by 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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Any questions can be directed to Andrea Buntz Neiman via abneiman@equinoxinitiative.org or abneiman in IRC.