NISO Webinar, Working with Semantics - Technology and Tools

Helping people gain a greater understanding of the information community — our issues and concerns, challenges and opportunities — is core to NISO's mission. Our events are a key element of this, with our popular webinar program at their heart. And, following the NISO/NFAIS merger earlier this year, all NISO members can now attend all 14 webinars in 2020 completely free of charge! This includes an unlimited number of places and full access to a recording of each webinar for anyone who is unable to attend the event itself.

Heather Hedden is a Data and Knowledge Engineer in the professional services team of Semantic Web Company, vendor of PoolParty software for taxonomy, ontology, and knowledge graph management. She trains clients in getting started in building taxonomies and ontology models. Previously she worked as a taxonomy consultant (Hedden Information Management) as a taxonomist in various organizations. Through Hedden Information Management she continues to teach an online course in taxonomy creation, and she has given numerous conference and corporate taxonomy workshops. Heather is author of The Accidental Taxonomist.

Jeff Mixter works as a software engineer at OCLC Membership & Research. His work focuses on linked data and digital humanities research. He holds Bachelor's Degrees in History and German from The Ohio State University as well as Master's Degrees in Library Information Science and Information Architecture/Knowledge Management from Kent State University. Jeff's work focuses on linked data and cultural heritage metadata management.

Leslie Johnston has over twenty years’ experience in digitization and digital conversion, setting and applying metadata and content standards, and overseeing the development of digital content management and delivery systems and services. Currently the Director of Digital Preservation at The National Archives (NARA), she served as chief of the Repository Development Center at the Library of Congress until April 2014. Previously, she served as the head of digital access services at the University of Virginia Library; Head of Instructional Technology and Library Information Systems at the Harvard Design School; the academic technology specialist for Art for the Stanford University Libraries; and as database specialist for the Getty Research Institute. She has also been active in the museum community, working for various museums, teaching courses on museum systems, editing the journal Spectra and serving on the board of the Museum Computer Network.

Simeon Warner is the Associate University Librarian and Director of IT at Cornell University Library. His responsibilities include oversight of IT operations, user experience, web programming, digital preservation, and open scholarly publishing. He has a particular interest in interoperability between information systems and the development of standards and collaborations to facilitate that. Warner’s current work includes digital preservation (OCFL), evolution of the FOLIO library services platform, use of linked open data for description and discovery of library resources (LD4L/LD4P), image and A/V interoperability (IIIF), and repositories for open-access scholarly publishing (including work with Samvera and ORCID). Past projects include technical direction of the arXiv e-print archive and development of the OAI-PMH and ResourceSync standards.