by The Evergreen Outreach Committee is pleased to announce that May’s Contributor of the Month is Mary Llewellyn, the Database Manager at Bibliomation, a consortium of Evergreen libraries in Connecticut. Mary’s role at Bibliomation includes supporting Cataloging, Acquisitions, and Serials workflows for their member libraries.
Mary can often be found asking questions and sharing her knowledge on various Evergreen community listservs. “I like to go to the community to compare notes before I go file a bug — the listserv is a great point of entry, since there are others who may have the same issue,” Mary tells us. Since she works so closely with Cataloging, Serials, and Acquisitions, Mary is always willing to answer others’ questions in these areas.
Mary is also active in Launchpad, where she has reported 21 bugs and commented on 38 bugs.
As part of her job at Bibliomation Mary writes SQL queries to perform quality assurance & record checks, and she is always willing to share these queries with fellow Evergreen libraries. Some of the work she does with her queries include identifying vendor-level records to flag for upgraded cataloging, checking that records have a valid OCLC Title Control Number, looking for empty bib records, and finding old Acquisitions records that need to be removed or upgraded.
Mary notes that this kind of work is much easier to perform in an open source system, since they have access to system level data and can manipulate that data. “Listening at some of our meetings [with non-Evergreen libraries], it’s clear that not everyone has that door open for them,” she says. “I know how much friction that can add when you have to go through an intermediary.”
Bibliomation’s first libraries went live on Evergreen in 2010, and that’s when Mary started going to interest group meetings and communicating on the listservs. Mary has been to every Evergreen Conference since 2010’s Grand Rapids conference. “I’ve met great people at the Conferences,” Mary says. “The longer you’re in it, the better you can mesh in the community and the better you can improve your own organization and the community as a whole.”
Mary’s advice for newcomers is straightforward. “I would start by joining the listservs. Ask questions, and give others the opportunity to help you. That strengthens the bond, and someday you can return the favor!”
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Any questions can be directed to Andrea Buntz Neiman via abneiman@equinoxinitiative.org or abneiman in IRC.