The following Fedora Leadership Group members were nominated to fill three open seats for the 2020 Fedora Steering Group election.
| Name | Organization | Title/Role | Personal Statement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rosalyn Metz | Emory University Libraries | Director of Library Technology & Digital Strategies | I am the Associate Dean for Library Technology and Digital Strategies at Emory University in Atlanta. I have been involved in digital repositories and digital preservation in various roles throughout my career. For the last year, I've held the position of Chair on Fedora Steering, I am the new Chair of Samvera Steering, and a member of OCFL's Editorial Group. As an active member in the library open-source space, I believe it is up to cultural heritage institutions to ensure the long-term stewardship and continued success of these projects well into the future. |
| Este Pope | Amherst College | Head of Digital Programs | I’ve had the opportunity to serve on Fedora Leaders and Steering for the past three years and currently serve as a chair-elect and co-lead for the Communication, Marketing, Outreach, and Community subgroup. The Fedora community has made great progress these past few years on strategic initiatives, and I’m most proud of the work in helping steward the development of Fedora 6 and in working to build a strong Fedora community. As a representative of a small institution using Fedora, I think a lot about how decisions made about Fedora impact similar institutions. I am glad to see the progress from the IMLS-funded planning grant “Designing a Migration Path” in the current IMLS grant “Fedora Migration Paths and Tools” working with institutions large and small to develop migration pathways. I see Fedora’s longevity as an asset, as it confirms that there are many institutions that continue to see value in stewarding the software as an element of the digital repository ecosphere. I also see Fedora as a model of community-supported, academy-led open software. There are many challenges ahead that will require flexibility, ingenuity, and collaboration, and I am enthusiastic about playing a role in steering the future of Fedora through the next several years. |
| Robin Ruggaber | University of Virginia | Director of Strategic Technology Partnerships & Initiatives | For the past nine years working for the University of Virginia Library, I have had the pleasure of working with the Fedora community. In my current role of directing strategic technology partnerships and initiatives, I focus on efforts that span within and without the University including our community-driven open software interests. For the past eight years, I have served as a steering group member, a Fedora Leader, and on various working groups (product position, communication/marketing/outreach, finance) toward evolving the repository, community, governance, funding, and partnerships. I strongly believe the current work to launch Fedora 6 and the migration tooling will allow us to “raise all boats, stabilize and sustain” our infrastructure, our community, and better preserve our rare and unique content. Toward that goal, UVA is serving as a pilot in the 2020 IMLS funded Fedora Migration Paths and Tools Pilot Project. Most of my career has been managing IT. I can support our community in a number of ways and believe that rotation of service supports the health of a community. That said, we are at a critical juncture with the coming launch of Fedora 6. If my experience can best help steering achieve our strategic goals over the next few years, that is where I want to spend my time |
| Oliver Schöner | Berlin State Library | Repository Manager | I am a repository manager at Berlin State Library, having introduced Fedora 4 five years ago. Our infrastructure consists of several Fedora 4 instances of different sizes and purposes. Being a Lyrasis partner for quite a time, I am engaging in the German and world-wide Fedora community as a participant and speaker in conferences and Fedora camps. In 2018, we hosted a camp at Berlin State Library. In my everyday-work, I find, and that not being restricted to repository systems, that migration of data is one of the most important and sometimes painful tasks for IT staff in libraries. Whereas in classical relational databases this is comparably easy, in other systems including repositories it can be a challenge. So my main concern, being elected, will be to strengthen Fedora's attempts to facilitate data migrations and make data more independent from (any) application. The OCFL strategy is a good way to make Fedora even more attractive for libraries. |
