People Centered: Chrystie Hill

Professionally, Chrystie Hill is a junction where community-building, technology, and librarians meet. Personally, she's the place where librarian, writer, and advocate for technology-enhanced library practice intersect.

According to Marilyn Mason, WebJunction's executive director, “Chrystie created one of the best online communities for library staff at WebJunction. She organized contributors and kept it lively.” In less than two years, it has become the site more than 16,000 members rely on for advice, support, and training.

Besides recruiting a cadre of volunteers to moderate online conversations and develop special projects, Hill has created and edited digital content for the community's rich information portal.

After taking degrees in several different subjects and finding she didn't want to pursue them as a career, Hill settled on librarianship because it's the ultimate path for someone who's curious about everything; it met, she says, her “need to obtain a broad range of skills and understanding across a variety of disciplines.” Mastering technology was the steepest part of her learning curve. She felt distanced from technology until she realized its power to enable human connections.

Those connections mean a lot to her. She loves that WebJunction's online communities are collaboratively constructing a library of living documents whose authority come from “trusted relationships with people we know.”

Hill's favorite success story? “We built it, and they came!” she exclaims. “That this community has taken on a life of its own, without our constant oversight, is something I acknowledge with pride.”