Software Preservation Network members will vote to fill seven seats to launch our inaugural Coordinating Committee in 2021. Read more about these incredible software preservation practitioners, researchers, advocates, and all-around leaders below!
More about SPN and the Coordinating Committee
During 2019-2020, the Software Preservation Network became a member-funded network for the first time! Throughout the two years, we accelerated the formation of the network through organizational infrastructure building and planning. One result was the development of a governance structure for SPN that you can read more about here. This Coordinating Committee is the primary governing body of SPN.
More about the Candidates!
Cynde Moya
Cynde is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology. There, she directs their Digital Heritage Lab; a working microcomputer collection used to examine software performance on real equipment, then compare that to the quality of software emulations. Previously, she managed the Software Preservation Lab at Living Computers: Museum + Labs. At LCM+L she helped build capacity for digitizing (and creating metadata for) obsolete carriers such as paper tape, punched cards, DECtape, 9 track tape, floppy disks, and more.
Cynde has had a long alliance with the Software Preservation Network. She was a Project Lead in the Fostering Communities of Practice project. She was also a member of the SPN 2017-2018 Metadata working group. From her new position at the Swinburne University of Technology, she’ll be deeply embedded in this year’s EaaSI pilot. She’s interested in bringing more SPN activities and education for software preservation and emulation to Australia, and bringing more Australian perspectives into SPN activities.
Seth Anderson
As the Software Preservation Program Manager at Yale University Library, Seth oversees efforts in collection and preservation of software resources, as well as tools for access to preserved software and digital collections. Seth received his MA in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation from New York University. He has previously worked as Project Manager of the Museum of Modern Art’s Electronic Records Archive (MERA) and worked with institutions, including Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian Institution, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as a consultant with AVP.
Seth believes that the success of SPN is integral to the long-term success of the EaaSI program and the continuing development of software preservation and emulation expertise in our field. As a member of the 2019-2020 steering committee, he worked with other members to guide SPN through the seed funded period and lay the groundwork for its future. Seth will bring his experience guiding the EaaSI program and existing knowledge of SPN’s evolution over the last few years to chart a path forward for SPN.
Neil Chue Hong
Neil Chue Hong is Director of the Software Sustainability Institute and a Senior Research Fellow based at EPCC, University of Edinburgh. His work includes research and policy around research software practice, including computational and data skills and training, software credit and citation, barriers to software reuse, and software sustainability and preservation. Outside of software, he is an aspiring playwright, works as a jury coordinator for film festivals, and used to be a film projectionist.
Neil has previously served on the SPN Steering Committee (2019-2020), as well as the SPN Training and Education Working Group. He brings a non-US perspective, from an organisation providing guidance relating to software preservation including software deposit, licensing and citation. Neil also brings connections to other networks, including the Research Software Engineering community, Research Software Alliance, Research Data Alliance, Digital Preservation Coalition, and The Carpentries. Additionally, he has experience running national and international organisations which have a mix of staff and volunteers, as well as sitting on the boards of national arts charities.
Lauren Work
Lauren Work is the Digital Preservation Librarian at the University of Virginia, where she is responsible for the implementation and maintenance of preservation strategy and systems for university digital resources. She currently serves on SPN’s Research-in-Practice Group, served as lead for UVA’s FCOP project, and also helps coordinate UVA’s EaaSI efforts. She also helps to lead digital stewardship collaboration within communities such as the Academic Preservation Trust, NDSA,, and the BitCurator Consortium. She earned her Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Washington.
Lauren was nominated by a colleague who said, “Lauren Work has been a major contributor to SPN on many fronts dating back to the early days of SPN’s life. She is an advanced practitioner of digital preservation with the highest ideals and integrity in her work,, outstanding collegiality and capability to work in teams, and a critical dose of pragmatism that helps everything she does meet ambitious goals through careful planning and hard work. She can quickly move from a worldwide view to a detailed implementation matter and back again without losing momentum at any level. She is interested in how collaborations are built, what makes them thrive and what causes them to fail, and she understands how to adapt observations along those lines from all sources into actions that will keep SPN relevant and vibrant.”
Paula Jabloner
Paula Jabloner is an archivist and collections manager with 30 years of experience in museums and archives. She provides key leadership on collections-wide strategies and resources to develop, manage, preserve, and provide access to CHM’s extensive artifact collection, which contains physical objects, historical software, archival and audio-visual materials, oral histories, and digital objects. She has developed and managed a coordinated and integrated collections team, established CHM’s Digital Repository, and guided the collaboration with Cisco to establish the Center for Cisco Heritage.
Paula was an active contributor to the 2019-2020 Steering Committee, helping develop our flexible budgetary framework. She also serves on the SPN Law & Policy working group where she facilitates the use of Computer History Museum collections to further the research and policy agenda of this core function of SPN. Paula has participated in SPN activities for the last 5 years, a pioneer of the volunteer period before the Software Preservation Network was a member-funded community and previously served as a member of the now retired Software Ready Curation working group. Her extensive experience in museums and archives provides a framework for thinking about issues in software preservation and use across collections in myriad ways.
Eric Kaltman
Dr. Eric Kaltman is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at California State University Channel Islands. He designs tools and methodologies for the historical analysis of software and computer games. His current project is the establishment of a Software History Futures and Technologies (SHFT) research group at CI. He has received support from the IMLS and NEH for software preservation related research, most notably the Game and Metadata Citation Project from 2014-2018.
Eric is the co-coordinator for the Technological Infrastructure Working Group and has participated in SPN activities for the last 5 years, a pioneer of the volunteer period before the Software Preservation Network was a member-funded community. He has been involved in software preservation activities at numerous institutions over the past decade or so, both in a library liaison role and as a software preservation researcher. Eric is qualified to speak across a wide range of perspectives on software preservation and is interested in helping with the coordination of SPN due to its being the most prominent network of its type.
Monique Lassere
Monique Lassere is the inaugural Digital Archivist at Houghton Library, Harvard University’s rare books and manuscripts, literary and performing arts archives. There she oversees the born-digital program of work, which includes born-digital media, web archives, 3D objects, and computing hardware, while also collaborating with the larger Harvard Library and university community on. She researches issues in software preservation, born-digital archives, and information maintenance. Prior to joining Harvard, Monique worked for the University Libraries at the University of Arizona, and a digital preservation startup company, Digital Bedrock, researching file formats and software obsolescence.
Monique has been involved with SPN since 2017 and she sees this opportunity to join the Coordinating Committee as a natural progression in her work with the organization. She has served on the Research-in-Practice Working Group, Advisory Committee, and worked with EaaSI on the FCoP grant project at the University of Arizona. Currently she is the Project Lead for Houghton’s involvement in the 2021 Hosted Emulation Services Pilot. Monique hopes that her background as a digital preservation practitioner at a range of institutions in addition to her experience fostering communities of practice can lend a helpful perspective and skill set that speaks to SPN’s desire to broaden engagement with communities across disciplines and institutional barriers.