The awards season is only six months away, but calls for nominations are already going out to find out who in the industry is doing work that deserves special merit.

Cilip has kicked off the nominations process for two awards it presents during the Online Information show at Olympia this November.

The Tony Kent Strix Award, awarded by Cilip sub-group UKeiG, is given in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the field of information retrieval. The Jason Farradane Award is made to an individual or a group of people in recognition of outstanding work in the field of information science.

The big event of the year is the International Information Industry Awards, a glamorous awards evening and industry party held at the end of the year in London. I've been lucky enough to attend for the last four years, as a co-host and presenter, and the evening is a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on individuals and teams who are blazing new trails for the information profession.

Prizes are awarded for the best information/knowledge teams in an Academic Environment, Business Environment, Public Sector Environment and Scientific Environment. Project awards include Innovation in Knowledge Management, Innovation in Content Management, Best Intranet/Extranet Project and Best Implementation of a Business Blog. Major individual awards include the coveted Information Professional of the Year and the Lifetime Achievement award. And there's a whole bundle of awards for products and service as well.

So if you know an individual or group out there who's beavering away on an innovative information indsutry project, don't keep it to yourself. They'll never be recognised unless someone nominates them for an award. It costs nothing to make a nomination, just a few sentences about who they are and what they're doing.