Jane Macoustra
Candidate for Director
Jane's career began when she accidentally "fell" into a librarian role at British Petroleum's geological, geophysical and drilling department and was exposed to petroleum engineering, geology, palaeontology and seismic mapping. Jane then moved on to Norton Rose law firm and Credit Suisse and as a result was exposed to every aspect of a typical library and information centre, including a role as publications manager. In 2001, Jane moved to Hong Kong to work as information officer for Credit Suisse First Boston covering 10 Asian countries, but also covering emergency sick leave in London and New York. This is where she realised that time zones really are no boundary to professional life. During this time, Jane became involved with SLA, undertaking an assignment to assess library and information requirements in Asia and joining the Asia Chapter.
Today, she is a director on the board of the SLA Asian Chapter; when the Asian Chapter found itself in difficulties, Jane took over the presidency for 2 years in 2005 and 2006 to help the chapter address its challenges. Today the Asian Chapter is a strong and thriving chapter that celebrates its diversity as much as its geographical dispersion. Jane says it is THE chapter to visit if you want to experience total cultural diversity in SLA! In 2003 Jane joined the board of SLA Europe, where she is now ethics chair.
Jane formed a solo consultancy in 2004 - Tai-Pan Research - to undertake a variety of tasks, including teaching information literacy at City University, project management, working as a sub-contractor in competitive intelligence, virtual assistance, and consulting. She is currently compiling a daily tax current awareness news digest for a New York company and has now hit the blogosphere in a number of ways on a professional basis.
Capturing her work experience over the years, Jane published a book in 2010 on global Internet resources for business: "It's no good this stuff sitting in my head, if someone else can make use of it too". A blog is attached to the book.
Since joining SLA in 2000, Jane has attended a number of SLA conferences and spoke at ICoASL--the International Conference on Asian Special Libraries in 2008 in New Delhi. Among other activities, she has worked with Marydee Ojala at ILI in London and shared masters' classes with her.
Finally, Jane is currently studying for a masters' in psychology at Open University with a goal to use this qualification within the library and information profession, as a recruiting and counseling skill.
"I am most honoured to have the opportunity to serve SLA, which has meant so much to my career," Jane said of her nomination.
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