The Millworks is a Food Campus and Affordable Housing development on the Bellingham waterfront. Community Engagement is needed to gain community support and investment to make the project more viable. Part of the challenge is how to solve this problem during the COVID-19 pandemic when a social gathering is not recommended. Our research led to an online platform where we can engage with the community. We hope to allow the user to make a difference in getting their community voices heard through submitting ideas, taking surveys, and joining online events. This can create a lasting impact on the community.

Children's librarians moved storytime online at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic without knowledge of what works in that format. The project sponsor, Claire Scott, began weekly community storytimes and struggled with replicating the interactivity and community building present in-person. Through observation, research, surveys, and trial, I tested various new elements with Claire's storytime audience. I found that platform matters; freeze dances, scavenger hunts, and getting off mute helps with interactivity; and I created a Facebook group for the adults to connect with one another. I also created a one-page guide for other librarians to use in their storytimes.

Otherworld Media intends to launch an online platform for school age children to engage multiple literacy skills while deepening comprehension and developing imagination. The final project will be a guide for parents and educators to encourage the self education of young learners. A growing body of research points to the need for young children to use safe search strategies. The goal is to give children, especially BIPOC, access to counter storytelling narratives, and regain control over their own education. Children will then grow into better educated and more well rounded adults with strong skills in self determination and self advocacy.

The Rainbow Connection is a capstone project aimed at improving the Follet Destiny Discover catalog interface for the LGBTQIA+ community of Ballard High School. Together with the sponsor, TuesD Chambers, MLIS candidates Henry Christopher, Jess Gray, and Leanne Pacheco work to improve the navigation of the library’s web pages, increasing ease of searching and information gathering. We survey the students and staff of BHS to gain stakeholder input. Then we create several digital collections to organize books by subject beyond what the current software provides. The result is an easy-to-navigate digital collection allowing users to find and access LGBTQIA+ materials.

East Asian libraries in the United States were born from the rise of Asian studies. Today, given the challenges of the outbreak of COVID-19, hate crimes against the Asian community, and the suspension of international trips, East Asian libraries must figure out new ways to provide their services and access to collections. This project is sponsored by UW's Tateuchi East Asia Library, aimed at understanding the information needs of the community and increasing its influence and visibility to continue providing effective information support for scholars and students in the new reality.

UCSC’s Special Collections needed to discover the prevalence and nature of outdated and problematic language within hundreds of finding aids that archivists have created. After conducting research and composing a literature review, I performed an extensive audit of the finding aids that included in-depth reviews of individual aids as well as keyword searching through the entire collection of finding aids. The changes that will result from this project will decrease the marginalization of subjects contained within the records while simultaneously allowing users of the finding aids to engage with a more inclusive discourse for resource description and access.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Chinese citizens are eager to return to their home country. However, the Chinese authority imposed numerous travel restrictions, which made traveling back to China very challenging. TravelSaver provides regularly updated travel and quarantine policies and tools to manage travel plans, guiding users through the complicated procedures from preparation, scheduling for Covid PCR testing to the quarantine process. We expect TravelSaver to make the returning plans less stressful for Chinese citizens. More people would benefit from it and constantly contribute to validating and updating travel plans to polish the information and planning tools.

Epic Games provides the Unreal Engine to diverse users who use its functionalities for varied purposes. However, users often struggle to locate documentation most relevant to their needs. A keyword taxonomy would allow Epic’s technical writers to more consistently tag over 3,000 documentation pages, which would in turn improve searchability. By working to develop this taxonomy, we helped Epic to better understand the nuances of their unique knowledge management challenge. Our work yielded a proof of concept as well as recommendations that will help guide the company as they continue to work toward more equitable access to the Unreal Engine.