Wider Community Engagement Officer Elect Appointed
Following the usual selection process, the RDA Steering Committee (RSC) is delighted to welcome Dr Getaneh Alemu as Wider Community Engagement Officer (WCEO) Elect.
A well-known librarian and academic in the UK, where he is a metadata librarian at Southampton Solent University, Getaneh has been active in his native Ethiopia, where he was a lecturer and Head University Librarian at Mekelle University, as well as Europe, having lived and studied in Ghent (MA, Knowledge and Information Management) and Oslo (MA, Digital Library Learning). He continues to collaborate with colleagues worldwide and has delivered presentations in countries including the USA, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Cyprus, Finland, Mexico, Tanzania and, of course, Ethiopia.
Getaneh served on IFLA’s Linked Data Technical Review Group (LIDATEC, now METATEC) and is on the editorial boards of Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, and Digital Library Perspectives.
Following his appointment, RSC Chair Renate Behrens was very happy to be able to meet him in person in Astana, when they were both in Kazakhstan for IFLA's World Library and Information Congress (WLIC). She said, "Africa does not yet have direct representation at RSC level, and so Getaneh's career-long professional relationships in Ethiopia and neighbouring countries present a real opportunity, and this, along with his truly international training, experience and attitude makes him the ideal person to follow Charlene Chou as WCEO."
From 1 September until 31 December, Getaneh will work alongside Charlene learning the role and, particularly, the way she has approached representing RDA within Taiwan, China and Asia more widely. When she was appointed as WCEO, Charlene brought an impressive range of existing relationships in the Region. She subsequently has worked with RDA Board National Institution Representative Haliza Jailani to forge new connections and has been active both in presenting RDA and in assisting those working on translations into Chinese.
Charlene has also been a welcoming and supportive first point of contact for RDA cataloguers in other regions, fielding queries and providing links to the rest of the RSC and ALA Digital Reference. She has worked closely with Education and Orientation Officer Elisa Sze, Translations Team Liaison Officer Szabolcs Dancs and other members of the Translations Working Group. Charlene is also a valued member of Religions in RDA Working Group and the Technical Working Group, to which she brings substantial knowledge of Linked Data and Artificial Intelligence projects. From January, Charlene has agreed to stay on the AI, and Religions in RDA Working Groups and she will also join the Translations Working Group to continue her work advising colleagues working on Taiwanese and Chinese translations as and when needed.
Getaneh says, "I am looking forward to working with Charlene and learning how she has carried out the role. As I am due to visit Addis Ababa in January on my latest research collaboration, I am particularly keen to see how Charlene works in similar circumstances to raise awareness of RDA's potential as a metadata standard."