2023 Samvera Board Election candidate statements

Jeremy Friesen

Senior Lead Software Engineer at Software Services by Scientist.com

As a member of Software Services, we engage with many clients exploring, adopting, maintaining, and extending core Samvera technologies. We are also embedded in Scientist.com, a company driven by the mission to be a contributing force for ending human diseases by 2050. Both require a mind-set centered in curiosity, sustainability, and collaboration. I believe my vantage point at Scientist.com paired with past experiences at Notre Dame will provide a unique context for Samvera’s board as we explore the research data topic.

In Samvera, I have worked in and on the software development cycle; Contributing code, documentation, reviews, design discussions, facilitating working groups, process improvements, tech calls, and more. I've also participated in and facilitated Samvera Partner meetings. I have observed the community at work at many levels, and appreciate its values of openness and inclusion; our shared effort to work together to address challenges and opportunities.

Having left and returned to the Samvera community, I want to restate my previous sentiment: “This past year [academic calendar year 2020 to 2021] has reinforced my deeply held belief that community-oriented processes and solutions are our collective way forward. I am eager and excited to further and continue my contributions to Samvera. I will bring three key things: A current contributing software developers perspective; a passion for a community that understands inclusion and diversity requires ongoing action; and an ability to build coalitions through listening and growing shared visions.” I wrote that a year ago, and it holds true for this past year as well.

Jessica Hilt

Manager of Applications Development, University of California San Diego

At the library for UC San Diego, I collaborate with UC Santa Barbara on our Surfliner project, which aligns digital library projects together so we can go farther as a cross-campus team than we could as a local development group. In the past year, we’ve worked closely with the Samvera community on Hyrax, Valkyrie, and now, we’ve been dipping a toe (sometimes a foot) into Avalon.

I’ve been active in a number of working groups, including the Hyrax Working group and the Code of Conduct group.

My first day on the job at the Library was five years ago and it was at Samvera Connect in Chicago (brrr!)! I think that has probably set the tone for my career here. I definitely see how much my team and the university has benefited from the collaboration and trying to remove barriers to entry into Samvera products. Community building is important to me and I think it needs to be done with empathy, patience, and a lot of humor. If elected, I look forward to bringing that to the board.

Kirsten Leonard

Executive Director, Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI), Hyku for Consortia Project

As the executive director of a consortium focused on deep collaboration, the Samvera community and software are critical to our success and in alignment with our core needs. PALNI serves twenty-four small private colleges in Indiana. The Hyku flavor of Samvera is the only solution available that supports scaled collaboration to manage the repository code base and to support sharing of the management of institutional repositories. Small libraries often can’t afford the software and have limited bandwidth to provide library expertise to leverage code that might be provided. But through Hyku, all of the PALNI libraries can share expertise not only with each other but with other consortial partners beyond our primary partner PALCI.

I am interested in serving on the Samvera board both to learn and to help. Samvera, as a community, has done an outstanding job of taking innovative code and leveraging it to serve the needs of an increasingly diverse set of libraries. The community has also welcomed new ways of thinking about governance, collaboration, and business modeling to sustain itself, innovate, and expand its reach. As we seek to bring back core library and information services infrastructure into ownership of the community, we need strong governance and technology investment to build efficiency in addition to the innovation. I currently serve on other projects interested in leveraging the community to rethink shared collections and library infrastructure. If I am honored to be elected to the Samvera board, I hope to use gained expertise and connections across all the projects to the betterment of all communities.

Robin Ruggaber

University of Virginia Library, Director for Strategic Technology Partnerships & Initiatives

At the University of Virginia (UVA), I work as the Director for Strategic Technology Partnerships & Initiatives within the Library. This position affords me the time and opportunity to work at an international level with community driven open source, preservation, accessibility, open access initiatives. I also work across my institution and within my organization as a technology advisor, consultant, project manager, and a mentor. I have 29 years working in technology at UVA with 20 years in IT management. The UVA Library was a founding member of Samvera and in 2010, I began working with the Library to leverage Samvera to build our first institution repository. Within Samvera, I have served in governance (2011-2019), community building, training, worked to establish the interest group/working group framework, and worked within that framework to further the community’s priority work. I think the community is at an inflection point and I am excited about the opportunity to work with the community and the board to take the community and the technology to the next level.

David Schober

Northwestern University Library Repository and Digital Curation Product Manager and Development Team Lead

I am Northwestern University Library’s Repository and Digital Curation Product Manager and Development Team Lead. During my tenure at Northwestern I have acted as Product Owner of the Mellon and IMLS-funded Avalon Media System grants and led the development of our IR and Digital Collections systems. I have also had the opportunity to serve as Chair of Samvera Virtual Connect while we were building that conference as an important part of our community. Prior to coming to Northwestern I worked in academic and non-profit publishing.

With my experience, I hope to bring a broad view to the Samvera Board, helping to foster a collaborative spirit, while keeping a focus on pragmatic approaches to building community-based software.