Access Innovations, Inc. is pleased to host the 13th annual Data Harmony Users Group (DHUG) meeting this week in Albuquerque.

DHUG brings together current and prospective users of the Data Harmony software to present case studies, network, and share ideas. DHUG also includes a software features update and release of the updated software follows shortly after the meeting.

Beginning today, there are pre-conference trainings taking place at the Access offices and on Thursday, additional time is set aside for meetings with staff and clients. The official conference festivities begin tomorrow at the historic boutique Hotel Andaluz in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is a new location for the DHUG meetings and one that is expected to be a positive change.

The agenda includes the ever favorite case studies by various clients. These presentations outline how Data Harmony is being implemented in the production pipeline at customer sites, giving DHUG attendees a chance to look behind the scenes and learn from other users.

At DHUG 2018, case studies will begin with Travis Hicks from ASCO, who plans to share information about “Using Taxonomy to Drive Personalization: Aligning User Interests and Content.” Travis was tasked with helping its 2017 Annual Meeting attendees sort more than 200 sessions by personal interest. He leveraged ASCO’s taxonomy to produce targeted program recommendations. The Session Recommender leveraged existed profile data supplemented with additional information supplied by the user via a short questionnaire to craft individual taxonomy profiles, which were used to generate recommendations. During this session, Travis will offer an overview of the project and how ASCO intends to use it as the basis for future personalization efforts.

Other case studies will feature Tim Lamkins from SPIE, Ronald Snyder and Sharon Garewal from JSTOR, and Jane Hiebert-White from Health Affairs, and others. Three-quarters of the 2017 DHUG attendees cited these breakout sessions as the most valuable aspect of the meetings and Access Innovations plans to continue with these presentations going forward.

However, let’s not forget our keynote speaker – Martin Klein, Scientist in the Research Library at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. His presentation is titled, “Towards Web-Centric Repository Interoperability.”

The agenda also includes a panel discussion moderated by Bob Kasenchak, Director of Business Development at Access Innovations, Inc., and attendees will also participate in breakout sessions that bring attendees and Access Innovations staff together to discuss relevant topics and brainstorm toward innovating for the future of the industry.

This is the 13th annual DHUG. Access Innovations is also celebrating their 40th anniversary of contributing to information science.

Follow our social media sites – Facebook and Twitter – to keep up with the chatter about DHUG 2018.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.