Curriculum Vitae

Education

Master of Library and Information Science, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. 2007

Bachelor of Arts Political Science, Minor in History, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI. 2004

Professional Experience

Digital Assets Librarian

York University, 2012-present

Ensures efficient administration and provides day-to-day management and development of digital initiatives at York University Libraries
Provide leadership in the creation and preservation of digital collections at York University
Provide leadership by supporting faculty and students in the collection, management, curation and provision of access to York University’s digital assets
Provide guidance and oversight for the lifecycle and management of digital assets
Creating and implement systems that support the capture, description, delivery, and preservation of digital objects having significant content of enduring value
Support the acquisition, creation, capture, conversion, organization and preservation of digital objects by establishing and maintaining standards, policies and procedures
Interpret digital standards, cataloguing, library and university policies and procedures to staff
Maintain an awareness of university developments and trends in the library profession by attending and participating in meetings, workshops and conferences
Maintain liaison with colleagues in regional libraries (and others as appropriate) in order to develop cooperative programs
Serve on university committees and provides input to the decision making process within libraries through meetings and other communication devices
Contribute to librarianship and scholarship by carrying out professional research and scholarly work and by activity in the profession

Digital Preservation Librarian, Repository Architect, and Digitization Coordinator

McMaster University, 2011-2012

Lead projects which design and develop technologies supporting the capture, description, delivery, and preservation of digital objects
Provide ongoing support of the repository infrastructure
Assess the technical requirements for digitization projects and draft appropriate specifications and procedures
Develop digital preservation polices and practices
Provide training, professional development opportunities and support for other library staff in the development of digital collections
Track technology trends and standards evolution, and contributes to developments in this field
Provide key oversight for metadata used in the management of locally developed digital collections
Promote the Library’s digitization activities to the campus community and engages in national and consortial efforts in the digital library domain.

Digital Strategies Librarian

McMaster University 2007-2011

Developed and led digital projects and initiatives
Managed and developed McMaster University's institutional repository - DigitalCommons@McMaster
Managed and developed McMaster University Library's digital collections repository - Digital Collections
Developed policies and procedures relating to technical standards and practices for digitization
Created and developed work-flows for metadata delivery and digitization
Provided training, professional development opportunities, and support for library staff in the development of digital collections
Researched and assisted in writing grant proposals for digital library initiatives
Acted as a campus-wide resource/liaison for digital initiatives
Departmental liaison to Political Science (2007-2009)

Adjunct Faculty, Wayne State University, 2010

Instructor - LIS 6080, Introduction to Technology

Skills

Technology Skills

Applications: Microsoft Office/Open Office, Adobe Photoshop/GIMP, Adobe Acrobat, Audacity.
Content Management Systems: Drupal, Wordpress, PmWiki, MediaWiki.
Digital Collections/Repository Management: JHOVE2, Djatoka, ExifTool, Archivematica, Fedora/Islandora, DigitalCommons, SelectedWorks.
Programming Languages: PHP, SQL, Python, Ruby/Rails, Shell/Bash.
Database Systems: MySQL, Postgres, Access, FileMaker.
Searching, Harvesting, Indexing: Lucene (Solr), Z39.50, OAI-PMH.
Web/Markup Languages: XHTML, XML, CSS.
Semantic Web: RDF, FOAF, SPARQL.
Systems Administration: Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL), Apache, Tomcat, MySQL, Postgres, Drupal, Wordpress.

Library Skills

Metadata Standards: Dublin Core, MARC21/MARCXML, MODS, METS, AACR2, EAD, PREMIS.
Reference Products: OCLC, Scholars Portal, ProQuest, LexisNexis, JSTOR, Web of Knowledge.

Presentations

Islandora WebARChive Solution Pack, Open Repositories 2013
Data Visualization Boot Camp, Digital Odyssey 2013 (with MJ Suhonos)
Digital Curation Life Cycle, OCUL Digital Curation Summit (with Steve Marks)
Blue Ribbon Task Force Report on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access, OCUL Digital Curation Summit (with Steve Marks)
The Revolution Will Be Preserved, Code4Lib North 2013
Strong and Free: Building a Resilient Data Store North of the Border, Library Technology Conference 2013 (with John Fink)
Operations Roundtable, How to Build a Macroscope: Text Mining the Humanities (withAlan Darnell, Janet Friskney, Steve Marks, William J. Turkel)
iaTorrent & BagIt Profiles, Code4Lib NorthTO 2012
A Digital Scholarship Centre? What is that?, OLA Super Conference 2012 (with Dale Askey, and John Fink)
Building Solidarity in Academic Librarianship, OLA Super Conference 2012 (with Francesca Holyoke, Sam Trosow, and Lisa Sloniowski)
Building Solidarity in Academic Librarianship (workshop), OLA Super Conference 2012
Librarians on the Front Lines, Academic Librarianship - A Crisis or an Opportunity? 2011 (with Diane Granfield, Kristin Hoffmann, and Marc Richard)
If you ain't failin', you ain't tryin', Access 2011 (with Amy Buckland, Declan Flemming, and Scott Hargrove)
Where we're at; McMaster Digital Collections, Islandora Camp 2011 (lighting talk)
Shaping our future, has unionization made a difference? TRY Conference (with Vicki Skelton, Scott Gilles, and Constance Adamson)
Local Clouds in the Sky with Diamonds, OLA Super Conference 2010 (with John Fink)
McMaster University Library & Digital Commons, Canadian ETD and Open Repositories Workshop 2010
Using Open Source Software to Build Digital Collections, OLA Super Conference 2010
OMG! You Don't Need CONTENTdm!, OLITA Digital Odyssey 2009
Drupal & Digital Collections (Birds of a feather), Drupal4Lib 2009 (with Karen Coombs)
Life in the Digital Trenches, OLA Super Conference 2009 (with Carl Spadoni)
Digital Commons Institutional Repository, Learning Technologies Conference 2008
Drupal: Content Management and Community for your Library, Access 2008 (with Ilana Kingsley, David Mitchell, Harish Nayak, and Deborah A. Riley-Huff)
Detroit Plays, Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) 2007 (Poster Session)

Publications

Jordan, Mark, Mumma, Courtney, and Ruest, Nick. "CURATEcamp iPres 2012" Ariadne. 70 (2012)
"Bagit Profile Specification"
Ruest, Nick, and John Fink. "Cloudbusting" Access. 18.2 (2012): 24-25.

Software development

Islandora Web ARChive Solution Pack
BagIt Profiles Validation Tool (A simple Python module for validating BagIt profiles)
Islandora (FITS integration)
Islandora Solution Pack Audio (FITS integration, and admin page)
Islandora Solution Pack Video (FITS integration)
Islandora Solution Pack Large Image (FITS integration)
Islandora Solution Pack Basic Image (FITS integration)
Islandora Solution Pack PDF (FITS integration)
iaTorrent (iaTorrent snatches all of the torrents for a given collection in the Internet Archive)
YUL Stream (Twitter stream & archive for Open Access week 2012 debate)
Rename node titles (Drupal module)

Digital Projects

Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing - Canadian Heritage (Library and Archives Canada), Technical lead and Developer (2009)
Peace and War in the 20th Century - Canadian Heritage (Library and Archives Canada), Technical lead and Developer(2008)
No Greater Calling: The Life of Walter P. Reuther, Website development coordinator (2007)

University Service

Research and Awards (Member) 2013-2015
Chair e-Librarianship Hiring Committee (Member) 2013
Digital Initiatives Group (Chair) 2013-present
Research Data Management Group (Co-Chair) 2013-present
Digital Initiatives Advisory Group (Member) 2012-present
Digital Scholarship Centre Working Group (Member) 2012-present
Digital Preservation Policy Working Group (Chair) 2012-present
Scholarly Communication Committee (Member) 2012-present
Merit Award Committee (Member) 2013
McMaster University Academic Librarians' Association (President), 2011-2012
McMaster University Academic Librarians' Association (Vice-President), 2010-2011
Strategic priority - Institutional Repository (Co-chair) 2010-2012
Strategic priority - Digitization (Co-chair) 2010-2012
Digital Preservation Mandate (Lead) 2010-2011
Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship (SCDS) planning committee 2010
Digitization steering committee (Chair) 2009-2012
Institutional repository working group (Chair) 2009-2010
McMaster University Faculty Association (Library Representative), 2009-2010
Kirtas planning & implementation group (Technical Lead) 2008-2012
Emerging technologies committee (Member) 2007-2012

Professional Service

OLA Finance Committee (member) 2013
PLG GTA 2012-present
OLA Discovery Fund (Co-creator, award committee) 2012-Present
OLA Board of Directors (Member) 2011-2012
OLITA (Treasurer) 2013
OLITA (President) 2012
OLITA (Vice-President) 2011
CAUT Defence Fund (Trustee) 2010-2012
TEI (Voting member) 2008-2012
Kirtas Users Group (Co-founder) 2008 - 2010
Library Student Journal (Reviewer) 2008-2010
Educase (Adjunct reader) 2008

Conference Planning

OLITA Digital Odyssey: Big Data, Small World 2013
OCUL Digitization Summit
OLITA Digital Odyssey: Liberation Technology 2012
OLITA Digital Odyssey: Ebook (R)evolution 2011
Code4Lib North 2011

Honours and Awards

Islandora Camp "Style Award" 2011
John Session Memorial Award (ALA) 2008 - "No Greater Calling: The Life of Walter P. Reuther", Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University
IMLS 21st Century Digital Librarian Grant Recipient 2005-2007
Full Scholarship, MLIS, Wayne State University 2005-2007