Bio & Headshot
Short bio: Jessamyn West is a librarian and community technologist who lives in Central Vermont.
Longer bio: Jessamyn West is a library technologist in Orange County Vermont. She is a nationally known speaker, writer, and educator on the issues facing today's libraries. Her blog focusing on libraries and politics, Librarian.net, is one of the earliest and longest running librarian websites. She is the author of the book Without a Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide. She has taught "Tools for Community Advocacy" for the University of Hawaii's Library School and currently works for the Flickr Foundation as a Community Manager for Flickr Commons.
Formal bio: Jessamyn West of Randolph is a consultant, researcher and international public speaker on library science and digital divide issues. She is the author of a 2011 book Without a Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide which explores the challenges of a society becoming stratified by computer skills as well as race and income inequality. Jessamyn speaks to local, regional, and national libraries and library associations on these and other issues relating to the status and roles of libraries in the modern changing world. She has put her skills to use for twenty years teaching basic technology classes.
In addition to being a community technologist and writer, she has taught Community Engagement at University Of Hawai'i at Manoa's Library & Information Science Program, and is the technology coordinator for the Vermont Library Association (VLA). She created the "Passport to Vermont Libraries" program for VLA and was the recipient of VLA's Library Advocate of the Year Award in 2016. She currently works for the Flickr Foundation as a Community Manager for Flickr Commons. She holds a BA from Hampshire College and an MLib. from the University of Washington.