Dr. Christine Hagar, an assistant professor at the SJSU School of Information, is bringing global attention to the important roles public libraries play in disaster risk reduction and in strengthening community resilience pre and post disasters.

San José State University (SJSU) School of Information (iSchool) Assistant Professor Dr. Christine Hagar (pictured left) will be headed to Geneva later this month to present a poster at the prestigious United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) Science and Technology Conference, which will focus on the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

Attendance at the conference, which will take place from January 27-29, 2016 in Switzerland, is by invitation only. A primary goal of the gathering is “to bring together the full diversity of the science and technology community, policy makers, practitioners and researchers from all geographical regions, at local, national, regional and international levels.”

Hagar’s poster will present some of her research in crisis informatics, a term coined by Hagar herself. Stating that she was “delighted” to be invited to the conference, Hagar explained that “this opportunity will bring global attention to the important roles that public libraries, as community and information hubs, can play in disaster risk reduction and in strengthening community resilience pre and post disasters.”

At the conference, Hagar will be participating in Work Stream 1, which explores the national, regional, and global scientific and technical partnerships and platforms that support the implementation of the Sendai Framework. Her poster session will illustrate some of her research on “the roles of information professionals and public libraries in disasters and collaborations with disaster and emergency management agencies.”

Hagar is the editor of the 2012 book Crisis Information Management: Communication and Technologies and is an associate of the Disaster & Development Centre, University of Northumbria, UK. Among the classes she teaches in the Master of Library and Information Science online degree program at the SJSU iSchool are INFO 200 Information Communities, INFO 281 Seminar in Contemporary Issues: Crisis/Disaster Health Informatics, and INFO 281 Seminar in Contemporary Issues: Community Informatics.