Eric Larson

I co-lead the development of the University of Wisconsin System wide resource discovery application "Forward", which merges the UW System's bibliographic data with digital collections, and institutional repository content. This work draws deeply on my experience with the Ruby on Rails web application framework and the Solr/Lucene open source enterprise search platform. I lead the project's front-end development (XHTML/CSS/JS), with emphasis on the site's application flow and overall user-experience. By leveraging internal and external APIs, I introduce several contextually relevant widgets to assist researchers in the discovery process: wikipedia articles, subject liaisons, subject guides, "did you mean" results, etc.

In addition to Forward, I help lead efforts to improve the UWDCC's project management and digital object life-cycle workflows. This work involves interviewing UWDCC staff to identify bottlenecks, areas of overlap or opportunities for workflow improvement. From these conversations, I define design goals, model the application requirements, build interaction wireframes and program the application. I collaborate with fellow SDG staffers to integrate this work into our digital library infrastructure.

I co-founded Sidecar Publications and launched our initial offering: Gimlet — an online question and answer knowledge-base and desk-tracking statistics tool. I manage the company's finances, oversee customer service, lead our marketing campaign, and am responsible for our general plan for world domination. Our clientele include over one hundred higher education libraries, community college libraries and special libraries. We were profitable less than a year from launch.

I supervised a department of five employees in the daily management of all computer services at the library. I was responsible for over 140 computers, printers and scanners in the building. I oversaw web technologies for Wisconsin TechSearch (WTS), the library’s $2M revenue, in-house, cost-recovery, document delivery company. I designed and deployed web applications to offer new digital library services to the College of Engineering. I also worked as the official library liaison to the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Sciences departments, working closely with faculty and graduate students to ensure their research needs were met.

I led Wendt Library’s effort to build an institutional bibliography. My work on this project led to a grant award to hold several interviews and focus groups with campus faculty, and to a co-development agreement with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The open source project, named BibApp, has been presented at several international and national conferences and is available for download: http://bibapp.org.

Work primarily involved managing the library’s web committee, assessing and implementing new web-based technologies to support research needs. Much of this work occurred as a member of campus-wide committees, including: the DSpace (institutional repository) Committee, the Resource Discover Task Force and the Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing. During this position I managed the effort to move WTS from their legacy staff and client interfaces to the new Ruby on Rails framework, greatly improving the technological stability of their organization.

Maintaining close ties to UW-Madison’s School of Library and Information Studies, I oversaw two 120 hour graduate student independent study projects:

• 2007 - “Ruby on Rails, OAI Data Harvesting and Faceted-Browse” - Dave Zwicky and Jarrod Bogucki
• 2006 - “XML and XSLT for Digital Publishing” - Kelly Hafermann

Duties involved the development of a campus-wide scholarly communication website for the UW-Libraries. I assisted in the information re-architecture of the Wendt Library website. Provided technical support to Wisconsin TechSearch. Actively participated in the library’s information literacy program within the College of Engineering. Developed new instructional workshops dedicated to increasing campus awareness of modern information services. Worked within multiple campus library committees and projects to raise cognizance of technological developments pertinent to information gathering and research.

Chief employment duties consisted of the technological design and implementation of a campus office dedicated to fostering a sustainable publishing architecture at the UW-Madison Libraries. Worked in coordination with multiple campus departments and lead several library projects related to scholarly communication and open access publishing. Wide diversity of projects, including: moving the Journal of Insect Science from the University of Arizona to UW-Madison, working with the UW-Press and Wisconsin Historical Society on a multiple e-book series, and publishing conference papers for the International Cryocooler Conference. Daily management of production publishing environment and multiple production staff.

Primary duties were the creation of campus-wide library web applications. Projects included:

• Public Service Statistics Database—an online database to record patron interactions at all campus library information desks. Subsequently released as the open-source web application, LibStats: http://code.google.com/p/libstats. This application is currently deployed at over 54 universities and colleges.
• Journal Value Project—a database to collect cost and valuation data for journals in all areas of the sciences and social sciences. Librarians across campus access this data to assist in collection development.

Managed five databases to record summer camp participation, donations, demographic data and more. Assisted in the construction of an enterprise database solution for recording youth participation. Oversaw the resultant legacy data migration. Designed data analysis modules for fundraising and administration departments as necessary. Redesigned the Council’s website to leverage PHP.

Received the “Heart of the Council” award, as Camp Fire’s Employee of the Year.

Information management and database supervisor. Duties included the development and utilization of technological means, and policy reformation to enhance Council communication and youth participation reporting. Manager of Accounts Payable, end of month accounting, and camp registration. Direct supervision of two employees.

• Library Technology Specialization
• Graduated Beta Phi Mu - Library Honor Society
• Recipient of the “James Krikelas Award for Innovative Use of Information Technology”
• President LITA student group

• Recipient of the Lawrence-Fairall Testamentary Trust Scholarship