Keynote speakers

Mary Ellen Bates

Mary Ellen Bates is the principal of Bates Information Services, a research and consulting business based in Washington, DC. She is sometimes called an 'information broker.'

Using online databases and the Internet, as well as access to trade associations, government agencies, and other expert resources, she finds business information, market intelligence and just about any other business research topic that's available online or through telephone research.

Examples of the kinds of research she does include:

• the impact of information technology on the global economy
• the outlook for the pre-fab housing industry in Europe and Japan
• recent high-tech developments in the grocery industry
• joint ventures in the 'edutainment' field

She also provides advanced reference interview skills training to libraries and information centers.

She was the 1996-1997 President of AIIP, the Association of Independent Information Professionals. They are an association of people who own their own information businesses. She was the first recipient of AIIP's Sue Rugge Memorial Award, created to recognize an AIIP member who, through mentoring, has significantly helped others establish their businesses.

She has been voted Member of the Year of the Telecom Division and the Washington DC Chapter of the Special Librarians Association. She was also the 1998-1999 Chair of SLA's Communications division.

She has been quoted in publications such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Business Week, Washington Business Journal and Forbes.

She is the author of Mining for Gold on the Internet: how to find investment and financial information on the Internet (May 2000, McGraw-Hill), the co-author of Researching Online For Dummies, 2nd edition (February 2000, IDGBooks) and the author of Super Searchers Do Business: the online secrets of top business researchers (June 1999, Information Today, Inc.) and the Online Deskbook (1996, Information Today, Inc.). She is a contributing editor of Information Advisor and EContent.

And her final claim to fame is having been profiled in Reva Basch's book Secrets of the Super Net Searchers (1996, Information Today, Inc.).

Clare Hart

President and chief executive officer Factiva, A Dow Jones and Reuters Company

As president and chief executive officer, Ms. Hart leads the company in creating information solutions for corporate customers around the world.

Prior to this appointment, Ms. Hart was vice president and director of Global Sales for Factiva where she consolidated multiple sales groups into one global entity, supporting both Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing, and Factiva Intranet integration products. In this position, Ms. Hart managed about a third of Factiva's workforce.

Before joining Factiva, Ms. Hart held a number of senior management positions in Dow Jones Interactive Publishing, a unit of Dow Jones and Company. Most recently in 1998, as executive director of Enterprise Products, Ms. Hart led product management, marketing and customer service groups that supported the sale of Dow Jones Interactive Publishing's electronic news and information products to corporations. Prior to this position, from 1995 to 1996, she was director of corporate news products. In 1996, she became director, enterprise marketing, where she was instrumental in moving Dow Jones Interactive to the world wide web.

Ms. Hart joined Dow Jones in 1983 as a programmer/analyst in the Applications Development department. She later became senior programming analyst and then program manager in the Advanced Systems Group. As part of that group, Ms. Hart drove the conceptualization, development and implementation of DowVision, a news-to-the-desktop product which was launched in 1990. In 1991, she left Dow Jones to join Desktop Data, where she established the business base for the Rust Belt territory and Canada. She returned to Dow Jones in 1992 and was named regional sales manager for the U.S. central region and Canada. In 1994, she became sales director, West for Dow Jones News/Retrieval and DowVision, the predecessor products of Dow Jones Interactive.

Highly regarded as an authority on the concept of competitive intelligence, Ms. Hart sat on the Board of Directors of the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) from 1999-2000.

Ms. Hart received a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and computer systems management from Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pa. She also has an MBA from Rider University, Lawrenceville, N.J.

Greg Notess

Greg R. Notess has been writing and speaking about the Internet information resources since 1991. A three-time Information Authorship award winner, he is the "On the Net" and "Internet Search Engine Update" columnist for ONLINE as well as the"Web Wanderings" columnist for ECONTENT. Greg is also the author of Government Information on the Internet, a directory of over 4,500 United States federal, state, local, and international government Web sites. The third edition was just published mid year 2000.

An internationally known conference speaker on search engines and other Internet topics, Greg has spoken at Online World, Internet Librarian, Special Libraries Association Annual Conference, and international meetings in Stockholm, London, Montreal, and Sydney.

On the Web, Greg maintains Search Engine Showdown, which reviews, compares, analyzes, and tries to keep up with the rapidly changing Web search tools.

Greg is an associate professor and reference librarian at Montana State University-Bozeman.

Stevan Harnad

Stevan Harnad was born in Hungary, did his undergraduate work at McGill University and his doctorate at Princeton University and is currently Professor of Cognitive Science at Southampton University. His research is on categorisation, communication and cognition. Founder and Editor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (a paper journal published by Cambridge University Press), Psycoloquy (an electronic journal sponsored by the American Psychological Association) and the CogPrints Electronic Preprint Archive in the Cognitive Sciences (modelled in the Los Alamos Physics Eprint Archive and supported by JISC/eLib), he is past president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and author and contributor to over 100 publications, including Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech (NY Acad Sci 1976), Lateralization in the Nervous System (Acad Pr 1977), Peer Commentary on Peer Review: A Case Study in Scientific Quality Control (CUP 1982), Categorical Perception: The Groundwork of Cognition (CUP 1987), The Selection of Behavior: The Operant Behaviorism of BF Skinner: Comments and Consequences (CUP 1988) and Icon, Category, Symbol: Essays on the Foundations and Fringes of Cognition (in prep).

Neil McLean

Neil McLean is University Librarian at Macquarie University. He has contributed extensively to national and international thinking on the application of information technology to library and information services through publications, conference papers and representation on external committees. His 1999 publication, Investment in Information and Knowledge Infrastructure: A Strategic Framework for Australia's Research Enterprise has been a catalyst for extensive debate on sustainability issues relating to the national library and information infrastructure, particularly for Australia's research community.

He is currently chair of Standards Australia IT19 Committee, Computer Applications - Information and Document, chair of the Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee LIDDAS Project Management Board, chair of the Education Network Australia (EdNA) Metadata Standards Working Group and a member of the Higher Education Advisory Group for EdNA. He was also chair of the ABN Network Management Committee from 1994-1997 and a member of the NSW Information Technology Advisory Committee from 1994-1996.