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Location: Online via Zoom

Description: Jessamyn will discuss technology disruption as it relates to library work with patrons and with managing access to knowledge. She focuses on the role of technological innovation in services offered-but also on the complexities and risks of balancing disruption narratives with the libraries' established roles in higher education and society at large. Finding a balance in this arena hinges on a better understanding of the difference between the larger relevance of library work as it is commonly perceived, and the ways in which this work has recently changed by and through technological disruption.

Jessamyn West is a librarian and community technologist. She writes a column for Computers in Libraries magazine and is the author of the book Without a Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide. A born outreach librarian, she teaches a course entitled "Tools for Community Advocacy" for the University of Hawaii's Library School. She was a research fellow at Harvard University Library Innovation Lab for 2016-2017, and serves on the Advisory Board to the Wikimedia Foundation. She works with small libraries and businesses in Central Vermont to help them use technology to solve problems.