Tell us something about yourself... what is your background and role in the organization you are working for?
I have been working in agricultural information since 1973.  I began my career as an agricultural librarian at the University of Kentucky (a land-grant university in the USA) and served in that capacity for 32 years. I moved into higher level administration in 2005 but kept my agricultural connection and in 2010 moved into my current position as Director of International Programs for the university libraries. In 1985 I attended my first IAALD meeting and in 1990 became the journal editor of the Quarterly Bulletin (later Agricultural Information Worldwide) and served in that capacity for 10 years.  From 2000 to 2005 I served as the conference chair for the XIth World Congress of IAALD and in 2005 I became Secretary/Treasurer of the organization, an office I still hold.  My entire career has been in agricultural information management.

How did you get in contact with AIMS?
I learned about AIMS through the CIARD movement (IAALD is a supporter of CIARD).  AIMS represents a goal that information managers have worked toward as long as I have been in the profession -- the need to easily share information.

What is your opinion on AIMS?
Most of my career has been in sharing bibliographic data and in the 1980's I was part of an international group to develop the universal agricultural thesaurus in an effort to provide uniform access to agricultural information. CIARD and AIMS takes this a step further by allowing us to easily share the documents.

According to you, what is the most important benefit that AIMS provides to the agricultural information management community?
The community of sharing.  We often develop systems in a vacuum because we do not know what others are doing.  Having a culture of sharing both information and practices can only benefit the global agricultural community.

How do you think that information management standards can contribute to agricultural research for development?
Interoperability means accessibility.  Having the research accessible to all means that it can be used for development without concerns about how to pay for the information.  It will help narrow the gap between the north and south and move us into an environment of sharing and cooperation for the global good.