The high cost of traditional education and career-switching makes it challenging for people to break into the tech industry. Smash is a startup that addresses this problem by providing underserved learners with accessible project-based learning opportunities. Our platform allows users to get paid by participating in projects from leading tech companies, personalize their learning experience with surveys, and track their progress with a dashboard and auto-filled resume. Our mission is to help learners acquire in-demand tech skills to succeed while creating a more diverse tech industry by providing access to real-world experiences and career and networking opportunities for all.

Verletta Kern and Beth Lytle collaborate to maintain the UW Libraries virtual space, Open Scholarship Commons. To expand this space into a more collaborative online platform, we conducted a needs assessment by interviewing other institutions with similar online platforms, as well as UW faculty. Through qualitative analysis, we determined recommendations and best practices for building an online digital scholarship commons that our sponsors can use to strategically develop an interdisciplinary online community at UW. This project supports the increase of interdisciplinary collaboration across UW.

The King County Library System genealogical collections have never been evaluated for their efficacy. This project surveyed the state of the genealogical collections through cataloging of collection material, interviewing the target audience and peers, and analyzing how it serves the community. While there was a range of practices from peer libraries, the target audience showed satisfaction with the current state of the KCLS collections and their accessibility, and current practices were evaluated to be effective with the available labor. With the gathered information, KCLS is better equipped to understand patron needs for this particular collection.

Building upon the work of a previous project, we have expanded and enhanced the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines for application to the Svoboda Diaries. The Project had an initial set of guidelines but were seeking a more robust model for representing the intricacies of the diaries. In this project, we developed a Svoboda specific schema, established a method of encoding the margin notes, and provided training materials to ensure the sustainability of this initiative. These resources bring the Svoboda Diaries Project one step closer to digitally representing the diaries in their collection and making them more accessible to researchers.

Swedish Medical Center had a collection of materials documenting their history that they were unable to adequately preserve. I worked with Jay Augsburger, their Medical Historian, to fand an organization that could hold and preserve those materials and to prepare them for transfer, as well as to use their information to prepare historical documents for SMC's staff and the public. This ensures that a key part of Seattle's medical history will remain preserved and available to those who need it.

We partnered with the Washington Center for the Book and the Washington State Library to promote zine culture, literacy, and community, and the annual Washington State Zine Competition. To address these needs, our team created, marketed, and hosted a zine workshop; assembled zine making kits; and used feedback from attendees, sponsors, and testers to improve our materials. We shared information and submission guidelines for the competition, and encouraged participation by our fellow MLIS students and community members. The zine kit materials we’ve prepared will be circulated to libraries around the state to host their own zine-making workshops.

Our capstone project intends to transform how Texas Tech University uses student feedback to improve the campus environment and positively impact students’ lives. The project promotes student engagement and gives them authority to shape restoration projects by implementing a thorough feedback mechanism using a survey to collect and analyze student feedback on suggested modifications, assuring alignment with their requirements and goals. We have found that students would prefer new study rooms, upgrade connectivity via Wi-Fi, quiet areas, free printing, and improvised study pods in extra space. Our project enhances students' lives and builds a healthy campus community through this approach.

Acción Latina, a largely volunteer-run community organization based in San Francisco’s Mission District, has been publishing a twice-monthly, bilingual newspaper since 1970 and producing an annual festival celebrating Latin American music since 1982. In 2017, the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley acquired the Acción Latina pictorial archive. For my capstone, I processed and arranged the nearly 10,000 photographic prints and over 600 posters in the archive, and wrote a detailed, searchable finding aid that is now published on the Online Archive of California.