in Japan.  Mr. Nagata shared interests in public library buildings, a topic he had introduced to Drexel Libraries staff in 2011 when he brought three young Japanese librarians on a study tour in the US and shared accounts of the effects of the earthquake and nuclear power plant accident in Japan on public libraries.