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.