J.J. Keller Innovations in Technology Award
Granted to an SLA member in good standing for innovative use and application of technology in a special library setting. Recipients of this award receive a cash award in the amount of US$ 1000.

2007 Recipient of the Innovations in Technology Award

Karen Huffman
National Geographic Society

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Click below to watch a short video about Karen Huffman and learn why she is the 2007 recipient of the LexisNexis Innovations in Technology Award

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Huffman represents the technical side of the library profession--an enthusiastic and innovative professional who applies technology to solve information challenges.

She is manager of knowledge initiatives with the Libraries and Information Services at National Geographic Society, where she developed strong organizational, communication, and people skills as well as a technical understanding and expertise.

She leads and participates in cross-divisional teams related to online social networks, such as communities of practice, wikis and blogs, intranet portal development, e-magazines, and corporate training. She consults on enterprise solutions such as portals and knowledge systems, document/content management systems, and metadata/format standards for digital libraries and archives.

She is leading the Geographic to apply and use consumer communication tools like Blackberries and instant messaging, and social Web technologies. Library users look to librarians like Huffman to coach them to apply new technologies to address their information needs.

Huffman's dedicated work to keep National Geographic Society employees on the cutting edge of information technology is matched only by her dedication in reaching out to her colleagues in SLA and in library schools. She developed an overview of Web 2.0 technologies (wikis, blogs, communities of practice, and podcasts) in early 2006 that she presented with her colleague Barbara Ferry at the national SLA conference in Baltimore to an audience of more than 230 librarians. Since then, she had revised and given variations of that presentation to the World Bank/IMF, Catholic University, University of Maryland, and to her colleagues at NGS.

Huffman rebuilt the library's Web site to combine HTML-based pages, RSS feeds, wikis, and blogs. She designed, developed, and manages multiple intranet sites and databases for the libraries, for cross-divisional teams, and the National Geographic's corporate learning site. She frequently consults with other divisions on technical solutions for their Intranet/Internet sites, and develops online tutorials for building Web sites.

Past Recipients of the Innovations in Technology Award

Dianne Francis (1992)
Roxanna Frost (1992)
Karen Bleakey (1993)
George Schlukbier (1996)
Laurie E. Stackpole (1997)
Andrew Breeding (1998)
Deborah Kegel (2000)
Katherine Whitley (2000)
Susan Fifer Canby (2001)
Gary Price (2002)
Nina L. Platt and Faegre & Benson Library Services (2003)
Brandy King (2005) 
Defense Technical Information Center (2005)
R. James King (2006)