by The Evergreen Outreach Committee is pleased to announce that October’s Contributor of the Month is Anna Goben of the Indiana State Library (ISL). Anna serves as the Evergreen Indiana Program Director and Associate Database Analyst at ISL, and has been involved with Evergreen Indiana since its earliest days in 2007. Anna oversees daily operations of the Evergreen Indiana consortium.
“Because I work with staff fighting through workflow and policy issues daily, I am especially focused on monitoring and helping to fund development which will enhance the daily experience of Evergreen for patrons and staff,” Anna tells us. She has coordinated with other Evergreen consortia to collectively fund development and also brings her workflow knowledge to Launchpad, where she has filed 33 bugs.
Anna has been involved with the international Evergreen community since 2013. She credits attending the Evergreen Conference with “fir[ing] me up to get involved in the wider community,” and encourages new members to attend community events. “I would suggest that any meeting that involves members of multiple Evergreen communities will get you excited,” she says, “As you learn that they have the same enthusiasms, frustrations, and experiences that you deal with regularly.”
Anna and ISL have served as hosts of the community Hack-a-way in 2016, 2017, and 2019. Those community members who have attended the Hack-a-way can attest to the stellar hosting capabilities Anna brings to this event, which includes a homemade first-night welcome dinner for attendees.
Anna has been heavily involved with two large transitions affecting the Evergreen community in recent years – as current President of the Evergreen Project Board, she is part of the ongoing process to establish Evergreen as its own 501(c)(3) organization. This started in 2017 with the initial transition from the Software Freedom Conservancy to MOBIUS as the project’s “home”, and Anna and the current Board are working hard to permanently establish Evergreen as its own organization.
Additionally, Anna coordinated the creation of the Evergreen Community Development Initiative (ECDI) under the aegis of ISL. ECDI has assumed all development contracts from the former MassLNC. As MassLNC did, ECDI will serve as a clearinghouse for Evergreen community development funds and will continue managing cooperative development projects for the benefit of the community at large.
This cooperative spirit is something Anna embodies. “I’m always so excited to be part of a community that makes the changes they want to see rather than just feeling like they’re stuck with what they have.”
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Do you know someone in the community who deserves a bit of extra recognition? Please use this form to submit your nominations. We ask for your email in case we have any questions, but all nominations will be kept confidential.
Any questions can be directed to Andrea Buntz Neiman via abneiman@equinoxinitiative.org or abneiman in IRC.