Miles Conrad Award and Lectures
A significant highlight of the former NFAIS Annual Conference program, now The NISO Plus Conference, is the Miles Conrad Memorial Lecture, named in honor of one of the key individuals responsible for the founding of NFAIS, G. Miles Conrad (1911-1964). Conrad had an early grasp of the potential of computer technology when applied to the creation, organization and dissemination of research information. His leadership contributions to the information community were such that, following his death in 1964, the NFAIS Board of Directors determined that an annual lecture series named in his honor would be central to the annual conference program.
Industry leaders, innovators and opinion-makers from the full breadth of the information community have been designated as the Miles Conrad Lecturer. Use the links below to view the presentations of each honored lecturer:
2024
Bulding Openly Scholarly Infrastructure: a journey of collaboration and diplomacy
Ed Pentz, Executive Director, CrossRef
2023
Decolonizing Standards: A Provocation
Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble, Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
2022
The Role of a Library in a World of Unstructured Data
Dr. Patricia Flatley Brennan, Director, National Library of Medicine
2021
In Pursuit of Open Knowledge
Heather Joseph, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
2020
Three Questions and Five Commandments
James G. Neal, Columbia University
2019
Marty Kahn, Chairman of Code Ocean
2018
C. Lee Giles, Pennsylvania State University
2017
Celebrating Serendipity and Collaboration: Looking Back to Look Forward
Judith C. Russell, Dean of University Libraries, University of Florida
2016
Library Leadership for the Digital Age
Deanna Marcum, Managing Director, Ithaka S+R
2015
**What's Changed in My 30 Years in the Information Industry — and What's Next
Tim Collins, President & CEO, EBSCO Industries, Inc.
2014
Making Information a Business: The Voice Behind the Curtain
Marjorie M.K. Hlava, President, Access Innovations, Inc.
2013
Unlocking The Value of Knowledge Businesses
Robert N. Snyder, Chairman, Cambridge Information Group
2012
Living Online: Any Time, Any Where, Any Device
Howard Ratner, Chief Technology Officer, Nature Publishing Group
2011
Social Discovery in an Information Abundant World
Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland
2010
The Network Reconfigures Academic Library Collections
Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC
2009
Challenges for Great Libraries in the Age of the Digital Native
Dame Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive, The British Library
2008
CAS in the New Information Order
Robert J. Massie, President, CAS
2007
Health Information: Thorough, Fast, Free and Honest is Not Enough
Donald A.B. Lindberg, National Library of Medicine
2006
Building Bridges to Information Products and Services
Dr. Carol Tenopir, University of Tennessee
2005
What it Takes to Gain 'Mindshare' from the Perspective of Academic Librarians
James P. McGinty, Vice Chairman, Cambridge Information Group
2004
The Battle for Mindshare: A Battle Beyond Access and Retrieval
Dr. John J. Regazzi, Managing Director, Elsevier
2003
Is What's Past, Prologue?
Kurt Molholm, Administrator, Defense Technical Information Center
2002
Towards Global Information Society ????
Georg F. Schultheiss, FIZ Karlsruhe, Germany
2001
Looking Back to Look Forward
Karen Hunter, Senior Vice President, Elsevier
2000
How to Prosper in the Era of the Internet
Bela Hatvany, Co-Founder, SilverPlatter Information
1999
40 Years of Database Distribution and Use: An Overview and Observation
Charles P. Bourne, Dialog
1998
Federal Information Policy - Putting It All Together
Kent Smith, Deputy Director, National Library of Medicine
1997
Just For You Services on the Information Highway
Toni Carbo, Dean, School of Information Sciences, Univ. of Pittsburgh
1996
The New Information Paradigm: Threat or Opportunity (or Both)?
Roger Summit, Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Dialog Information Services
1995
Killer Apps
Morris Goldstein, Chief Executive Officer, Information Access Company
1994
Angst & Anticipation: How Will We Fit in the New Information Age?
Ronald Dunn, Macmillan Publishing Company
**This document is not available for public consumption