Resume

Skip to Education ● Presentations, Publications, & Code ● Honors, Awards, & Professional Involvement

Selected Experience

RESEARCHER (contract)
Library of Congress. May 2021 ~ January 2022.
As a researcher with the Computing Cultural Heritage in the Cloud project, I applied machine learning and data visualizations to LOC collections on Reconstruction to help people explore this pivotal era, producing situating.us.

WEB APPLICATIONS DEVELOPER
Berkman Klein Center. July 2018 ~ 2020.

LECTURER
San José State University School of Information. January 2020 ~ present.
I developed and teach a course on artificial intelligence for librarians.

SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER
MIT Libraries. January 2017 ~ July 2018.

OWNER
Small Beautiful Useful, LLC. July 2013 ~ January 2017.
I do software contract work (Python/Django) and help librarians learn to code through teaching, speaking, and writing. My clients include:

MEMBER OF FOUNDING TEAM
Unglue.it. May 2011 ~ July 2013.

LIBRARY CONSULTANT
The Fessenden School, West Newton, MA. 2010 ~ 2011.

LIBRARY INTERN
Seyfarth Shaw LLP, Boston, MA. 2009.

LATIN TEACHER
The Fessenden School, West Newton, MA. 2003 ~ 2008.

SCHEDULER
The Fessenden School, West Newton, MA. 2006 ~ 2008; 2011.

LATIN TEACHER
The Steppingstone Foundation, Boston, MA. Summer 2005.

Education

SIMMONS COLLEGE, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Boston, MA.
MS, Library and Information Science.

TUFTS UNIVERSITY, Medford, MA.
MA, Classics.

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE, Claremont, CA.
BS, Mathematics.

Presentations, Publications, & Code

“AI and machine learning – less theory, more practice.” NISO Plus, February 16, 2022, online. Invited panelist.

“Situating Ourselves in Cultural Heritage.” Library of Congress, January 13, 2022, online.

“Situating Ourselves in Cultural Heritage.” Race+Tech+Media Working Group of the Berkman Klein Center, December 1, 2021, online.

“This is not a talk about airplane crashes.” RubyConf, November 8-10, 2021, Denver, CO.

“Building Diverse Collections: Promise and Pitfalls.” Digital Public Library of America, October 15, 2021, online. Invited panelist.

“So what can you do with AI in Libraries?” Lyrasis, September 28, 2021, online. Workshop.

“Navigating Without a Map: Discoverability in a World without Subject Access.” University of Oslo, May 25, 2021, online. 

“Navigating Without a Map: Discoverability in a World without Subject Access.” Code4lib, March 23, 2021, online.

“Discoverability in an AI World.” NISO Plus, February 23, 2021, online.

“Alice’s Adventures in Dataland: Exploring Library Collections with a Neural Net.” Harvard ABCD, February 10, 2021, online.

“That Time We Fought Off a Russian Bot Army (and you can too).” Code4Lib, March 10, 2020, Pittsburgh, PA.

“Machine Learning: How Does It Work?!?” American Library Association Annual Conference, June 23, 2019, Washington, DC.

“Machine Learning: How Does It Work?!?” DPLAFest, April 18, 2019, Chicago, IL. Invited presentation.

“HAMLET: Neural-Net-Powered Prototypes for Library Discovery.” In “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Libraries.” Ed. Jason Griffey. Library Technology Reports 55:1, ALA TechSource, April 2019.

“Machine Learning: How Does It Work?!?” American Library Association Midwinter Conference, January 17, 2019, Seattle, WA. Invited presentation.

“What if you did very bad things with integers: Or, Through CPython and back again.” Boston Python Meetup, August 21, 2018, Cambridge, MA.

“President’s Message.” Information Technology and Libraries 37:2, June 2018.

“President’s Message.” Information Technology and Libraries 37:1, March 2018

“President’s Message.” Information Technology and Libraries 36:4, December 2017.

“President’s Message.” Information Technology and Libraries 36:3, September 2017.

“Linked Open Community.” Semantic Web in Libraries, November 30, 2016, Bonn, Germany. Keynote address.

“Strange New Alchemies.” Reference at the Metcalfe, May 24, 2016, State Library of New South Wales, Australia (delivered online). Invited presentation.

“The Architecture of Values” (keynote). LibTechConf, St. Paul, Minnesota, March 17, 2016. (talk resources; video of talk)

“Introduction to Programming Concepts via jQuery” (workshop). NERCOMP, June 10, 2015. (course page)

“Code lets you see” (keynote). Amigos Member Conference, online, May 14, 2015.

“Coding for Librarians: Learning by Example.” Library Technology Reports 51:3, ALA TechSource, April 2015.

“Architect for wanderlust: the web and open things” (keynote). Code4Lib, Portland, Oregon, February 12, 2015. (Video, starting around 7:00; bibliography, credits, etc.; transcript.)

“Listening-Based Python” (workshop). DLF Forum, Atlanta, GA, October 30, 2014. (course web site, source code)

“Building the Future by Building Your Staff”. Wisconsin Trustee Training Week, online, August 21, 2014. (slides)

“Introduction to Programming Concepts via jQuery” (workshop). DLF/Code4Lib unconference, Washington, DC, August 11-12, 2014. (course page)

“Building gorgeous responsive web sites fast with Twitter Bootstrap” (workshop). American Library Association Annual Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, June 29, 2014. (course page)

Featured presentation and hackathon. Texas Library Association, San Antonio, Texas, April 8-11, 2014. (slides: what is a hackathon)

“Five Conversations About Code”. Online Northwest (keynote), March 7, 2014. (Delivered online. Video; bibliography, credits, etc..)

Software Carpentry Bootcamp. Invited to coteach by the Mozilla Foundation in their Toronto office. January 13-14, 2014.

“Why ALA Needs a Code of Conduct.” Library Journal, January 2, 2014.

“Introduction to Python”. American Library Association Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois, June 28, 2013. Co-organized, co-taught, and secured grant funding from the Python Software Foundation and individual donors. (course page)

“True north: ebooks and the values of librarianship”. New Jersey ESummit, May 2, 2013. (bibliography)

“True north: ebooks and the values of librarianship”. Westchester Library Association Mid-Winter Conference, January 7, 2013. (bibliography)

“Report from the Digital Public Library of America Appfest”. ACRL TechConnect, December 20, 2012.

“You Say You Want a Revolution: ebooks, licensing, and the future”. Law Librarians of New England Fall Meeting, December 7, 2012. (slides and blog post)

“Librarians and Code Year”, ed. Eric Phetteplace. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 52(1), Fall 2012. (fulltext)

“Ebooks Choices and the Soul of Librarianship”. Library Journal’s Digital Shift, July 30, 2012. (This was #8 on LJ’s list of the top opinion pieces of 2012.)

“Bridging the Digital Divide with Mobile Services”, webinar through WebJunction, July 25, 2012. (Webjunction archive, my page for the talk)

“Personal Branding for New Librarians”. Annual Business Meeting, Initiation Ceremony & Reception, Beta Beta Chapter of Beta Phi Mu, April 10, 2012.

Presentation on Unglue.It to Mary Minow’s LIBR 281 Seminar in Contemporary Issues: Digital Copyright class at SJSU, April 4, 2012. (slides)

“Library Mobile Service Options”, to Rong Tang’s LIS 531R Library Automation Systems class at Simmons, March 30, 2012.

“The Future of Ebooks” (panel), Computers in Libraries, March 23, 2012. (video)

“Battledecks”, Computers in Libraries, March 22, 2012; winner.

Bridging the Digital Divide with Mobile Services. ALA TechSource, January 2012. (buy a copy)

@jaguarbot, a Twitter bot based on my 2011 Emerging Leader project (github)

“Real-Life Strategies for Successful Library Job Hunting”, ALA Editions webinar with Tiffany Mair. (recap and archive)

Presentation on Gluejar to Mary Minow’s LIBR 281-03/LIBR 281-12
Seminar in Contemporary Issues: Digital Copyright class at SJSU, November 1, 2011. (slides)

“Give Books to the World”, ACRL CDIG’s E-books: A Brief Fix on a Moving Target, October 28, 2011.

“Personal Branding” (slides, podcast), Simmons GSLIS, October 27, 2011.

“Talk About: Publishers, Distributors & the Future of Ebooks” (panel discussion), Internet Librarian, October 19, 2011.

Presentation on Gluejar to Google (Cambridge office), October 7, 2011.

“There is no spoon” (invited keynote), ACPL Library Camp, September 16, 2011. (slides)

Librarians’ Perceptions of Automation Systems: Survey Results 2007-2010. Marshall Breeding and Andromeda Yelton. ALA TechSource, May/June 2011.

“How to Build Five Libraries in One Month,” TEDxPrincetonLibrary, June 1, 2011. (watch it on tedxtalks.ted.com)

“A Simple Scheme for Book Classification Using Wikipedia.” Information Technology and Libraries, 30(1), March 2011. (fulltext)

“Personal Branding for New Librarians.” NMRT Footnotes, 40(3), February 2011. (article)

“Personal Branding for New Librarians” (panel), ALA Midwinter Conference, January 8, 2011.

ALA TechSource. Guest blogger, 2010-present. Post archive here.

“Battledecks”, ALA Annual Conference, June 28, 2010. (video)

“WorldCat API”, Simmons SLIS Tech Lab Workshops, April 9, 2010

“Tagging”, Simmons SLIS Tech Lab Workshops, February 26, 2010 and March 4, 2010

“Battledecks”, ALA Midwinter Conference, January 16, 2010; winner. (partial video)

Fessenden Virtual Book Fair. An online visual bookshelf allowing patrons to browse the library’s recommended books, read reviews, and purchase them. Generates revenue for the library via an Amazon affiliate link.

DCKX: an index of science content in xkcd. A topical index of science-related strips in the popular webcomic xkcd, designed for science professors’ use with their course materials and implemented with an SQL back end and PHP/JavaScript/CSS front end. Now offline.

Honors, Awards, & Professional involvement

Parts and Crafts
Parts and Crafts is a makerspace for kids which needed $40K to survive the pandemic; we raised $70K.

  • Fundraiser cochair, 2020-2021

Library & Information Technology Association

  • President, 2017-2018
  • Vice President/President-Elect, 2016-2017
  • Board of Directors, 2013-2019
  • Fundraising Committee chair, 2018-2019
  • Appointments Committee chair, 2017-2018
  • 2013 National Forum Planning Committee
  • Founder & co-chair, Library Code Year Interest Group

Ada Initiative Advisory Board, 2014-2015
American Library Association Class of 2011 Emerging Leader
2010 LITA/Ex Libris Student Writing Award (press release)
2010 ACRL/NEC Annual Conference Scholarship for Library School Students