PHOTO CAPTION: Ellie Valentine (far left) and colleagues from the IFLA Parliamentary Libraries and Research Centers Section of IFLA
Recently MLS alumni Ellie Valentine (MLS 1989) sent an email about her work on legislative libraries in the Ukraine, Armenia and Pakistan.
Valentine has been engaged in legislative capacity building activities since 1994 when she accepted the assignment as Field Coordinator of the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) Parliamentary Development Project in Ukraine under United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funding. Valentine served the IU project in Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine, for 6½ years. In May 2002, she joined Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, as the Project Director of the USAID-Armenia Legislative Strengthening Project.
This past summer at the World Library and Information Congress: 71st IFLA General Conference and Council in Oslo, Norway, pre-conference for the Parliamentary Libraries and Research Centers Section, hosted by the Norwegian Storting, Valentine presented the accomplishments of the Armenian National Assembly's efforts to develop professional legislative library and research services. More than 90 participants from the legislatures of 50 countries participated in the section activities during the pre-conference.
Valentine continues her work in legislative strengthening with DAI, now as the Project Director of the USAID Pakistan Legislative Strengthening Project and is resident in Islamabad. Among the main goals of the project are increasing the public's access to information about the legislature, developing legislative information management systems, and building library and research capacity in the National Assembly, Senate and four provincial assemblies in Pakistan. The project is scheduled to continue through August 2007.
Posted February 28, 2006