Marjorie Hlava

Marjorie Maxine Kimmel "Margie" Hlava is an American information scientist and the founder, former president, and chair of Access Innovations, Inc.

She has served as president of the National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS) and the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). In addition to the ASIST Award of Merit (2014), Hlava has received the ASIST Watson Davis Award (1996).

Photo Available @ https://www.arnoldit.com/search-wizards-speak/access-innovations.html

Life

Marjorie M. Kimmel was born on June 9, 1946 in Manistee, Michigan. She was educated as a botanist at the University of Wisconsin.[1] She married Paul Hlava in June 1967.

In 1973 Hlava began working as an information scientist at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and she also trained as an information engineer at NASA, a position she held for five years. She was the Information Director for the U.S. National Energy Information Center,[2] which operated the National Energy Information Center Affiliate (NEICA). In 1978 she took her team private as Access Innovations, Inc.

Contributions

Hlava founded Access Innovations, Inc. in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1978. The company originally focused on building databases, a skill she learned during her time working at NASA. In 1997, Access Innovations introduced Data Harmony, a semantic metadata software suite designed to support automated indexing, thesaurus and taxonomy management, and other information organization tools. The company now specializes in information management and semantic solutions, with a focus on developing controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and metadata systems. Hlava served as Chief Science Officer and President of Access Innovations.[3]

A significant focus of Hlava's career has been standards. She served on the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) board for 7 years and was a contributor to CRediT, NISO's taxonomy of contributor roles. She also contributed to Dublin Core (Z39.85), DOI (Z39.84), and the basis of CrossRef. In 2024, she led the revision of ISO 25964, an international standard for thesauri and interoperability between vocabularies.

Hlava has authored more than 200 articles and several books on information science, and she holds three U.S. patents. She served two terms on the SLA Board of Directors (1990-1992), served as ASIST President (1993-1994), and served as NFAIS President (2002-2003).[4] She also served as President of the SLA Rio Grande Chapter and founder of the SLA Taxonomy Division. She chaired the SLA Standards Committee (9 years) and the NFAIS Standards Committee (2001-2016).[5]

Publications

Hlava, M.M.K. (2014-2015). The Taxobook. Vols. 1-3. Morgan & Claypool. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-02287-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-02288-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-02290-6
Hlava, M.M.K. (2013). Using a taxonomy for your database or website: A look behind the scenes. Bulletin of ASIST 39 (5): 48-51. https://doi.org/10.1002/bult.2013.1720390511
Hlava, M. (2011). Developing an eclectic terminology registry. Bulletin of ASIST 37 (4): 19-22. https://doi.org/10.1002/bult.2011.1720370406
Hlava, M., Grant, A., Redmond-Neal, A. and Finley, C. (2005). The making of the ASIST Digital Library. Proceedings of ASIST 42. https://doi.org/10.1002/meet.1450420144
Redmond-Neal, Alice and Marjorie Hlava. (2005). ASIS&T Thesaurus of Information Science, Technology, And Librarianship (ASIST Monograph Series). Information Today.

Awards

Hubbell Society Museum and Library Hall of Fame, 2019
John Cotton Dana Award, Special Libraries Association, 2015
ASIST Award of Merit, 2014
Miles Conrad Lectureship, National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS), 2014
Woman of Influence (Technology), Albuquerque Business First, 2013
Ann Marie Cunningham Memorial Award for Exemplary Volunteer Service to the Federation, NFAIS, 2012
Fellow of SLA (Special Libraries Association), 2006
SLA President's Award, 2000
ASIST Watson Davis Award, 1996

Life

Contributions

Publications

Awards

Further Reading