2026-2028 Samvera Board Election Candidate Statements

Aaron Collier

Digital Library Software Engineer (Infrastructure), Library Technology, Stanford University Libraries

I am excited to put my name forward again as an incumbent member of the Samvera Board, representing Stanford Digital Library Systems and Services. As a Samvera founding institution Stanford has been deeply engaged in advancing our community's goals, outreach & engagement. It has been my pleasure to represent Stanford within the Samvera community and I look forward to the opportunity to continue supporting the community on the board.

Prior to Stanford, I served as Digital Repository Services Manager for California State University and was instrumental in the adoption of Samvera as a system wide institutional repository. I will continue to bring that strong collaborative ethos and extensive experience collaborating with librarians, archivists, technologists, and various stakeholders to the Samvera Board. My aim is to continue supporting the development, maintenance, and expansion of digital libraries within our community. I am eager to continue this journey on the Samvera Board and contribute to the ongoing success of the Samvera Community.

Julie Hardesty

Metadata Analyst/Librarian, Indiana University

My involvement in the Samvera Community goes back to 2012 (pre-"Samvera" days) when I became a Metadata Analyst at Indiana University (IU) and began participating in the Avalon Media System project as a subject matter expert for metadata needs. From there I became involved in the Samvera Metadata Interest Group where I facilitated and co-facilitated for several years, helping to establish metadata properties and mappings for default Hyrax. I served as Hyrax Product Owner from the end of 2020 through the end of 2022, around the time that IU began working on its local implementation of Hyrax. My time as Hyrax Product Owner in the Samvera Community included improving accessibility and establishing a process for the work required to update backend storage connections so that Hyrax can be used with more than just Fedora 4. I have since become Product Owner for IU's Hyrax implementation and have been working to migrate 20+ years of legacy content while also engaging local collection managers to use IU's Hyrax for continuing digital special collection and archival collection management. I have a solid understanding of Avalon, Hyrax, and Hyku along with some of Samvera's side quests (Flexible Metadata, Bulkrax, Questioning Authority, and Valkyrie).

My goals within Samvera have always been focused on engaging collaboratively and encouraging us to be open as a community, not only in our codebase but also in our practices around contributions from community members. I have been involved in documentation efforts to organize and update the information we provide about Hyrax to developers and repository managers, and that work is ongoing. When Hyrax became available via Docker, I amplified that through Samvera Connect presentations and community sprint workshops, showing how anyone interested can install and run Hyrax locally to try out its capabilities without the need for system admin/developer background or specialized hardware or software. This opportunity opened the door for a wider range of people to engage in testing, documentation, and even development work. I think we can aim for a balance where institutions with developer staff implementing Hyrax can contribute back code changes and documentation updates and institutions or members newer to development work can also contribute to documentation and learn about code contribution practices.

Everyone involved in the Samvera Community is always learning how to participate in a community working towards a common goal. Samvera is a community and not just a set of products that "somebody" works on and that we all use without contributing back. If elected to the Samvera Board, I am interested in continuing to shape and encourage a contribution model that ensures Samvera is not only financially capable of continuing but also has ongoing and active participation from the widest range of community members possible.

Annamarie Klose

Metadata Initiatives Librarian, Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University Libraries

I have been an active member of the Samvera community since 2020. While my title is Metadata Initiatives Librarian, I am the de facto repository administrator for my organization’s Samvera Hyrax repository, Digital Collections (DC). I work closely with OSU Libraries’ developers on customizations and performance considerations, doing a significant amount of testing. I also provide our local DC documentation and manage projects for the repository. This requires collaboration with my team and colleagues across University Libraries. Due to my role, I began participating in the Samvera community so I could learn more and shape the Samvera platforms for the better. I have been co-leading the Samvera Metadata Interest Group (SMIG) since 2023. I am particularly interested in addressing gaps. For instance, I led the OAI Documentation Working Group to create OAI-PHM documentation for Samvera when I realized there was no official guidance on this. The outcome was a wiki page that is a living document that has been integrated into related metadata documentation and can be updated as needed.

I believe strongly in the importance of open-source software. In the libraries, archives, and museum community (LAMs), we frequently see shrinking budgets and increasing demands. Open source applications, including the Samvera platforms, are a strength. In my brief time in the Samvera community, I have been impressed by the collaboration between so many talented individuals and institutions to improve these platforms. After years of lobbying, my institution finally became a Samvera partner in late 2024. Of course, open source also means challenges. This is a warm and welcoming community, and the Samvera platforms have a lot to offer. However, Samvera platforms can be daunting for new adopters and interested parties. We have made a lot of progress as a community, including work on documentation and Valkyrie. But we continue to face opportunities and challenges. For instance, AI is both a potential tool and a hindrance from bots crashing repositories.

I am deeply invested in the Samvera community. I hereby offer my candidacy for the Samvera Board.

Christine Peterson

Independent Consultant, Christine Peterson Consulting

I am seeking a seat on the Samvera Board to support the community's continued growth and sustainability. Since joining Samvera in 2023 as Project Manager for the Amigos Hyku initiative, I have facilitated the Hyku Interest Group meeting and been an active member of other groups and have appreciated the collaborative spirit and mutual support that defines this community. I bring over 30 years of library technology experience and more than a decade working in open-source environments, having assisted hundreds of academic, public, and special libraries
with various technology implementations. As I transition to independent consulting through Christine Peterson Consulting, I am focused on meaningful projects and collaborative work. If elected, I would work to maintain Samvera's cooperative approach while supporting both established partners and libraries new to repository implementation. I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to the community's leadership and help shape its future direction.