Marjorie (Margie) M.K. Hlava, president of Albuquerque-based Access Innovations, Inc., has been selected to receive the prestigious Miles Conrad Award from the National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS). The award will be presented at the upcoming 2014 NFAIS Annual Conference in Philadelphia, PA, February 23-25, 2014. In keeping with longstanding tradition, Marjorie will present a 45-minute lecture with her perspective on the information industry during the NFAIS Annual Conference.
“The objective of the Miles Conrad Memorial Lecture, established in 1965 in commemoration of NFAIS founder G. Miles Conrad, is to recognize and honor those members of the information community who have made significant contributions to the field of information science and to NFAIS itself,” said Marcie Granahan, Executive Director of NFAIS. “The lecture is presented every year at the organization’s annual conference by an outstanding person on a suitable topic in the field of abstracting and indexing, but above the level of any individual service.”
“Margie Hlava is a well-known and well-respected information industry pioneer,” said NFAIS President Suzanne BeDell. “She has worked behind the scenes for most of the major information organizations, including many NFAIS member organizations. Margie believes that you learn as much as you receive by being active in professional organizations, and she has been intimately involved in the standards process for much of her career. She served for seven years on the NISO board and was personally involved in the development of many NISO standards. She chaired the Special Libraries Association’s (SLA) Standards Committee for nine years, has chaired the NFAIS Standards Committee since 2001, and is currently a member of the NISO Content and Collection Management Topic Committee. Margie is one of my predecessors, having been NFAIS President from 2003 to 2004, as well as President of other organizations such as the American Society for Information Science and Technology and Documentation Abstracts. She has served on the Board of SLA twice and currently serves on several boards, including those for the ASIS&T Bulletin of which she is Chair, Information Systems and Use, Places and Spaces, University of North Carolina SILS, and the SLA Taxonomy Division, of which she is the founding chair. Margie also is a volunteer outside the information industry, serving on the boards of the New Mexico Information Commons, the Hubbell House Alliance, New Mexico Data Stream, and the Hubbell Family Historical Society. The NFAIS Board is delighted to confer our organization’s highest honor upon her.”
“Previous recipients are people I have long admired and looked up to as luminaries in our field,” said Marjorie Hlava when she was notified of the award. “I am truly honored to be among them.”
Margie was educated as a botanist and trained by NASA as an information engineer, a position she worked in for five years. She was a beta tester on the NASA Recon, Dialog, and other early online host systems such as BRS and SDC. She was also the Information Director for the Department of Energy National Energy Information Center and its affiliate NEICA. She rose to the position of Information Director before taking her team private as Access Innovations, Inc. in 1978.
Margie’s abiding research interests center on speeding the human processes in knowledge management through productivity enhancements. She has developed the Data Harmony software suite specifically to increase accuracy and consistency while streamlining the clerical aspects in editorial and indexing tasks. The most recent innovation is applying those systems to medical records for medical claims compliance in a new division, Access Integrity.
Margie’s work has been acknowledged through numerous awards throughout her career, including ASIS&T’s Watson Davis award, and recognition both as an SLA Fellow and as a Woman of Influence for Technology. She is the author of two books and over 200 articles. She holds two U.S. patents encompassing 21 patent claims. She has no intention of resting on her laurels, but plans to continue her adventures in information science and explore the boundaries of new technology and methodologies. A complete list of prior Miles Conrad Award winners can be found on the NFAIS website.
About Access Innovations, Inc. – www.accessinn.com, www.dataharmony.com, www.taxodiary.com Founded in 1978, Access Innovations has extensive experience with Internet technology applications, master data management, database creation, thesaurus/taxonomy creation, and semantic integration. Access Innovations’ Data Harmony software includes automatic indexing, thesaurus management, an XML Intranet System (XIS), and metadata extraction for content creation developed to meet production environment needs. Data Harmony is used by publishers, governments, and corporate clients throughout the world.
About NFAIS – www.nfais.org Founded in 1958, NFAIS is a membership organization of more than 55 of the world’s leading producers of databases and related information services, information technology, and library services in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, business, and the arts and humanities. For more information on NFAIS and its member organizations, on NFAIS Annual Conferences and meetings or the Miles Conrad Memorial Lecture series, contact Jill O’Neill, Director of Communication and Planning (jilloneill@nfais.org or 215-893-1561), or visit the NFAIS website.
