THE Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) last week renamed its standard library in honour of its former executive director, Rev Dr Artnel Henry, rechristening the building, ‘The Dr Artnel Henry Standards and Technical Information Centre.’

The official renaming and dedication of the building took place at the BSJ’s office on Winchester Road in Kingston.

Senator Burchell Whiteman, the information minsiter, told the gathering in his keynote that the library has been “providing information on subject matters that are essential to increasing the international competitiveness of businesses in Jamaica and the survival of industry”.

The facility, he said, had also been responsive to the increasing demand for information that was relevant to standardisation and metrology.

“The library now serves as an invaluable repository of information that supports standards development and the regulatory activities of the bureau and should serve to satisfy the country’s information needs for standards, and other research material required for the facilitation of trade,” Whiteman said.

The re-branding of the facility, Senator Whiteman said, “will give greater prominence to the sole national standards body library in Jamaica, which has been internationally recognised as a member of the scientific and technical information network”.

As part of the dedication ceremony, a citation was presented to Dr Henry by standards officer at BSJ, Winsome Decarish.

In his reply, Dr Henry expressed pride at the honour and attributed much of his success during his 27-year tenure at the institution, to the hard work and support of staff.

“In accepting this honour, I wish to widen the scope to include the team of technical and professional staff of the Bureau of Standards, who served the public with responsibility and accountability. They were not professionals simply because an institution conferred it upon them, but because of their sense of devotion and that special inspiration generated from within,” he said.

The Dr Artnel Henry Standards and Technical Information Centre is housed on the second floor of the BSJ’s offices at 6 Winchester Road. The facility is an information centre, and has a catalogue of 73,000 standards, more than 300 of which are Jamaican. It serves as the national enquiry point under the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Jamaica’s contact point for Codex Alimentarius Commission.

Dr Henry served as executive director of the BSJ from 1973 to 2000 and was succeeded by Dr Omer Thomas, who is the current head.

Dr Henry has been credited with overseeing the expansion and establishment of the bureau as the foremost institution of its kind in the Caribbean, achieving ratification by the International Organisation for Standardisation before any other regional organisation. He was also instrumental in launching the National Certification Mark Programme in 1984, which awards certification to products and processes deemed to be consistently produced to reliable standards.