Archive for the ‘jeremy dibbell’ Category

Friday, August 30th, 2013

Goodbye Jeremy

Jeremy wins one.

Tim and Jeremy lose one.

Yesterday LibraryThing turned eight, and today we say goodbye to Jeremy Dibbell (jbd1), LibraryThing’s social-media guy and all-around LibraryThing soul.

After nearly three years at LibraryThing, Jeremy is moving on. Next week he begins work as Director of Communications and Outreach at Rare Book School, located at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. We’ve loaned him to Rare Book School each summer he’s worked for us. He’s looking forward to joining the team there full time.

Jeremy is a long-time and much-loved member of the team. He was an early adopter, and became LibraryThing’s official-unofficial head of the Legacy Library project long before he came to work for us formally. Most members probably know him from the newsletter, our Facebook and Twitter feeds, from member-help emails, and for his Talk posts, helping new members and laying out his vision for LibraryThing’s development.

We aren’t going to lose him completely. Jeremy will continue on for a few weeks helping us where he can and giving his successor(1) some tips. And he will continue as head of the Legacy Library project. Indeed, as he says, he’ll have more time for it now. I suspect he’ll make his views about the site known too. I doubt he could help it.

It’s not easy to summarize everything Jeremy has done for us. Some highlights include:

  • Sending 10,600 emails, not counting those that came from info@librarything.com. He saved us from drowning, and far exceeded what a run-of-the-mill “social media” manager could have done.
  • Growing the size of the Early Reviewers program from around 1,200 books/month to today’s 3,500 or 4,000/month.
  • Helping to design, troubleshooting and discussing every major new feature in the last three years.
  • Continued growth of the Legacy Libraries program (see an overview here), including the new landing page, most of the Libraries of Early America (1,500+), and a number of wonderful LL flashmobs.
  • Special events, like our edible books contests, and book spine poetry.
  • Playing Santa for SantaThings 2010 (the Book Depocalypse), 2011 and 2012.

Jeremy moved to Portland to take this job, living only a block away from my house and the office. (My wife and my son were particularly grieved to hear he was leaving.) Being in the office gave his advocacy for members and his vision for LibraryThing extra impact. He’s been at the center of every major decision–from features to hires–for some time now. He’d be harder to miss if his contribution was not more obvious in the culture he leaves behind.

Sad as we are, we’re also excited for him too. He’s been passionate about Rare Book School for years–continuing to help out there in the summer was a condition of his taking the job. Charlottesville is a beautiful place. It is also close by Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson built his library. When he left Jeremy gave my son Liam a children’s book about Monticello and Jefferson’s love of books. It is fitting that Jeremy is there now, with his Jefferson-sized library and bibliophilia.

So, from me and all the LibraryThing staff, thank you Jeremy.

1. In case you’re wondering, our social-media job is still open, but closing fast. See the job post.

Labels: employees, employment, jefferson, jeremy dibbell, jobs, legacy libraries

posted by Tim @4:07 pm 19 Comments »
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    • Tuesday, August 13th, 2013

    LibraryThing is Hiring: Bookish and Social-Media Savvy?

    This could be you! (clockwise: ChrisC, Kate, Abby, Tim, Mike, ChrisH; unpictured Seth, KJ, Jeremy.)

    This could be you too, and wouldn’t that be great?
    (photo by member Bluesky1963)

    LibraryThing is hiring(1) a full-time, bookish, social-media savvy employee. We want someone who lives and breathes books, and would jump at the chance to talk to book lovers, authors, publishers and librarians.(2)

    This is an anywhere position, but we will favor Portland, Maine people. If you live elsewhere, you’ll be expected to spend time in Portland at the start of the job, and return on a regular basis.

    You must:

    • Love books
    • Love people, or at least not hate them
    • Be in tune with What Makes LibraryThing LibraryThing
    • Be deeply familiar with social media and bookish social media
    • Write well and quickly
    • Be hard-working, optimistic, and detail-oriented
    • Able to work and set goals independently

    We’d like:

    • A book-world background (librarian, bookseller, publishing, etc.)
    • Professional social-media experience
    • Technical skills (HTML, CSS, SQL, PHP, etc.)
    • LibraryThing membership, familiarity
    • Some useless expertise and passion, to fit in with the rest of the staff.

    Duties:

    • Write our newsletters, blog posts, tweets, and Facebook posts
    • Coordinate our Early Reviewers program
    • Assist members with problems
    • Be an active presence on the site, well-known to members and participating in important LibraryThing discussions
    • Suggest and help develop new features and projects
    • Learn, analyze and look for new opportunities

    Compensation: Salary plus gold-plated health and dental insurance. We require hard work, but we are flexible about hours.

    How to apply: Resume [as a PDF file] is good. Don’t send one of those overboiled cover letters, sent as another damn Microsoft Word document titled “Cover Letter,” but a brief introduction would be good, recapitulating the bullets above and how they do or don’t fit you. Send emails to tim@librarything.com.(3)

    1. Jeremy (member JBD1) is moving on and up; he’ll be the new Director of Communications and Outreach at Rare Book School in Charlottesville, VA. It’s a great move for Jeremy–he’s been going down there to help them run the summer sessions for four years now. He’ll continue as unofficial-but-unquestioned leader of the Legacy Libraries project. We’ll bid him a proper good-bye in a later blog post.
    2. In another company this might be called a “social media manager” job, but we don’t “manage” our members, we talk to them. We don’t want fake, we want nice but genuine.
    3. Please title the email “LTSOCMED [your name].” Also, follow directions–even the ones at the end of a blog post.

    Labels: employees, employment, hiring, jeremy dibbell, jobs

    posted by Tim @11:17 am 55 Comments »
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    • Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

    Welcome Jeremy!

    On January third LibraryThing will welcome a new employee: Jeremy Dibbell (member JBD1).

    Jeremy is well-known to the LibraryThing community as the leader of the Legacy Library and Libraries of Early America, which he’s been coordinating since 2008.

    Jeremy will be taking on our newly created “social media” job. He will coordinate the Early Reviewers program, State of the Thing, LibraryThing for Publishers, LibraryThing for Authors, our Facebook and Twitter presence, and everything else involving member projects and outreach. We’re going to take advantage of his particular knowledge of rare books and historical books, through outreach to these communities and the development of new features for them.

    Jeremy’s job is comprehensive and global. He’s here to fix what’s ailing, shut down what isn’t worth it, and organize and create the things that will carry us forward.

    Jeremy has two masters from Simmons College, one in Library Science and another in History–the exact same combination Abby has. We stole him from a job at the Massachusetts History Society, where he was an Assistant Reference Librarian, and worked on much of their social media, editing the blog and creating the John Quincy Adams Twitter diary.

    We wanted to hire Jeremy the instant he indicated he might be available. I’ve myself have known him for a couple years now, and have developed enormous respect for his intelligence and dilligence. We already have a good working relationship, from Legacy Libraries and other projects. I can’t wait to work with him fulltime.

    Jeremy will start work on January third, jumping into a lot of open issues and a mailbox that’s already full.(1) On the seventh he’ll be flying off to San Diego with Abby for the Midwinter meeting of the American Library Association. If you’re going, be sure to say hi him.

    1. How cruel is that?

    Labels: employees, employment, jeremy dibbell

    posted by Tim @12:06 pm 31 Comments »
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    • Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

    We’ve added Paul Giamatti’s library!

    LibraryThing has added the library of John Adams, the second president of the United States, played by Paul Giamatti in the upcoming (March 16) HBO miniseries John Adams.*

    We’ve also added a new team member, Jeremy Dibbell (jbd1), the motive force behind the I See Dead People[‘s Books] group, dedicated to answering the question “What books do I share with Marie Antoinette and Tupac Shakur?” Jeremy, who works at the Massachusetts Historical Society, has become a “historical consultant” to LibraryThing. It’s an unpaid job, but signals our support for his work. If he can get some people to talk about topics like this, or needs airfare to deliver a talk on it, we’ll help out. The rest of this blog post is by Jeremy…

    I am pleased to announce the LibraryThing debut of the library of John Adams, the second president of the United States. Thanks to the staff at the Boston Public Library we were able to batch-import** the books from John Adams‘ personal collection, now housed at the BPL.

    I’m not quite finished enhancing the records … with notes, reviews, tags, transcriptions of Adams’ marginalia and links to digital scans of the Adams books*** … but since this week is a big one for John Adams fans we wanted to announce the catalog even if it’s not entirely operational yet. Call it the beta version.

    In case you’re not up on your Adams events calendar, this coming Sunday (16 March) is the premiere of the mini-series based on David McCullough’s John Adams, with Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney starring as John and Abigail. HBO has arranged a tie-in marketing campaign with the US Postal Service which is highlighted at poweroftheletter.com: among other things, first class letters will be postmarked with a special cancellation in March containing a 1765 quote from JA: “Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.” One of my favorite Adams lines, and entirely appropriate not only for the mail, but also for our efforts here.

    Beyond the virtual, there are two upcoming two physical exhibits of Adams letters and other manuscript materials. At the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston****, “John Adams: A Life in Letters” will be open to the public from 8 March through 31 (Monday through Saturday, 1-4 p.m.). And at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, “My Dearest Friend” will run from 5-30 April in the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library.

    John Adams read widely, and was famous for responding (sometimes quite sharply) to the texts as he read them (check out his “40 Most Heavily Annotated Books“). I’m really delighted that we’ve been able to work out a way (using WikiThing) to make his transcribed annotations available – they’re wonderful to read, and complement the digital scans of the books very nicely.

    Plus, as an added bonus, you can compare Jefferson and Adams’ libraries (here) and see the impressive number of works our second and third presidents (also probably two of the best-read) had in common. Right now it’s at 218, but that number is sure to creep upward as more combinations are made.

    Much more to do, so I’m going to get back to editing. Stop by and browse awhile when you have a chance, and stay tuned: the BPL recently announced plans to take their excellent “John Adams Unbound” exhibit on the road, so in case you missed it in Boston you may still get a chance to see the show.

    *Giamatti as John Adams is growing on me. But nothing will beat his performance in Sideways. [Tim]
    **Incidentally, we’ll be offering batch-importing of MARC records to all members soon. [Tim]
    *** You’ll also see some books currently in the catalog published after President Adams died in 1826. Those were added by his descendants, and are in the process of being removed from his LT catalog. Records for those books will remain available through the BPL’s John Adams Library site.
    **** Where I am an Assistant Reference Librarian in “real life.”

    Labels: dead people, jeremy dibbell, john adams, offbeat, paul giamatti

    posted by LibraryThing @12:56 am 0 Comments »
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