[LIS-Forum] RIP Barbara Kirsop, a great friend of science in the Global South

[Subbiah Arunachalam]

It is with deep sorrow that I inform the LIS community that Ms Barbara
Kirsop, a great champion of the cause of unhindered access to and free flow
of knowledge, passed away at the age of 93. She lived in Worksop, UK, but
she was a citizen of the world and a great friend of science in the
developing countries. She not only believed that developed countries have
much to learn from the developing countries and the transfer of knowledge
from the South to the North is equally important as that from the North to
the South, but also worked tirelessly towards correcting the imbalance. She
was one of the founders of Bioline International and the Electronic
Publishing Trust for Development, the organization that gave awards to both
Dr Francis Jayakanth and Muthu Madhan for contributing to the development
of OA in India . "She was a very special human being and the world was
better for her passing through it," says Alma Swan who co-drafted the
Bangalore Declaration on Open Access in 2006 [
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/92/03/0276.pdf]. Ms Kirsop
conducted, along with her long-time associate Leslie Chan, India's first
workshop on electronic publishing in 2002 at the Indian Institute of
Science, and one of the participants, Dr D K Sahu, went on to become a
champion of OA and a leading publisher of peer-reviewed OA journals in the
world.

I have had the privilege of working with Ms Kirsopr and co-authoring
several papers with her and Prof. Chan, all of them open access of course.



Barbara was a gentle soul, kindness  personified, but when it came to
achieving our common goal of universal open access she remained a frontline
soldier, steadfast and uncompromising.
In her passing the OA movement and researchers in the Global South
have lost a true champion. And I have lost a great friend, mentor and
guide. The best tribute we can pay her is to take forward her unfinished
work.

Arun

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/pipermail/lis-forum/attachments/20220129/83845569/attachment.html>