User Profile — Kim Hoff

Personal Statement

While I knew from age 17 that I wanted to work in libraries and help people find the information they needed, through graduate school and the first half-decade of my work “IRL” I discovered that there was a growing need for technological resources that fit the “openly supported, non-rivalrous, freely accessible” model. Public libraries are struggling to survive in a publishing paradigm where the growing e-book market is seen as a way to technologically impose platform exclusivity on what was once a primarily non-rivalrous good. Academic libraries are being crushed under the ever-increasing cost of subscription to vital journals, which profit from the free labor of authors and peer reviewers.

Coming from that background, I support Snowdrift.coop as an alternate funding scheme that allows public goods to be created by magnifying the personal impact of those who can afford to pay even a little towards the good’s upkeep, within a framework that ensures that the public nature of the good will be maintained for future generations to enjoy.