What’s Brewing - The Innovative Interfaces Blog

Robert Allen

Senior Software Engineering Director

Robert Allen has found that technology is constantly evolving and it is very easy to become consumed by it. In over 20 years of developing software he has learned that technology for technology's sake is like junk food...exciting but empty. If it doesn't provide a practical solution to a problem the investment in new technology is a waste. Not that he thinks we should accept the status quo. Sometimes you have to set aside the folklore and traditions to move forward. This is the exciting part of his work at Innovative, leveraging the past while keeping an open mind about the future. If anything describes his career it is the advice given early in his career, and which is summed up nicely on many Bay Area bumper stickers: Question Authority!

Alan Dyck

Product Manager

Alan Dyck was called a "Renaissance Man" by his high school principal, but prefers to call himself "a jack of all trades and master of none." With a degree in graphic design, he made a career in software development. Never content to over-specialize, he developed multimedia educational products, enterprise web applications, and games. Moving on, he served as a project manager and systems analyst. What ties it all together? For him, it's all about communication. Start with great ideas. Then communicate them clearly. When he is not helping libraries communicate through their web catalogs, you will find him coaching youth soccer or capturing stories in photography and video.

Sandy Hurd

Director of Strategic Markets

Sandy Hurd has extensive experience in the library industry and has helped to bring to market numerous resource management and content delivery products for top information industry companies. Before joining Innovative in 2003, she held senior positions at Northern Light Technology, EBSCO Information Services, and The H.W. Wilson Company. Sandy has served on the editorial board of Serials Review (since 1996) and has spoken frequently on EDI, the serials world, web portals, and ERM. Recently, she coordinated Taiga Forum events and joined NASIG's Program Planning Committee.

Topics: Standards, eResources, Electronic Resource Management, Academic Libraries

Nathan James

Senior Sales Systems Engineer

Nathan James, who likes to think of himself as a pragmatic Librarian, joined the Innovative team in 1998 as a Library Training Consultant. Before that he spent some of his formative years crawling under tables and circulation desks hunting network gremlins as the Manager of Computer and Network Services at the Central Arkansas Library System. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas (and has met "Bill" several times, if you are wondering). He holds a BA in French from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and an MLIS from University of Texas, Austin.

Rice Majors

Product Manager

Rice Majors has an MLS from Emporia State University and, before coming to Innovative, worked in several positions with the Cornell University library system as well as at Lewis & Clark College in his hometown of Portland, Oregon. He serves on NISO's Content and Collection Management Topic Committee and is the Chair of the ALCTS FRBR Interest Group. In his spare time, Rice is an adjunct faculty member at Contra Costa College, where he is the band teacher, and sings opera chorus with San Francisco Lyric Opera.

Bob McQuillan

Senior Product Manager

Bob McQuillan remembers working in an academic library many years ago when the brand new computer terminal blinked its clumsy green cursor for the first time. The digitization of the analog library world had slowly begun, and so had some exciting new technologies that led him over the next two decades into senior product management and marketing roles at various information technology and computer graphics companies in his native San Francisco Bay Area. At one point he took a bird’s eye view to share his industry insights as an executive editor and analyst for Penton Media covering digital media technologies. His favorite role by far is working with eProducts at Innovative Interfaces where he is able to leverage his passions for libraries, media and technology to help customers build a better digital library.

Spenser the Marketing Guy

Marketing Specialist

Spenser Thompson has an MLIS and has worked in academic and special libraries in California. He also has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (Religion) and Antioch University (Psychology). Spenser is originally from Hollywood where his father made a living making music for recording artists, TV commercials and film.

Topics: Events, promotions, news from Innovative libraries, product news, and marketing libraries.