Kicking off the WebJunction birthday week is WJ Executive Director Marilyn Gell Mason with her memorable “fives” from the founding of WebJunction.
- Five partners who wrote and received the original grant from the Gates Foundation to create WJ: Benton Foundation, Colorado State Library, ISOPH, TechSoup, and OCLC.
- Five days before submission of the proposal when Mike Teets and I met in Dublin to organize all the pieces created by the partners. I kept wandering the halls of OCLC saying, “There’s something missing” until it finally came to me in a dream. Mike ended up chasing a fed ex truck in the rain to make sure the paper copy of the report got to Seattle on time.
- Five days before launch in May, 2003. Don’t ask. Some of us survived.
- Launch event at the Library of Congress. And the staff party that followed.
- The go live moment when people, real people, started signing in and using WJ. We discovered that DC had been omitted from the states list.
We invite you to share your memories of WebJunction from the distant or not so distant past. Comment here in the blog or add your list of five to the memories discussion thread.
Back when I worked at the Gates Foundation, I was thrilled to be a part of dreaming up what was to become WebJunction. I remember our seriousness—and the fun!—of thinking creatively and BIG about our next steps for the US Library Program.
When the idea blossomed into reality, I remember Marilyn speaking to us at the foundation about their plans for WebJunction, and I remember feeling overjoyed that her enthusiasm was matched by our jumping-up-for-joy-hooray-woohoo-rock-on (!) delight.
Happy Birthday!
-sarah
MaintainIT Project of TechSoup
thank you Sarah! it’s great to hear from folks who’ve been with us since those early days.