Gordon
From booktorrent
This following entry uses "they" as a singular pronoun to treat its subject as neutral in terms of gender. Its usage here should be held in that context and should not be argued as grammatically incorrect.
Jessica (Jean) Gordon is a Sophomore at The Evergreen State College and is a contributor to Book Torrent. They are interested in continuing their education after Evergreen through a library science and information technology graduate program; they wish to become a librarian. Jean attends Evergreen because its interdisciplinary system provides them with an opportunity to attain a wide knowledge base, which is extremely useful in helping others with research work.
Their previous academic work has explored subjects such as literature, creative non-fiction, multimedia presentation, postmodernism, film theory and dance. Although Jean’s interests are historically held in the humanities, they have recently become much more interested in the areas where the humanities and sciences meet. In their first academic year (2010-2011) at Evergreen, Jean took programs that suited this approach. They studied the link between literature and mathematics in Calculated Fiction; the relationship between music and computer programming in Digital Audio and Music Composition. Jean finds that studying subjects from the humanities and sciences in tandem leads to a rich educational experience and will try to sustain this approach in their academic career and beyond. When and if they become a librarian they want to balance out their time working with information technology by studying, writing and performing poetry.
Jean is a graduate of Groton-Dunstable Regional High School which is a public school in Groton Massachusetts. During their senior year, Jean was able to enter the senior internship program. They worked within the school district as a way to give back to the community from which they were about to part and naturally sought a position within the system of libraries in the school district. The Director of the library system (at the time), Kim Cochrane, surveyed Jean during their work in Boutwell Preschool, Florence Roach Elementary, and Groton Dunstable Middle School North/South. Their major project included the creation, organization and cataloging of over 200 books for the SPEDPAC center which is funded by the Groton-Dunstable School District. The experience was rewarding, but also forced Jean to reckon with archaic structures that exist within many academic libraries. They found that they were interested in the reformation and future of the library as a system and social infrastructure- discovered that they are “with the times” instead of “against”.
Jean is researching institutional change in the field of librarianship through Book Torrent with their teammate Betsy.
