BlogJunction posts are written by WebJunction staff as well as guest contributors. Meet some of our regular bloggers:
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Chrystie Hill is our Director of Community Services and she works with our Community Services team to build communities for library staff – usually with WebJunction’s programs and tools – but she swears that KARAOKE works just as well! Chrystie has been with WebJunction since 2003, where she spends much of her time posting, casting, conferencing, blogging, tweeting, and chatting with colleagues about emerging technologies and how we can make the most of them. Also a librarian, writer, and consultant on technology and community building, Chrystie writes and speaks frequently about anything that helps connect people to information and each other in or through library land. |
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Betha Gutsche, Curriculum Manager, knee-deep in competencies. As an artist, woodworker, and now a librarian, Betha likes to design, build, and generally know how things work, whether that applies to the tools in her shop/studio or the technology tools that drive online collaboration. She was attracted to the field of librarianship because of its embrace of technology and the new horizons opened up by it. Oh, and also because of a lifelong love affair with books. When she’s not immersed in reading, she’s likely to be found in, on, or around water. |
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Tim King is Product Manager for the platform that WebJunction.org was built on. He brings to the team a freshly minted MLIS from the UW Information school, a well-developed passion for online community, and bunch of years worth of experience in trying to make online commercial software support just a bit more user friendly. That last part is coming in quite handy as he helps build a brand new WebJunction site. Tim and his family are attempting to lead a mostly car-free lifestyle, though they will “cheat” when it comes to skiing and camping trips. You can often find the family Xtracycles parked in front of the North East branch of the Seattle Public Library. |
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Kendra Morgan is the Project Coordinator for TechAtlas. Her first memory of using a library goes back to elementary school in Kihei, Maui where she was one of the “library helpers”. Fast forward a few years (okay, more than just a “few”) and she found herself in library school at the University of Hawaii and excited about helping libraries to use technology to help staff and patrons meet their needs. Her interest in technology and libraries has led her to work as a trainer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s US Library program and with The Library of Virginia as a technology consultant. When she isn’t being a technology geek, Kendra enjoys cooking, traveling and playing endless games of Scrabble with family. |
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Jennifer Peterson joined the WebJunction team in 2005. She works as Community Programs Manager and loves being a part of a great big group of collaborators and believes that the success of a community depends on its capacity to learn together. She has worked in many of the Northwest’s public libraries since 1993 and interned at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation while completing the MLIS program at the Information School. She has a hard time containing her passion for libraries and learning, but stays grounded with the help of her amazing family, who also love books, music, dance, art, movies, thrift stores and camping. Her children often include librarian in their list of future careers and describe their local library as a favorite place. |
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Michael Porter, Communications Manager, loves him some libraries. Seriously. He has worked in libraries since 1990 and got his MLS in 1999. He was fortunate to be able to teach thousands of librarians while visiting 30 different states during his work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation US Library Program and then later while working at OCLC Western. He loves libraries almost as much as he loves PEZ dispensers, travel, cooking and the magic of the Intenet and it’s amazing tubes. While Michael tries to be funny sometimes, he also tries to think hard about worthwhile things. Lots of folks know him as Libraryman because he blogs at www.libraryman.com, a web site he has maintained for several years. He writes the regular “Internet Spotlight” column for Public Libraries magazine with his good Libraryland buddy, David Lee King. His frequent in person and on-line public presentations on libraries and technology are greatly enjoyed by many folks while some attendees just politely smile and nod. He’s not sure what these folks are thinking but he’d sure like to know. Happily for him, very few of his presentation attendees walk out in a huff. You can see where he might be speaking next by clicking here. |
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Michael Shapiro came to WebJunction/OCLC after having founded the Spanish book distribution company, Libros Sin Fronteras in 1988. He sold LSF to Baker & Taylor, Inc. in 2004, where he served until 2007 as Vice President Spanish Materials. A native of Madison, Wisconsin, Michael had previously described himself as “a Jewish bilingual-bicultural Midwesterner distributing Spanish language materials in the Pacific Northwest,” a description that now requires revision. In his new position with WebJunction, Michael brings a history of project management and face-to-face library interaction. Michael and his wife Tanya enjoy Seattle in the company of their daughters, Maya Rosa (1999) and Isabel Nadine (2006). When not working with libraries, Michael enjoys jazz and Latin music, golf, rollerblading, swimming, bicycling, skiing, and other outdoor activities. |  |
Sharon Streams is the Content Manager for WebJunction. After a stint doing government research for a Washington, D.C., law firm, she attended Indiana University’s School of Library and Information Science (back when the web was in its Gopher/Veronica/Archie stage). She spent the next decade-plus in the sci-tech field, managing a book publishing program and launching an optics news website. Even though she has transitioned fully into web publishing over the last few years, she has an undying obsession for the printed word, and can’t quite function without knowing there is a book at close hand. |