Sunday, October 27, 2013

Brief Profile: Bushra Almas Jaswal

Pakistan News & Features Services

Bushra Almas Jaswal is an acclaimed expert of library automation and digital libraries, having a knack for leaving a legacy at the strength of her wisdom, innovation and farsightedness. She has also distinguished herself by designing information literacy programmes and innovative library services.

She has been working as the Chief Librarian and Associate Professor at the Forman Christian College (A Chartered University) in Lahore since May 2007. 

During this period she is credited to have revived an old and almost dead college library into a vibrant, well-used and state-of-the-art, modern University Library, which is fully automated. 

Bushra Jaswal was the driving force behind the establishment of Information Commons at the Forman Christian College in 2012 to cater to the growing need of the students, faculty and researchers to access and use the growing volume of information coming in electronic formats, embedded in online databases, websites, blogs, wiki's and the internet, and required availability of ample computers on campus and developing skills to access and use that information effectively. This was first such facility of its kind in Pakistan.

She worked at the United Nations Digital Library, Islamabad, from May 2002 to May 2007. The library was an online searchable repository of all historical publications, documents and reports issued by the UN Agencies in Pakistan. 

She established a digitization lab and a high speed network to digitize the printed documents and processed them to add into the digital repository for online publishing. 

Earlier she had established the United Nations Common Library to serve 13 UN Agencies in Islamabad, having developed an online catalog and a website containing annotated bibliographies on various social issues in Pakistan. 

Bushra Jaswal served as the Chief Librarian of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore from September 1985 to March 1997 where she developed a fully automated library from scratch. 

She had previously worked as a Librarian at the University of the Punjab, Lahore, from September 1975 to August 1985. She was credited to have developed a separate library for the newly established Department of Library Science. 

 ***Bushra Almas Jaswal has reviewed Asian Glory

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