[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Slate of Candidates for Evergreen Oversight Board Election

Wed Mar 12 12:43:39 EDT 2014

The slate of candidates who have agreed to run for two posts on the Evergreen Oversight Board are listed below along with their own personal statements for your consideration. Voter information and instructions will be emailed to the OPEN-ILS General discussion list tomorrow . Voting will take place from Thursday , March 13th through noon EST on Wednesday , March 19th . Please watch your email for further information. 

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Grace Dunbar - Vice President; Equinox Software, Inc. ; I am a librarian. I received my MLIS at San Jose State in 2006 while I was working at the Stanford University Libraries. I worked as the lead project manager on the Google Books Digitization project while at Stanford and, as a result, I know way too much about barcode standards. I went on to work as the Library Director for the Marine Corps libraries, Camp LeJeune, but I was drawn back home to Atlanta in 2009. I was so intrigued by Evergreen I went to the conference in Athens in 2009 even though I had nothing to do with the project. I was hired a few months later by Equinox and I have been serving as Equinox's Vice President and de facto Project Manager for Software Development since then. I have served on three Evergreen Conference site selection committees, two Evergreen Conference program selection committees, arranged and hosted (with PINES) the 2011 Evergreen conference in Decatur, GA, and am currently serving on the web team. My strengths lie in helping librarians and developers communicate well with one another and coordinating community efforts. 

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Tanya Prokrym - NC Cardinal Program Manager – I am the Program Manager for NC Cardinal. NC Cardinal is a consortium of public libraries in North Carolina dedicated to sharing resources and expanding opportunities. NC Cardinal began in 2010 and now includes 26 counties and 2 municipalities, basically 26% of the State’s counties. We continue to grow at the rate of about 5 library systems per year. Our Evergreen database includes approximately 4.3 million items. I am primarily a data systems IT person turned librarian who has worked in both the academic and public library arenas. My strengths lend themselves to addressing the intricacies of cataloging, data integration, and browser-based systems. My greatest strengths are my business-like cordiality and being able to pinpoint the real issues among a myriad of symptoms. What would I bring to the Oversight Committee? A person who is an active listener and a thoughtful, strategic thinker. I have a “can do” mentality. 

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Darrell Rogers - President, Emerald Data Networks, Inc. - Thanks for the consideration. I'm very excited about the possibility of being able to participate in this manner. 

I'm an honors graduate of Georgia Tech with a degree in Management of Information Systems. I've worked for several fortune 500 firms, including Coca-Cola (twice), Bank of America, Deloitte and UBS. I decided I wanted to work for a smaller firm and eventually ran and then spun off the consulting division of Emerald Data Solutions into the company that is now Emerald Data Networks, Inc. over ten years ago. 

In addition to being Chairman of my own board, I sit on a few others, including Touch the Future; an organization dedicated to serving disadvantaged, disabled and veteran citizens. I am a graduate of Leadership Sandy Springs and work on their Strategic Direction Committee. I have earned many technology industry certifications as I was primarily a technical resource early in my career. 

Now I lead Emerald Data Networks, Inc. with vision and commitment to be the best technology consulting company possible. Under my leadership, Emerald has won many awards for business acumen, marketplace ethics, community service and customer service. We are currently highlighted in the Georgia Business Leaders section of Forbes magazine, that can be seen here. http://forbescustom.com/marketplace/emeralddatanetworksinc-2/ 

My Evergreen experience started over four years ago working for the Georgia Public Library Systems in their PINES environment. We have since become the primary source of support for them as well as the Indiana State Library, North Texas Library Consortium, Health Sciences Libraries Consortium and several other library systems. We've assisted organizations with just about every possible part of an Evergreen implementation. 

Recently my company identified and wrote a patch for a major security flaw in the system. We are also the architects of the GenaSYS product for large scale Evergreen implementations. In addition, we work on many technologies that "touch" Evergreen systems that typically are not addressed by the community or other Evergreen support entities. We strive to assist each organization in choosing the right technologies and using them the best way possible for their own goals and objectives. 

My company and I have attended every conference since 2010 and will be in Boston next week. We've also been a major sponsor of the past two conferences and look forward to the opportunity to continue that participation. 

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Chris Sharp, PINES System Administrator; Georgia Public Library Service - I feel so privileged to be a part of the Evergreen ILS software community. I'm coming up on my sixth year working at the Georgia Public Library Service in the PINES Program, for which Evergreen was originally created. I've been involved with hands-on system administration, training, and technical support, and I've learned more than I ever imagined I could about Evergreen, Linux servers, and the inner workings of a Free and Open Source Software project. I'm excited about the direction the Evergreen project has taken as this software matures and progresses, and I'm optimistic that we will continue to be a thriving community that offers a stable and sound product that we can all depend on for the work of our public, academic and special libraries' needs. I've made many personal connections and friends in my work in the community: my daily participation in IRC Channel and email list discussions, my work with the 2009, 2013, and 2014 Evergreen International Conference planning committees, and my co-chairmanship of the 2011 committee. I am constantly seeking new ways to improve the Evergreen experience for our PINES end users, and to contribute anything I find back to the Community so others can benefit from what I've done. One of my personal principles in this position is to generously share my knowledge and experience, while remaining open to new ways of doing things. I hope to bring my knowledge, experience, and unique perspective to the Evergreen Oversight Board so we can work together to maintain and grow our thriving community. 

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Ben Shum - Evergreen Systems Manager; Bibliomation, Inc. - I have always considered the role of the Evergreen Oversight Board to be acting as representatives of the broader Evergreen community. But what defines our community of users? What interests us? How do we contribute to the whole process? These are questions that I will work to fully answer myself and I think worthwhile challenges that our Oversight Board should help answer. If elected, it would be my honor to be part of this group working on defining the roles and helping to organize our next steps moving forward. As one of the few non-Board members who has gone to observe every in-person Oversight meeting held yearly at the conference, I feel especially close to issues and the history of discussions by the Oversight Board. This exemplifies my strong interest and commitment in joining the Oversight Board and helping to define its mission and execution of future plans. 

I am presently the Evergreen Systems Manager for Bibliomation, a library consortium in Connecticut. I have volunteered my service as part of numerous Evergreen working groups and committees, including two Conference Programs Committees, the Web Team, System Administrators group, Documentation Interest Group, and Reports Interest Group. Since joining the development team, my interests and participation have evolved from newbie sys admin to bug wrangler to core committer, a role I took on in the fall of 2012. As a core committer, I have helped more than a dozen contributors bring their code into Evergreen. 

Respectfully submitted, 

The Evergreen Oversight Board Nominating Committee 

Elizabeth McKinney 
Andrea Buntz Neiman 
Galen Charlton 

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