Candidates: 2019 Steering Group Election

Hannah Frost

Manager, Digital Library Product and Service Management

Stanford Libraries

At Stanford Libraries, I lead the team responsible for defining, managing, and delivering digital library services, including digitization, born-digital archiving, and repository-based preservation, publishing, and exhibit services.

I have been actively engaged in Samvera since its inception, serving as product manager for two local projects at Stanford (including the first Hydra head). As product manager on the Hydra-in-a-Box project, I helped drive a highly collaborative, community-oriented effort to design, specify, and develop advancements in Samvera products. I’m proud of this work, because I believe it has played a major role in stimulating the community’s heightened vibrancy and a healthy, outward facing direction.

Participating in developing the community itself -- by establishing some of the early interest groups and serving on the Samvera Connect Program Committee (2016-2018) -- has been both professionally and personally gratifying. Samvera is like family, a place for building collaboration and leadership skills amongst a close network of mission-driven colleagues. Most recently I joined the Fundraising Working Group, and with a seat on Samvera Steering, I will continue the critically important push to identify resources, pursue opportunities, and develop clear strategies to sustain Samvera now and in the successful future we envision.

Tim Marconi

University of California, San Diego

Director, Library Information Technology Services

I have been involved with the Samvera community since the 2014 Hydra Connect at UC San Diego where I attended as our IT Operations Manager. My team has been deploying and running production Hydra/Samvera applications since then but I had little experience from the development side. All of that changed this past year as I entered a new role as the Director of Information Technology for the Library at UC San Diego. So I will have the benefit of some history, but coming at things from a fresh perspective with my new role and all the recent changes in the community. Currently we are involved in a multi-institutional partnership with UC Santa Barbara utilizing Samvera core components and we have a vested interest in making sure this community succeeds.

I would like to join Samvera Steering for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I see great potential and energy towards a common good. I think the community is going in the right direction with increased governance, balanced finances, and increased funding. Samvera Connects are open, inclusive, and indicative of a healthy growing community that is focused on educating and on-boarding new contributors instead of pushing them away. I have experience serving on many different boards, campus, and multi-institutional committees and steering groups and would welcome the opportunity to serve as a steering committee member if you would have me. I appreciate your consideration and look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Simeon Warner

Interim Associate University Librarian and Director of IT

Cornell University Library

I am Director of IT at Cornell University Library in gorgeous Ithaca, NY. I assumed my current role only recently but for several years prior was a director with responsibility for library linked data and repository architecture. We depend on Samvera technologies for multiple projects and I am eager to explore opportunities related to our preservation activities. I have been involved in the repository space since I started working as a developer for arxiv.org in 1999. I believe strongly in the value of interoperability and have worked on several standards including OAI-PMH, IIIF, Fedora API, and OCFL. I am also a founding board member of ORCID and have served on the Open Repositories Steering Committee since 2013.  See my ORCID page for further details.

Samvera's open and supportive community is its greatest strength and only through healthy growth, renewal, and evolution of this community will Samvera technology solutions continue to shine. Sustainability requires agreements about shared direction, institutional resource commitments, and effective articulation of value to partners and potential partners. I believe that the key role of Samvera Steering is to provide governance and stewardship in a way that both nurtures the community and fosters sustainability. I was a member of the Samvera Governance Working Group and have been pleased to see considerable progress on governance issues in the last year. I would welcome the opportunity to work with the other members of Steering to help advance Samvera.