Brian O'Leary Wins the Publishers Weekly 2025 Melcher Award

Brian O'Leary, Executive Director, Book Industry Study Group (BISG)

Publishers Weekly has named Brian O'Leary, Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), as 2025's Melcher Award honoree. The award, now in its third year, was established to honor lifetime contributions to the book publishing industry. 

In announcing the award, Publlishers Weekly highlighted O'Leary's tenure at BISG, which focused on expanding the organization's focus on metadata standards to finding solutions to major challenges facing book publishing.

From the press release

“Brian’s crystal-clear understanding of the book publishing industry and its struggles, accumulated during his many decades of hard work and dedicated service, has made him an indispensable resource to BISG,” says Joshua Tallent, director of education and sales at Firebrand Technologies and a former BISG chair. 

Not surprisingly given our organizations' respective missions, NISO and BISG have often collaborated, and NISO Executive Director Todd Carpenter serves on the BISG board. We also co-host the NISO-BISG Forum, held each year at the American Library Association Annual meeting. Congratulations to Brian on receiving this prestigious award!

See the Publishers Weekly website for the full announcement.