NISO Awards and Scholarships
As a not-for-profit membership organization, we rely on the support of our community, which we are happy to recognize, in part, through a number of awards. And, as part of our commitment to ensuring that our community is as diverse, equitable, and inclusive as possible, we also offer annual scholarships to support the next generation of information community leaders by enabling them to attend the NISO Plus conference and engaging with them throughout the year.
Miles Conrad Award
Miles Conrad was the founder of the National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services (NFAIS), and this award was established in 1965, in his memory. During the 1960s, Conrad encouraged NFAIS members — scholarly societies and government agencies — to work collaboratively in support of the space exploration program, in order to enhance the speed with which scientific knowledge could be disseminated, discovered, and acted upon. In the years that followed, NFAIS expanded its cross-disciplinary membership and played an important role in the development of online information services and resources, before merging with National Information Standards Organization (NISO) in 2019. NISO’s vision, of a world where all can benefit from the unfettered exchange of information, reflects the aims of both organizations; in awarding this prize, we are proud to continue recognizing the contributions of those whose lifetime achievements have moved our community forward.
Ann Marie Cunningham Service Award
The Ann Marie Cunningham Service award was established in 1994 to honor NFAIS members who routinely went above and beyond the normal call of duty to serve the organization. It is named after Ann Marie Cunningham who, while working with abstracting and information services such as Biological Abstracts and the Institute for Scientific Information (both now part of NISO-member Clarivate Analytics), worked tirelessly as an dedicated NFAIS volunteer. She ultimately served as the NFAIS Executive Director from 1991 to 1994 when she died unexpectedly. NISO is pleased to continue to present this award to honor NISO volunteers who have shown the same sort of commitment to serving our organization.
2024 Awardees: B. Tommie Usdin, Mulberry Technologies and Jeffrey Beck, National Library of Medicine (NLM)
2023 Awardee: Jill O'Neill, formerly NISO
2022 Awardee: Laurie Kaplan, ProQuest
2021 Awardees: Athena Hoeppner, University of Central Florida and Julie Zhu, IEEE
2020 Awardees: Peter Murray (Index Data) and Christine Stohn (Ex Libris)
Honorary Fellows
The NISO Fellows Award was established in 1989 to honor and recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to standardization and the development of the National Information Standards Organization. NISO’s “Honorary Members” were grandfathered into the Fellows Award. The award consists of a certificate presented at the discretion of the NISO Board of Directors.
2024 Honorary Fellow: Judy Luther, Informed Strategies
2023 Honorary Fellow: Robert Wheeler, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
2022 Honorary Fellow: Oliver Pesch, EBSCO Information Services
2021 Honorary Fellow: George Kerscher, DAISY Consortium
2020 Honorary Fellow: Bruce Rosenblum, Inera
Previous Honorary Fellows:
2000
Clifford Lynch
1997
Emery Koltay
David Whitaker
1995
James J. Michael
1989
Henriette Avram
Patricia W. Berger
Sandra K. Paul
1985
James Wood
1982
Robert W. Frase
Ben H. Weil
1980
Daniel Melcher
Jerrold Orne
Anne J. Richter
NISO Plus Scholarships
NISO Plus scholarships are intended for anyone who feels that their voice and views are currently under-represented in libraries, vendors, publishers, or other parts of the information ecosystem. Applications are reviewed by a committee that includes representatives from the NISO staff, Board, Planning Committee, and current scholarship winners. This program is part of our ongoing efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in our community.
NISO Plus 2024 scholarship recipients (sponsored by The Arthur P. Sloan Foundation)
NISO Plus 2023 scholarship recipients (sponsored by Digital Science)
NISO Plus 2022 scholarship recipients (sponsored by OCLC)
NISO Plus 2021 scholarship recipients (sponsored by Digital Science)
NISO Plus 2020 scholarship recipients (sponsored by the Sloan Foundation)