The Evergreen Outreach Committee is pleased to announce that November’s Contributor of the Month is Kate Coleman of Jefferson County Library, which is a part of the Missouri Evergreen Consortium. Kate is a Technical Services Specialist with Jefferson County and just started her tenure as chair of Missouri Evergreen’s Cataloging Committee.
Kate has been a cataloger for 17 years, and when her county joined the Missouri Evergreen Consortium a few years ago she got involved in conversations with other catalogers in the consortium. “Working with catalogers all over the state is very fun,” Kate says, “and helping libraries of all sizes with their cataloging issues is rewarding.”
This experience working with catalogers from all sizes of libraries has also reinforced to her the need for the community to be broadminded about its users. “I’ve seen how important it is for the Evergreen community at large to be cognizant of the different levels of knowledge.”
Kate’s Evergreen community involvement started with her attendance at the Evergreen Conference in 2018, when it was held in St. Charles, Missouri. In her own words, “I have been hooked ever since! It’s a great community to be involved in with people who are always willing to help. I have learned so much from Evergreeners across the country.”
Since then, Kate has joined the Cataloging Working Group, and is now a member of CWG’s Organizing Committee; has presented “Scrubaloging – Formatting and fixing MARC records” as part of the 2019 Evergreen Conference; and has become involved with Bug Squashing Week and bug reporting in Launchpad. A pretty impressive stretch for her first 18 months of community work!
“Whatever you do in your library and/or whatever you’re interested in, I bet there is an Evergreen committee or interest group pertaining to it!” Kate tells us. She recommends Bug Squashing Week or the Documentation Interest Group (DIG) as great entry points into the broader Evergreen community. “[DIG] always needs eyes to read and fingers to type … if you’re new, it’s a great way to learn as you’re reading the documentation, while also helping the community!”
Kate leaves us with some final thoughts about the openness of our community. “I really appreciate how welcoming the Evergreen community is to new people, and always willing to help not only with ideas and issues, but to teach with an open mind.”
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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.