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

Click here to view the full list of Miles Conrad Lecturers (1968 - Current).