Professor Paul Sturges has travelled widely throughout the world, giving lectures and conference presentations, leading workshops on Intellectual Freedom topics, providing consultancy, and researching.
His more than 200 articles, reviews, reports and books deal with a variety of issues in information science, with an emphasis on the developing world, a strong specialization in ethics of information, plus recent focuses on research data, and LIS curriculum development.
Exploring and discussing aspects of intellectual freedom including the rationale for intellectual freedom, tolerance and freedom of expression, the role of transparency in combating corruption, the problem of blasphemy and comedy as freedom of expression.
Has also worked on African library and information-related issues since 1984. Book available on-line, The Quiet Struggle: information and libraries for the people of Africa, 1998.
- Professor Extraordinary, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
- Frequent speaker at international conferences and participant in seminars and workshops: in 2016 at Lyons, Pretoria, Lille, Dublin and Vaxjo (Sweden).
- Allen Smith Visiting Scholar, Simmons College, Boston USA, February-March 2015.
- Consultant to the INASP (International Network for Access to Scientific Publications) LIS Curriculum Development programme, 2013-2015
- Member of the Gates Foundation’s Access to Learning Award (ATLA) Jury 2011, 2012 and 2013.
- Awarded the IFLA Medal in 2011.
- Made Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2010 for services to libraries in the UK and overseas.
- Chair of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA)’s Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) core activity (2003-2009).
- ‘Research data sharing: developing a stakeholder-driven model for journal policies’. With M. Bamkin, J. Anders, B. Hubbard, A. Hussain and M. Healey. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), 66(12), (2015) pp.2445-2455.
- ‘The production of comedy: the joke in the age of social media’. Sage Open, Oct-Dec 2015, pp.1-7. DOI: 10.1177/2158244015612521
- ‘Limits to freedom of expression? The problem of blasphemy. IFLA Journal, 41(2), (2015), pp.112-119.
- ‘The information literate brain’. With Almuth Gastinger. In Hagen-McIntosh, J. Ed. Librarianship and intellectual freedom: an ongoing consideration for librarians. Waretown, NJ: Apple Academic Press, 2016. Chapter 7, pp.79-98.
- ‘Ibadan sixty years on: an historical survey and review of trends in African LIS education’. With Peter Burnett and Archie Dick. In: Seadle, M. et al eds. Educating the Profession: 40 years of the IFLA Section on Education and Training. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. 101-121.