Evergreen ILS

Open Source Library Software

Andrea Buntz Neiman

Evergreen Community Spotlight: Gina Monti

The Evergreen Outreach Committee is pleased to announce that November’s Community Spotlight is Gina Monti, who is an Evergreen Systems Specialist at Bibliomation. Gina is a newer member of the Evergreen Community but has jumped in with both feet!

Gina started at Bibliomation in 2019, having previously worked as a librarian in both reference and youth services. At Bibliomation, she does database management and supports Evergreen end users. “I’ve learned a lot in my first year but I know there’s so much more to learn, too. I’ve found out I enjoy doing command-line server stuff. The teamwork is great and I don’t just do solo projects.”

In her reference librarian jobs Gina developed problem solving skills and honed her ability to explain complex technical topics to non-technical users. She recently applied her technical skills towards a development certificate, which has helped her become familiar with things like debugging processes and Integrated Development Environments. “I like knowing how things work,” Gina says.

Working with Evergreen is her first foray into the world of open source ILSs, and she remarks, “It’s a very different community and world – I like it better because I feel like you have more community values.” 

Gina’s first community event was the pre-3.5 Feedback Fest that took place in February this year. She recommends Feedback Fest and Bug Squashing Weeks as good intros to the Evergreen community. Gina also started attending community meetings including New Developers and Outreach, and was part of the team that put on the first-ever remote Hackaway this year. “Any time I organize something, I’m happy!” Gina tells us.

This year’s Hackaway was the first community use of the videoconferencing platform HopIn, and during the event Gina actively assisted attendees with troubleshooting, general questions, and use of this new platform. Gina notes that events like this are full of opportunities to explore community interests and future projects.

Gina tells us that while she was hesitant about getting involved at first, her supervisor (long time community member Jessica Woolford) helped her become more comfortable with the networking side of the community. “Even if you feel a little intimidated to talk to people – and I understand that, it’s a whole room of people who you don’t know – just observing that chat, seeing people sharing their knowledge, is great,” Gina says. “People are very generous with their knowledge and want to help you.”

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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.

Evergreen Community Spotlight: Rogan Hamby

With apologies for the belated posting, the Evergreen Outreach Committee is pleased to announce that October’s Community Spotlight is our very own Outreach Committee Chair, Rogan Hamby. In his professional life, Rogan is currently the Project and Data Analyst at Equinox Open Library Initiative, where he does a little bit of everything. “One person once described a good part of my job as punching MARC records into shape,” he says. “There is some truth to that.”

Rogan has been working with the Evergreen community in one form or another since 2009 and his contributions to the community are extensive. Starting in 2012, he helped organize the first community Hack-a-way, and has had a role organizing that event ever since. The 2020 Hack-a-way is this week and is being hosted online. Rogan also previously served as an Evergreen Board Member, and has chaired the Outreach Committee since 2018. His community work has also included writing patches, testing and reviewing patches, and presenting at several Evergreen Conferences.

Rogan’s earliest Evergreen work arose out of his role as a public library employee with SCLENDS, an early Evergreen consortium. Rogan worked for different public libraries as well as the State Library which gave him a unique perspective on Evergreen. “I saw the challenges of how libraries at different sizes work within a consortium and the wider Evergreen community,” he tells us. “That has really informed how I look at community interactions.”

He has presented several “SQL in Evergreen” workshops, and these have shown to be very popular with the community. “I’ve had a lot of people say [the workshops] really helped them understand Evergreen reporting better and that they’ve kept notes they refer back to regularly,” Rogan says. “That’s been really nice.  No one should underestimate how nice it is to hear that someone found what you did useful.” Rogan’s Evergreen SQL wisdom is gathered on his Emerald Elephant blog.

When he’s not devoting his considerable talents to the Evergreen community, Rogan also enjoys reading, tabletop gaming, baking, and woodworking, and has recently started to learn guitar and still life drawing – both of which he claims to be bad at, but is enjoying learning. There’s a metaphor for community involvement: don’t fear your lack of knowledge – enjoy incrementally building that knowledge. 

Specifically, Rogan advises checking out a community working group. “All of our meetings are public so you’re welcome to lurk to see if it feels like a good fit for you. Do jump in though, people aren’t going to press-gang you so if you want to get involved you have to take initiative,” he says. “Our community is pretty amazing and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

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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.

Evergreen Community Spotlight: Jessica Woolford

The Evergreen Outreach Committee is pleased to announce that September’s Community Spotlight is Jessica Woolford of Bibliomation, where she is the Evergreen System Manager. Jessica has been involved with the Evergreen community since she started at Bibliomation in 2010. Her first position there was an Application Support Specialist, directly assisting Bibliomation’s libraries with training, helpdesk, and other front end concerns.

While working as a Support Specialist, she explored the Islandora project which was her first foray into Linux and back end work. She learned about OPAC development from a Bibliomation colleague, and leveraged these new skills when she was promoted to Evergreen System Manager. 

Even though she works in a more technical environment now, Jessica has maintained her connection with the libraries and end users. “I can see things from both sides now, from the developer angle and the user angle,” she says.

Jessica is well-known in the Evergreen community as being the long time leader of the Reports Interest Group, recently reconvened after a hiatus, though her affiliation with Reports was almost an accident. “I attended the Grand Rapids conference, and [my boss] asked me to speak on a panel about Reports,” Jessica relates. “I didn’t really know about Evergreen Reports but it turned out I had a knack for it – so it’s a complete accident that I ended up working with Reports!” Since that first conference, Jessica has given presentations or facilitated discussions in 8 other Evergreen conferences – only missing the 2019 conference, right after her son was born.

Jessica’s affinity for Reports has strengthened and in turn been strengthened by her knowledge of PostgreSQL. “Reports have helped me understand Postgres – and the more I know about SQL the more I know about how the Reporter works,” she says. 

As her technical skill set has expanded, Jessica has also become more active in Evergreen bug reporting and testing via Launchpad. “The community has done a great job making Launchpad more accessible and offering training to people,” she says. “There’s been amazing efforts in the last few years to take that fruit and make it hang lower.”

Jessica recommends interest groups as a way for new community members to get involved with Evergreen. “There’s so many interest groups now – just pick one, and jump in,” she says. “Take a topic you’re interested in and join an interest group – if there’s a topic you’re interested in and there isn’t an interest group, make one!”

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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.