The date rapidly approaches and I made a concerted effort to pack beforehand. This was done quite successfully. I am taking a suitcase and a carryon of a presentation laptop and a terabyte drive, which is an external drive roughly the size of a half of a loaf of bread. We bring this along in case the Internet is not functioning at these various locations in Africa. South Africa should be fine in this regard, but that has not been the case so far with my colleagues in Cameroon and Botswana.
All in all, I am excited, both personally and professionally. I will have to perform with some degree of conviction as librarians are a notoriously difficult room (at least based on what my boss said and what I have experienced with my former MLIS classmates). I have rehearsed it enough to feel fairly comfortable with it so hopefully that is projected as well.
So, off to Durban, via Dakkar, via Johannesburg, on Wednesday.
Stop by the Aluka booth if you happen to be at IFLA. I will be sure to give you a run through of the website. We will be doubling up with JSTOR so look for their booth as well.
My name is Michael Sean Gallagher. I am a Lecturer in Digital Education at the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. I am Co-Founder and Director of Panoply Digital, a consultancy dedicated to ICT and mobile for development (M4D); we have worked with USAID, GSMA, UN Habitat, Cambridge University and more on education and development projects. I was a researcher on the Near Futures Teaching project, a project that explores how teaching at The University of Edinburgh unfold over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift what it means to be at university. Previously, I was the Research Associate on the NERC, ESRC, and AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund sponsored GCRF Research for Emergency Aftershock Forecasting (REAR) project. I was an Assistant Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (한국외국어대학교) in Seoul, Korea. I have also completed a doctorate at University College London (formerly the independent Institute of Education, University of London) on mobile learning in the humanities in Korea.
