Our Team and Partners

President, Unlimited Priorities

Iris L. Hanney

Iris L. Hanney is the founder and president of Unlimited Priorities.

Prior to founding Unlimited Priorities Iris served as President, Information Publishing Group of Techbooks and Senior Vice-President, Sales and Marketing. As key administrator for every aspect of the group’s operations, both domestically and internationally, Iris directed production, project management, sales and marketing, with additional key responsibilities in IT, human resources, invoicing and collections.

Before joining TechBooks, Iris was General Manager, U.S. Operations, for Pacific Data Conversion Corp. (PDCC), where she had full responsibility for sales and marketing while also managing the administrative, financial and production functions of the company. She joined PDCC during its founding in 1993, remained through its acquisition by SPI Technologies in 1998, and left to join TechBooks in 2002. During an extensive career in information publishing, Iris has had increasingly responsible roles with a number of information industry leaders including The H. W. Wilson Company, R. R. Bowker, BRS Information Services and Saztec International.

Originally from New York City, Iris earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from H. H. Lehman College, Bronx, NY, and an MBA in sales, marketing and communications from Fordham University in New York. She resides in Florida with her husband and four dogs.

Administration & Technology Team

Bob Lester

Robert Lester

Bob Lester has more than 32 years of experience in publishing with a variety of companies. As an accomplished publishing professional Bob has extensive microform, print, and digital product development and strategic management experience. Throughout his career, he has acquired a superb knowledge of historical/archival collections worldwide, created dynamic marketing and sales plans and programs, and gained an effective knowledge of other industry players and their offerings. In the rapidly changing information world, Bob believes strongly in consistent innovation in publishing methodologies to meet the evolving needs of customers.

Beginning as an indexer, Bob’s publishing career has advanced through many levels of management, including senior research editor at Congressional Information Service-UPA, managing editor at LexisNexis Academic and Library Solutions and Associate Publisher and Senior Acquisitions and Developer at Gale Cengage. He is recognized for his abilities to conceptualize and implement digital historic collection business plans, product vision, direction, including product plans, product evolution, and product life cycle. Throughout his career, Bob has collaborated with a variety of stakeholders including Technology, Project Management, Marketing, and Sales, in addition to customers and source libraries and archives.

Bob has worked with a variety of source libraries and archives including the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and Air and Space Museum Archives, National Archives, Library of Congress, British Library, McMaster University Library & Archives, U.K. National Archives, Wisconsin History Society, Princeton University’s Mudd Library, The Harry Ransom Center – University of Texas at Austin, Franklin D. Roosevelt President Library, George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, and many others.

Bob has a BA in Secondary Education, Social Studies, from the University of Maryland at College Park. In addition, he has completed a number of American Management Association programs in executive management and leadership.

Chris Sheridan

After years as an applications and systems programmer for New York State, Chris Sheridan worked as a software developer, manager of mainframe customer support, and, finally, director of development at BRS Software Products. As a freelancer, she wrote a Java toolkit to enable creation of web-based interfaces for the BRS search engine. Chris has worked with Joe Paulsen on the Accessible Archives application since 2007.

Chris graduated from Le Moyne College with a degree in mathematics and later earned master’s degrees in computer science and psychology. She lives in Albany, NY where she enjoys reading, solving crossword puzzles, and travelling whenever she can.

JD Thomas

JD Thomas has a passion for exploring new ways to communicate, collaborate, and share information in ways that enhance the value and usefulness of the information. He takes pleasure in educating people on how to make the most of the technology that surrounds them in ways that pay real dividends for both individuals and organizations.

JD gives workshops on crafting websites to be both discover-able and socially engaging using strictly ‘White Hat’ search engine and social media optimization (SEO/SMO) techniques. His skills and perspective have helped a variety of businesses and libraries create a stronger connection with their patrons.

Client Services Team

Mark Barragry

Mark Barragry is an information and publishing industry specialist with global experience in strategic innovation, direction and delivery of digital product and service programs in the STM, professional, and research spaces.

Considering himself a publishing “lifer”, Mark has a long record of market and opportunity innovation, using multiple research, market context and insight techniques to identify potential for new products and services and deliver customer value and financial success. He made his start in commissioning print-based academic and reference publications in the 1980s, before seeing his first CD-ROM, getting the digital bug and moving on to work for primary publishers and aggregators including Routledge, Thomson, Chadwyck-Healey, ProQuest, Wolters Kluwer and AIP Publishing.

Mark has worked worldwide in B2B partnership development, alliance formation and M&A targeting, establishing and managing relationships at senior levels with scholarly and professional societies, editorial boards, universities and research organizations, technology start-ups, lobby organizations, government and international agencies, vendors and customer groups. Now based in the US, Mark has worked in the UK, Europe, China, Australia, and South-East Asia.

A native of London, Mark graduated from Oxford University and has homes in Sleepy Hollow, NY and Cambridge, UK. He shares his life with wife Amanda, three sons, 2 boisterous dogs and 2 laid-back cats.

Debra Brown-Spruill

Debra Spruill

Debra Spruill is a consultant in the field of preservation with an emphasis on digital preservation. She was recently Director, OCLC Preservation Service Centers responsible for strategic, business development, operational, and contracting for its four Centers, including on-site locations. She was also responsible for client contracts. Ms. Spruill was also named to the Library of Congress ALTO XML Schema Editorial Board..

Ms. Spruill was with OCLC for more than nine years. She previously was Executive Director, Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS), serving the academic and research library community. There her duties included overall operations, systems development, production, marketing, and sales and merger and acquisitions activities.

Ms. Spruill held management positions with Engineering Information and R.R. Bowker, where she specialized in database development operations and production.

Ms. Spruill holds an M.L.S. from Rutgers University where her area of study was bibliographic databases with an interest in MSS and Incunabula. She is also a certified webmaster and web developer. She has also completed the Digital Preservation Management workshop at Cornell University and contributed to a variety of OCLC-sponsored workshops on planning digital projects, metadata implementation, and preserving digitized material.

Barbara Chen

Barbara Chen has been in the information industry for her entire professional career. Soon after receiving her MLS from SUNY Albany, she joined the H.W. Wilson Company as an indexer. She subsequently developed her technological skills when computers were introduced into the company and she became involved in data analysis, training, systems analysis, and new platform development. As her responsibilities steadily increased, she moved into management as Associate Director of Indexing Services for periodical indexes. Along with editorial control, new product development, digitization of retrospective print volumes, marketing, budgeting, pricing, vendor negotiation, and HR for a large staff consumed her time. She left the company after 24 years.

In 2001, Barbara joined the Modern Language Association as director of bibliographic information services and editor, MLA International Bibliography. MLA took advantage of her large skill set and allowed her to use her creativity to bring this leading humanities database into the 21st century with major enhancements including full text, abstracts, DOIs, ORCID identifiers, digitization of retrospective volumes, and video tutorials. As a member of MLA’s senior staff, she also participated in association management and governance activities.

Barbara has served on several industry association committees including NFAIS Humanities Roundtable, most recently as chair, Association of American Publishers Professional and Scholarly Publishing division Committee on Digital Innovation and as well as a Prose Awards judge. She received an NFAIS honorary fellow award in 2019.

Barbara graduated from LeMoyne College. Barbara and her husband currently reside in Tappan, NY.

Marjorie Hlava

Marjorie (Margie) Hlava founded Access Innovations, Inc. in 1976, two years after joining the Special Libraries Association. She served as Chapter President for the 79-80 year, and by 1983 she was Chair-Elect of the Information Technology Division. She has been active in the association since, serving as Chair of the Technical Standards Committee for eight years, on other committees as needed, on the Board of Directors, and currently as Chair of the Bylaws Committee. Paula Hane, writing in the November 2004 ITI Newslink, called her “a leading light in many industry organizations”.

Margie makes at least a half dozen presentations each year, from explaining the basics of thesaurus development and indexing to introducing the newest concepts in information organization and delivery. She speaks at university symposiums, continuing quality improvement seminars, conference workshops, and industry gatherings. Among her awards is Lazerow Lecturer at Long Island University in 2002.

Margie is the holder of three patents. She has guided her company’s software development efforts to produce thesaurus management, machine-aided indexing, and XML database tools that unlock the riches of specialized libraries for their users and sponsors.

An advocate of clear and relevant industry standards, Margie represented SLA at the National Standards Institute during her tenure as Technical Standards Committee Chair and contributed significantly to maintaining current and responsive thesaurus construction standards as well as advising on other related NISO/ANSI standards.

The integration of thesaurus and search engine, as exemplified on SLA’s website, improves the retrieval rate of related items in a collection. The integration of the rule base created for machine-aided indexing with the search engine adds a way to link search words with the thesaurus and in context. Margie’s vision of this valuable improvement drove the development of a new feature in her company’s Data Harmony software suite.

Learn more about Marjorie Hlava.

Diane J. Hoffman

Diane has been involved in marketing information products and services for over 35 years.

Most recently she worked for RefWorks-COS (a division of ProQuest) and was responsible for expanding and growing COS funding and collaboration tools. Prior to that she was Senior Director Product Management, Life Sciences, where she was responsible for the direction of the CSA Natural and Life Science products and services. Diane joined CSA in 2001 where she was based in Oxford, UK for three years as Director, CSA Business Development Europe. Preceding joining CSA, she had her own consulting company Hoffman Information Services, where she currently works.

Formerly she held the position of Vice President of Marketing and Distribution at BIOSIS where she was responsible for marketing, sales, advertising, education, customer services, licensing and new product development. Before joining BIOSIS, Diane was involved in marketing print services for the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and electronic services for Bibliographic Retrieval Service (BRS) and Disclosure. She was also involved in creating electronic chemical products for various Maxwell companies including Molecular Design Ltd. and Maxwell Online.

Previous to her segue into the information marketing area, Diane received her MSLS from Syracuse University in 1972 and worked for Syracuse University and SUNY-Oswego as Science Librarian.

Learn more about Diane J. Hoffman.

Donna Lynn

Donna Lynn applies her twenty-five years of experience to help organizations achieve revenue growth through successful business development and partnering; implement strategic change to increase customer satisfaction and achieve operational excellence and bottom line growth; and execute M&A and exit plans for business owners. Her background encompasses new venture establishment, P&L and operations management, strategic planning, global sales and business development, product development and commercialization; venture capital raising and M&A.

Donna was a co-founder, President and COO of KnowledgeMax, Inc., an eBusiness, supply chain firm providing knowledge resources, print-on-demand services, and knowledge management to Fortune 500 corporations. She led the raise of early stage capital rounds and the successful capture of a multi-year, multimillion-dollar contract with IBM to launch the company.

Donna was President of the U.S. operations of SilverPlatter Information, Inc. where she developed new business and financial plans for the U.S. company and built the sales organization. Donna restructured operations and business processes to serve customers and business partners more effectively and realize bottom line growth through productivity improvements.

Donna was co-founder and later CEO of Online Computer Systems, Inc., a pioneer in the development of electronic publishing and multimedia technologies, integrated library systems, and custom information systems. Online was acquired by Reed Elsevier and Donna led the company for eleven years after the acquisition.

Donna began her career in the aerospace industry at Cape Kennedy, having studied mathematics and business at the University of Florida and Florida Institute of Technology. She continues to serve on Boards of Directors and Advisors to emerging market companies. She and her husband live in the Washington, D.C. area and Florida.

Learn more about Donna Lynn.

Jay A. Rosenfield

Jay Rosenfield

Jay received his B.S.E. from the Wharton School. He went on to work for Ringe Media, a national republican consulting firm, assisting in campaigns for many gubernatorial, senate and congressional candidates, including Governors Carroll Campbell and Bob Martinez.

After moving back to Rhode Island, Jay founded a computer company focused on the legal and municipal markets. He was the IT consultant for several cities and towns, providing oversight for some of the first microcomputer implementations in the state.

In 1994, Jay co-founded CompBase, a company that provides easy access to public information. CompBase works with state and local governments to help them sort and organize their paper documents and, in turn, convert them into useful, searchable web-based information.

In addition to his primary companies, Jay founded Compass Medical, a regional distributor of Physio-Control Lifepak defibrillators and he was also vice-president of operations for Galen Technologies, a start-up medical technology company.

Jay is a born entrepreneur with a passion for “behind the scenes” aspects of a company. Jay resides in Cranston Rhode Island, with his wife, two children and a dog.

Learn more about Jay A. Rosenfield.

Jay Ven Eman

Jay Ven Eman, Ph.D.

Jay Ven Eman, CEO, Access Innovations, Inc., Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been with Access Innovations since December, 1978. He has been active in all aspects of its business. He has overseen Access’ database production services where he was responsible for the design and conversion of large, legacy databases for a variety of government and private organizations. He writes, conducts workshops, consults, and helps build large scale, complex, information rich databases. He has presented papers and workshops at ASIS&T, SLA, ASIDIC, InternetWorld, Online – London, AGSI – Netherlands and many others. Before joining Access, he worked for the University of New Mexico at the Technology Applications Center, where he specialized in technology transfer and information dissemination of space technology to the commercial arena. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Jay joined Access Innovations in December, 1978. As Chief Executive Officer, he has contributed to every aspect of the business. He has overseen Access’ database production services where he was responsible for the design and conversion of large, legacy databases for a variety of government and private organizations. He writes, conducts workshops, consults, and helps build large scale, complex, information rich databases. Jay works closely with the professional staff, developing and presenting workshops and seminars on database development, legacy file conversions, SGML and HTML, and other related topics.

Learn more about Jay Ven Eman.

Partners

COUNTER©

COUNTER provides the standard that enables the knowledge community to count the use of electronic resources. Known as the Code of Practice, the standard ensures vendors and publishers can provide their library customers with consistent, credible and comparable usage data.

Contact: www.projectcounter.org / lorraine.estelle@counterusage.org

Scholarly iQ©

Scholarly iQ provides independent, trusted eBusiness solutions to the academic publishing market. SiQ is the independent, trusted third party COUNTER R5 and SUSHI compliant vendor, authorized since 2003 – SiQ services integrate and deliver meaningful data accurately and on time for better business decisions. SiQ leverages leading technologies and has a solid team of professionals in online publishing, web analytics, database integration, and web site development, providing legendary client support 24×7 with energy, enthusiasm and commitment.

Contact: www.scholarlyiq.com / stuart.maxwell@scholarlyiq.com