I’m Matt Hamilton, the Library Innovation and Technology Manager for the Boulder Public Library in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. As LIT manager, I manage the network and digital services teams. This is great because I get to be a hardware geek half of the time and a software geek the other half.

I am definitely a Shover and Maker. In my last job, I created and maintained an extensive social media presence for the library and trained staff on how to understand and use these tools. We dramatically increased our web site usage, introduced a patron voice into library decision-making, and established relationships across the campus and community where none had existed before.

Shoving and making things happen in the face of institutional inertia, resistance to change, and bureaucratic politics landed me the job I have today. That can-do attitude has helped inspire our organization to dream bigger and try a lot more new things in order to better serve our community.

I have also been building bridges between the tech start-up and library communities. I’m making sure that our library is right in middle of where the action is as new web services are being developed.

I also organize semi-regular LSW meetups in Boulder where academic and public librarians get together to discuss our hopes and dreams for what we want libraries to be.

Currently, I am exploring Drupal for our website, including a test installation of SOPAC2. I have also started the process of integrating my IT staff into the public service desk in order to better serve patrons and provide more cross-training opportunities. We’re also virtualizing our server infrastructure in order to decrease our energy usage and decrease IT support costs.

I will complete my MLS in early May of 2009. As much as I enjoy thinking about and working on library stuff 10 hours a day 6-7 days a week, I’m also looking forward to spending more time with my daughter and brewing beer again.