awards – AIIP Connections Blog

Annual Awards Presented at AIIP 2024 Symposium

By AIIP External Communications Committee

Recipients of AIIP’s annual awards were announced on April 20^th during the AIIP 2024 Symposium held in St. Louis, Missouri, a hybrid event featuring in-person programs and concurrent sessions for virtual attendees. AIIP Immediate Past President Janel Kinlaw presented awards to AIIP members who embrace and promote the values of the association, and the Roger Summit Lecture Award recipient was recognized. AIIP thanks Awards Nominating Committee members Arthur Weiss and Michele Bate for guiding the process. More information about each award is available on the AIIP Awards page.

AIIP Honors Members at 2023 Awards Ceremony

By Denise Carter and Chris Cochran

(Editor’s note: In the coming weeks and months, the AIIP Connections Blog will present highlights from the annual conference held in April 2023.)

The Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) announced its award recipients on April 29^th during the recently concluded annual conference (AIIP 2023), a hybrid event featuring in-person programs in Milwaukee as well as virtual events. AIIP Immediate Past President Denise Carter presented awards to AIIP members who embrace and promote the values of the association. AIIP thanks Awards Nominating Committee members Arthur Weiss and Michele Bate for guiding the process this year. More information about each award is available on the AIIP Awards page.

2022 Annual Conference: AIIP Awards Ceremony

By Ulla de Stricker

The 2022 AIIP awards were given out at our annual conference on April 27th by Awards Chair Arthur Weiss to deserving individuals who have helped strengthen AIIP. It was his special task to give himself one of the awards! Many thanks are due to those who took part in the nominating process. Details at AIIP Awards that Acknowledge Industry Contribution s.

The AIIP Oscars – Lights, Camera, Action!

By Michele Bate

The awards dinner is always a highlight of the AIIP Annual Conference, since it gives attendees an opportunity to honour and celebrate peers who exemplify the AIIP ethos. Although this year’s conference was virtual, we did not miss out, as the awards ceremony was brought to our screens instead, with the award winners called “on stage” to make an acceptance speech.

Join Us as AIIP Recognizes Exceptional Members

By Phyllis Smith

Each year at our conference, AIIP recognizes members’ and other thought leaders’ contributions to the industry, the association, and individuals. Join us at #AIIP21, The Virtual Conference for Independent Info Pros, as we honor this year’s award recipients on April 14th at 4:30 pm EDT. Visit https://virtual21.aiip.org/ to register for the virtual conference and reserve your spot at the Awards Ceremony.

The Role of Info Pros in Information Retrieval: From Text to Thought, Presented by Joyce Ward

By Phyllis Smith

The Roger Summit Lecture Award is funded by AIIP Past Presidents to bring an inspiring and stimulating speaker to the AIIP Annual Conference. Roger Summit, the founder of Dialog—a pioneer in online information retrieval—and a longtime AIIP supporter, has inspired AIIP members with his demonstrations of self-renewal and continual learning. The 2020 recipient of the award, Joyce Ward, rolled with the punches after our conference was cancelled due to COVID-19 and delivered her lecture virtually on May 5th, 2020.

Joyce has 30+ years of experience in knowledge management and information retrieval technologies. She served as a VP of Enterprise Products and director of Content Classification at Northern Light, a product manager and director of Taxonomies and Semantic Enrichment at LexisNexis, and most recently as a senior ontologist and content specialist with the Amazon Search Knowledge team. She shared her deep expertise with AIIP members as she reviewed the role information professionals have played in bringing excellent search results to users of search engines.

Joyce recognized the role Roger Summit played in her own career as Dialog revolutionized research and led her into the world of taxonomies. She shared that search has evolved greatly and now produces more relevant results for complex, ambiguous queries. Joyce adds that, thanks to the information professionals working in the background, search results have a high level of precision despite complex data sets, ambiguous search queries, and algorithms that favor quantity over quality.

Information professionals advocate for the users through their understanding of the users’ vocabulary and what users see as good answers. We also look for patterns to improve search results.

Information professionals provide the machines with structured knowledge—classification schemes, taxonomies, rubrics, and blacklists, for example—which are used to develop models for improved search experiences Human classifiers are always better than machines, and precision in search results is directly due to their expertise.

Information professionals are experts who integrate diverse collections of content and map metadata to build filters that refine large data sets into relevant results. Their work ensures result sets are more than merely lists of “hits” and they are organized to make them more relevant to users.

Joyce suggested that there are opportunities for information professionals who are interested in taxonomy and ontology. There will be a new generation of search that is “accurate, intelligent, and well-mannered” and that will need the deep understanding of structured knowledge and subject expertise that is the domain of the information professional.

Phyllis Smith is a partner in ITK Vector Inc. in Ontario, Canada. She is currently developing her “encore career” working with empty nesters who want to reflect on their own life experiences and share them through stories and photos.

AIIP Presents Several Awards to Our Valued Members

By Phyllis Smith

The AIIP Awards Committee, chaired by Arthur Weiss with Michele Bate and Tom Wolff as judges, manages the nominations and the selection of the Sue Rugge and Pam Wegmann Award winners. Our president, Judith Binder, recommended the recipient of the Marilyn M. Levine AIIP President’s Award.

In memory of the award’s first recipient, the AIIP President’s Award was renamed in 2010 as the Marilyn M. Levine AIIP President’s Award. This award is presented at the recommendation of the President to recognize a person or institution demonstrating extraordinary support of the objectives of the association.

This year we recognized the 2019-2020 Virtual Events committee, comprising co-chairs Elizabeth McLean and Kelly Berry, and members Mary Ellen Bates and Betty Nordeng.

AIIP’s Webinar Committee was transformed into the Virtual Events Committee in January 2019, in response to requests from our members for different ways to present valuable content and provide virtual networking opportunities. Since that time, Kelly, Elizabeth, Mary Ellen, and Betty have imagined, created, tested, tried, evaluated, and improved AIIP’s virtual events program with creativity and grace. Their hard work and dedication have been invaluable to making this member benefit a huge success.

The Sue Rugge Memorial Award recalls the memory of Sue, who was widely regarded as the pioneer of the independent information industry. She was an active member of AIIP and served as president from 1988 to 1989. Beyond her principle endeavors, Sue is fondly remembered by many AIIP members as a mentor in the purest form. Sue passed away on June 12, 1999 in Oakland, California. This award is presented to a full member of AIIP who has significantly helped another member or members through formal or informal mentoring.

The 2020 winner of this year’s Sue Rugge Memorial Award is Jennifer Burke.

Deb Hunt, who nominated Jennifer, highlights how even highly experienced members benefit from the collegial approach of AIIP:

“From the moment I met Jennifer at an AIIP conference some years ago, I knew she was going to be an influence for good in AIIP and beyond … She is smart, patient and passionate about her work and helping others to do their work better … Jennifer’s combination of selflessness, fun and professionalism is rare and makes her a valuable asset to AIIP, our profession, and her colleagues.”

Jennifer represents the unique spirit of sharing expertise, experience, and knowledge to advance the independent information profession that is Sue Rugge’s legacy.

The Pam Wegmann Award recognizes a member who demonstrates extraordinary support of AIIP’s global presence. Pam, who served as an AIIP President from 2002 to 2003, was particularly interested in AIIP’s role as a global leader in the information industry.

The 2020 winner of the Pam Wegmann Award is Marydee Ojala.

Amelia Kassel, who nominated her, remembers Marydee’s presence at every Online International-UK conference, tirelessly promoting AIIP and broadening our international membership. Amelia noted, “Marydee Ojala is and has been a stalwart supporter of AIIP for as long as I can remember, especially on the international scene.”

Marydee has been an AIIP member since 1987 and has held board positions as Secretary and Treasurer. She inspires members to follow in her footsteps and promote AIIP as they travel the world.

For more information about how AIIP recognizes contributions to the industry, to the association, and to individual members, please visit the Awards page.

Phyllis Smith serves as the Secretary of AIIP’s Board of Directors. She is a partner in ITKVector Inc. in Canada.

Roger Summit Award Lecture: Confessions of an information professional

Each year at the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) Conference, the Past Presidents fund the Roger Summit Lecture Award to bring an inspiring and stimulating speaker to the AIIP Annual Conference.

In 2019 the Lecture was delivered by Sue Feldman, founder and former president of the Association of Independent Information Professionals. Sue is now President of Synthexis. Kathaleen Porter reports on the insights gleaned from our esteemed colleague and founder of AIIP.