Obituary: Nora Helen Jason

After receiving her master’s degree, she accepted a position as cataloger, Sacramento State College, California. Areas of responsibility were: music, American history, psychology.
In 1967 she was selected as an Administrative Librarian with the Special Services Libraries, Germany. Two medium sized libraries in the Stuttgart area serving the service men and women and dependents provided managerial challenges with the American and German staff, library collection building, public relations, programs for the “troops,” including non-reading adults.
In 1969 Ms. Jason was promoted to Head Librarian, Special Services Libraries at McGraw Kaserne (Munich), Hospital Library and Dachau Library. With an Assistant Librarian and Larger staff it was possible to offer many more of the same activities except for a more diverse user population which also included University of Maryland students and retirees.
In 1971 Ms. Jason joined the Office of Fire Research and Safety staff to build a fire safety database for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Aerospace Safety Research and Data Institute (ASRDI). In a short time she was made the ASRDI Project Leader and successfully built the database which is now part of NASA RECON (their bibliographic database). The NASA work stimulated the beginning of the Fire Research Information Services and the building of the fire research collection. The collection has grown from zero to over 60,000 items during this time period. Access to the collection has been automated and national and international users can access the database, FIREDOC, from their home or office via modem, Web or Internet. FIREDOC contains the bibliographic reference, keywords, identifiers and (where possible) abstracts to the items in the collection.
In her capacity as Supervisor of the Fire Research Information Services, Ms. Jason has established national and international document exchange programs with her counterparts. As one of the driving forces of inFIRE (international network of Fire Information and Reference Exchange) she has been instrumental in developing products, e.g., a Union List of Serials, for use by the fire information community. Special projects also have been done for government agencies; for example, NASA, Minerals Management Service. Ms. Jason was an observer at the Federal Pre-White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services held at the National Library of Medicine in November 1990 and the White House Conference on Libraries and Information Service, 1991. Ms. Jason was awarded the US Department of Commerce Bronze Medal in 1977 and 1999. She was awarded the Society of Fire Protection Engineers Director’s Award for the 1992 Outstanding Committee Chair, as the Chair of the inFIRE Advisory Committee. She is a member of the Special Libraries Association, inFIRE, and the Textile Information Users Council.
As a Guest Researcher, Ms. Jason was the Associated Editor of FIRE.GOV. It is an electronic newsletter for the fire service worldwide, bringing news of current international research to them. Technical reports, photographs, videos, and websites provide greater insight to the reader.

8th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science

8th International Symposium on Fire Safety Science
September 18-23, 2005,Beijing, China

OVERVIEW
The Eighth International Symposium on Fire Safety Science was held at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, from 18-23 September 2005. The symposium was organized by  the China Fire Protection Association (CFPA) with Tsinghua University and University of Science and Technology of China as co-organizers. There were 456 registrants attending three parallel sessions in which 123 papers and 8 invited lectures were presented and a poster session in which 60 posters were displayed. Twenty-five countries were represented: Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States of America. Papers and poster abstracts were accepted on the basis of their quality and originality in the science of fire safety and its applications.

The opening ceremony was conducted by representatives from the host country and IAFSS. His Excellency Zhou Yong Kang, Councilor and Minister of the Public Security of the Peoples Republic of China provided the initial remarks followed by Prof. Dougal Drysdale, the IAFSS Chairman.

Following the opening ceremony, Dr. Howard Baum, National Institute of Standards and Technology, delivered the Howard W. Emmons Plenary Lecture entitled “Simulating Fire Effects on Complex Building Structures.” Seven invited papers were also presented during the course of the symposium by Prof. Jean-Marc Franssen, Prof. Dorothy Bruck, Dr. Kevin McGrattan, Prof. Fan Weicheng , Prof. Ai Sekizawa, Prof. Richard Hull (for Prof. Giovanni Camino) and Major General Guo Tienan, Head of the Fire Department of the Ministry of Public Security who delivered a special invited lecture. “The Fire Situation and the Needs for Science and Technology on Fire Protection in China”.

At the Award Reception and Banquet, Prof. D. Drysdale, Chair of the Symposium Awards Committee, presented the Howard W. Emmons Lectureship Award to Dr. Howard Baum. The P.H. Thomas Silver Medal of Excellence for the best paper at the Seventh Symposium was awarded to D.W. Weinert, T.G. Cleary, G.W. Mulholland, and P.F. Beever for their paper entitled “Light Scattering Characteristics and Size Distribution of Smoke and Nuisance Aerosols.” The K. Kawagoe Gold Medal for outstanding lifelong contributions to fire safety science was presented to Prof. Sizuo Yokoi and accepted by his son. Dr. P.A. Croce, Chair of the Forum for International Cooperation on Fire Research, presented the V. Sjolin Award to Prof. Dougal Drysdale in recognition of his contributions to fire safety science.

The Symposium Proceedings include all papers delivered at the Eighth Symposium and available January 2006. Proceedings will be mailed out to attendees and then available for purchase from the IAFSS Secretariat. Papers are organized in the proceedings by the session topics at the symposium. The content of the symposium proceedings have also been recorded in electronic form and provided on CD-ROM in color. The CD will come be included with the hardback proceedings and also available to purchase as a separate item .

The Association would like to thank FM Global for being the principal sponsor of the symposium. In addition, the Association would like to extend its gratitude to all the organizations, committee members, and other volunteers that assisted in making this symposium so successful. A special thanks is given to the organizers, China Fire Protection Association (CFPA), Tsinghua University, and University of Science and Technology of China, who provided first class hospitality as well as an excellent forum for the exchange of ideas on fire safety science. The Association would also like to greatly thank all of those involved in the review, selection, and editing of the papers for the conference. A special thanks is given to Dr. Craig Beyler, Chair of the Program Committee, for organizing and leading the committee on the selection of papers, and all of the program committee members who interacted with authors and reviewers as well as reviewed final manuscripts to ensure all reviewer comments were addressed. Many thanks go to Ms. Judy Hanacek-Kameid along with Ms. U. Isfahani and Ms. K. Tooren of Hughes Associates, Inc. for their great effort in assembling the printed and CD-ROM version of the Symposium Proceedings.

The Chairs of the Publication Committee also wish to thank Dr. Dave Evans, Chair of the Publication Committee of the Seventh Symposium, for his advice and suggestions in preparing this symposium volume.

Daniel T. Gottuk, Brian Y. Lattimer
Chairs, Publications Committee
Hughes Associates, Inc. Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
October 2005