Three Information Industry Leaders Voted to NISO Board of Directors
BETHESDA, MD - July 24, 2006 - The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Board of Directors elections concluded with the addition of two new members, Michael Jon Jensen and Chuck Koscher, and the re-election of Oliver PeschTheir term runs three years.
Statements of the new and re-elected Board members, as well as brief bios, follow:
Michael Jensen
"The information ecosystem is still young, and finding its way. It's a fascinating transitional period of explosive evolutionary experimentation, and I'm delighted to be joining an organization committed to helping that ecosystem's development into a robust, stable environment."
Michael Jon Jensen has been at the interface between digital technologies and scholarly/ academic publishing since the late 1980s. In 2002, Jensen was appointed Director of Web Communications for the National Academies. He remains Director of Publishing Technologies at the National Academies Press, which makes more than 3600 books (more than 600,000 pages) from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council - fully browsable and searchable online for free (www.nap.edu). This site receives more than a million visitors per month, and boasts of some of the most advanced search and discovery tools available on any publisher's site, most of which were initially developed by Jensen. In 2001, he received the National Academies' "President's Award," its highest staff honor. Previously, Jensen was Electronic Publisher at the Johns Hopkins University Press, and Electronic Media Manager at the University of Nebraska Press.
Chuck Koscher
"I believe that NISO plays an important role in providing a forum for the airing and development of new ideas and for the codification of basic blueprints which ultimately lead to their realization. In my joining the board I hope to contribute to the bi-directional communications between publishers and other industry participants focused on standardization development and enhanced awareness of their benefits."
As Director of Technology for CrossRef, Chuck Koscher has been actively involved for over four years in improving the linking infrastructure for their members' scholarly publications. As a technologist, his focus is on implementation concerns driven by data management, data quality and on the development of new services and standards initiatives. Chuck has more than 17 years' experience in software services relating to content management and structured data delivery systems.
Oliver Pesch
"The explosive growth of online information and the sheer number of products and services being developed to support this online environment represent both tremendous challenges and opportunities, particularly when it comes to information exchange. Collaboration and standards are key ingredients for maximizing our collective efforts and accelerating our progress in creating a better online environment for knowledge seekers. NISO is uniquely positioned to be at the center of these collaborative activities, and I am pleased and honored to be able to continue to be a part of this important work."
As chief strategist for E-Resources at EBSCO Information Services, Oliver Pesch oversees the technical direction for EBSCO's Electronic Journals Service (EJS), A-to-Z and LinkSource products. His standards committee memberships include the NISO committee on Library Statistics; Project COUNTER's Executive Committee; he is also co-chair of the SUSHI working group. Pesch has been developing information products for EBSCO for nearly 20 years. In his current role he is very much involved with e-journals and the challenges they bring for activation, access and management.
About the National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
NISO fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning. To fulfill this mission, NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire life cycle of an information standard. NISO (www.niso.org) is a not-for-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).