The Historic Fort Steilacoom Association publishes a regular newsletter for their members, which contains valuable information about the Fort’s deep ties to local and national history. Over 150 of these newsletters are available online, but are only organized by basic bibliographic information which impedes precise discovery. To assist with this issue, we developed a custom indexing language, tagged each newsletter article, and developed a prototype of the web version of the index. Our indexing language was also intentionally designed to better represent the women’s and indigenous history at the Fort.

The Seattle Opera Costume Shop has over 1300 linear feet of costume items, ranging from tricorn hats to corsets to feathered bird tails, but lacked a comprehensive inventory of its stock. The Costume Database project aimed to tackle a fraction of this problem by creating a database of its rental stock. The new cloud-based database describes, tracks and links costume changes, actors, characters, individual costume items, and more for better access and searchability for shop staff, designers, and outside opera companies.

When the pandemic lockdown closed public libraries across Washington state, staff had to turn on a dime and evaluate their services and programs catering to users who could no longer access these spaces. Washington State Libraries collected data about services added or modified to accommodate patrons. Our team curated data for 60 city, rural, and island libraries in Washington state and presented our results in the form of a curated dataset, a data curation protocol, and a report. This collection serves as an archive of COVID-19 and 21st-century history and helps libraries and other public institutions prepare for future disasters.

The Data Advocacy Toolkit for Small Libraries seeks to empower libraries with limited time and staff resources by adding value to the data collection work they already do each year. The Toolkit provides ready-made reports and data visualizations using real-time analysis of the operational metrics libraries must collect as part of the annual Public Libraries Survey (PLS). And unlike third-party data analytics platforms, the Toolkit is built using software libraries will already have access to and be familiar with, flattening the learning curve and putting data-driven storytelling within reach.

The students at the Seattle World School are newcomers that are currently learning English while adapting to a new environment. By developing a makerspace full of resources that can be lent out, the library can provide those students with opportunities to learn English by making connections with each other and develop new hobbies that can help with their adaptation journey. Through this project, data was collected from surveys in both English and Spanish to learn about the student's interests and create a list of resources that can be used to help develop this space.

Though the value of collection digitization was well understood, the Mason County Historical Society, like many rural cultural institutions, lacked the funds, support, and knowledge to properly create, tag, and manage their digitized holdings. This project proposes an intuitive workflow for attaching metadata that will follow the artifact through its physical and digital lifecycle. New workflows allow the current MCHS team to tag their digitized artifacts with metadata sans programming knowledge, leading to enhanced accessibility and community engagement.

Over the past ten years, tensions have grown between libraries and the publishing industry as eBooks have become more popular and as eBook costs have risen. As library workers, we are motivated by the core mission of libraries to provide access to information, which is threatened by current licensing models. In this project, we assess the current practices and power imbalances in eBook licensing through interviews with 40 stakeholders. Our research suggests that legislation is one of many possible strategies to achieve a sustainable and equitable system of access to information for future generations.

In 2021, the Washington State Library (WSL) purchased Northstar, a program that teaches digital literacy skills. The WSL provides Northstar to libraries and community-based organizations, but the COVID-19 pandemic created constraints around library programming and partnership development. Washington communities need access to this training, but libraries have had limited capacity to provide it. This project streamlines the process of launching Northstar for libraries by providing resources for staff and materials for patron outreach. By creating this infrastructure, we’ve made it easier for patrons to gain access to these essential skills and helped to close the digital divide in Washington state.

After a year of attending school online and their access to cell phones less inhibited, our students needed to practice and learn skills that would help them in their daily digital lives. In partnership with my school’s librarian, I researched and discussed digital literacy and citizenship for over a year. Together, we decided it was time for some action. We created, adapted, and implemented four lessons addressing these concerns. We then reflected with students about that learning and developed a plan for future collaboration.

This project analyzed community feedback and current research on digital programming and the issues that arise in rural communities where internet access, scheduling, and low communication with library patrons leads to lackluster attendance at events and concerns about not serving library patrons effectively. I assisted with the initial steps of creating a Teen Advisory Board to return programming for teenagers to the library, though a first meeting has not occurred yet. This project will help Asotin County Library and other small systems figure out how to adjust to post-pandemic programming that serves all patrons, not just toddlers or adults.