Reimagining the Internet Podcast: A Conversation with Librarian and the New Owner of Metafilter, Jessamyn West

Links to the audio and text transcripts to Ethan Zuckerman’s conversation (Parts 1 & 2) with Jessamyn West are found below.

The Reimagining the Internet podcast is a production of the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Part 1

Why Does a Librarian Own a Social Media Site That’s Been Around for Longer Than Facebook?
Direct to the Text Transcript and Stream

Jessamyn West is not just one of the web’s favorite librarians, but the new owner of Metafilter, an incredibly long-running social network that dates back to a very different Internet. In the first part of our interview with Jessamyn, she tells us just how Metafilter has kept going and stayed healthy since 1999.

Part 2

Librarian Jessamyn West on the Classroom Where We Learn to be Human
Direct to the Text Transcript and Stream

In part 2 of our interview with Jessamyn West, the new MetaFilter owner tells us about her day job as a librarian in rural Vermont. We dig into what it’s like to be a librarian in the Internet age, from bridging the digital divide to weathering the storm of right-wing reactionaries enraged about Drag Queen Story Hour.

Filed under: Interviews, News, Podcasts, Profiles