We seek to expose young children to diverse groups of people from different cultural backgrounds through an interactive storytelling app. This application will serve as an example that diversity, social awareness, and empathy can and should be incorporated into everything that we do. The interactive aspect of our story app will allow children to make decisions for their characters and see how the consequences affect them and the other characters in the story. Our aim is to have parents download this app for their children and encourage them to play it in order to teach them about stereotypes that currently exist and how they can combat them. We also want parents to guide their children through the stories and educate them on specific social issues as they are following the story.

Currently there is no structured data standard for representing elements commonly found in transmedia fictional universes. To address this information gap, we have created an ontological model that will allow researchers, fans, brand managers, and creators to search for and retrieve information contained in these worlds based on their structures. Our process included a domain analysis and user studies based on the contents of four transmedia works in order to build a new model using Ontology Web Language (OWL) and an artificial intelligence reasoning engine. This model can infer connections between the transmedia elements and will facilitate better search and retrieval of the information contained within these vast story universes for all users interested in them. The result of this project is an OWL ontology that is intuitive for users; can be used by AI systems; and has been updated to reflect real user needs based on user research.

LIBROS is a digital toolkit which was created to address a gap in children’s services in the North Central Regional Library system (NCRL). Although many households in NCRL’s service area are bilingual or Spanish-speaking, the majority of library branches don’t offer dual-language storytime programs. Staff cited two main reasons for this: lack of confidence in their own Spanish skills and not knowing how to select Spanish-language storytime elements such as books and songs. Several employees simply said, “I just don’t think I can do it. LIBROS aims to solve this issue by acting as an online resource where library staff can learn how to incorporate basic Spanish words and concepts into storytime. Interactive modules provide storytime examples, suggested books and media, and downloadable files. The end goal is multifaceted: to empower and encourage librarians, increase library patronage, and touch the lives of families through the magic of libros—books.

Making Connections with Linked Data: Identities and Identifiers at University of Victoria Libraries Robbyn Gordon Lanning (MLIS) Linked data empowers libraries and archives to connect rich stores of local data to global audiences through the use of common identifiers and standards. The University of Victoria (UVic) Libraries possesses over 2.9 million records, each of which uses text strings as resource identifiers. In order to participate in the semantic web, UVic Libraries must prepare its metadata, transitioning its records from textual representations of people, places, and subjects to internationally accessible Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). To assist UVic in meeting this challenge I implemented a study reconciling randomized datasets from each of UVic’s four record repositories to linked data identifiers. This research culminated in a report providing detailed reconciliation results, suggestions to overcome obstacles encountered, and best practice recommendations for future reconciliation work. By assisting UVic Libraries in preparation for transitioning its “strings” to “things”, this project has helped enrich the exposure, interoperability, and accessibility of UVic’s information holdings.

Fashion: a word that is synonymous with affluence, beauty and confidence. However, a little known fact is that the clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world, second only to oil. Additionally, a new survey of 2,825 adult women in the U.S. shows that 36.85% of them admit to not wearing most dresses they bought. (Krupnick n.d.)So, what can two women who consider themselves “conscious fashionistas” do to save the world one dress at a time? Empowered with information and driven by technology, the Mélange team educates adult women about their fashion carbon footprint through an activity that they famously enjoy: Shopping! By leveraging the cloud platform to enable women to rent used clothes, we are solving a problem for the women by the women. We believe that this crowd-sourced resell model will drastically reduce the waste generated due to the current absence of an efficient clothing discarding system. Krupnick, Ellie. n.d. "American Women’s Shopping Influenced Heavily By Fashion Trends, Survey Finds." huffingtonpost.com. Accessed May 9th, 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/american-women-shopping_n_2764634.html.

On March 22, 2014, a massive landslide engulfed the Steelhead Haven neighborhood near Oso, Washington. In seconds, Steelhead Haven was gone and State Route 530, the primary road to nearby Darrington, was buried in debris. 43 people died. In the weeks that followed, the Darrington community contributed vital expertise, equipment, and support to search and recovery efforts. Since then, the Darrington Historical Society has launched an ambitious project: development of an archive at UW Digital Collections to document the community’s experiences (http://content.lib.washington.edu/landslidesweb/). We made three significant contributions to the project: First, we created a collection development policy that will guide the archive’s growth. Second, we designed a tracking system to organize and manage the collection. Third, we greatly increased the size of the archive by processing a backlog of photos, documents, and maps. The community’s recovery will be a long one; our work ensures their story won’t be forgotten.

The UW has a variety of mentoring programs available to students but each is implemented in their own way without a standard platform for matching mentors with mentees. This can hinder the mentoring process by creating difficulty for mentors and mentees to match up. Our website will standardize the mentoring matching process and allows mentors and mentees to find their ideal match in a more simpler way. We believe this will encourage and increase mentoring at the UW which means more lives will be improved.

Colegio Anglo Colombiano is an International Baccalaureate school located in Bogota, Colombia. The Anglo did not have a clear scope and sequence or curricular framework for MYP (grades 5-9, 6-10 in USA) research and information literacy skills. This capstone will address that void. Following the development of the scope and sequence, the ultimate goal would be implementation in all MYP classes, not just in the library. I will continue at the school next academic year to ensure this. There is also a PR element of the project, letting teachers know that the document exits and how they can use it even if the librarian is unavailable. Teachers will be highly encouraged to partner with me for at least one project in the year en order to ensure students are coming into the library and being exposed to the program regularly. Student’s information literacy skills will greatly benefit from this program.

In 2010, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) was required to send records from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to the newly formed American Indian Records Repository (AIRR). This event was based on a judiciary order in the 1996 case Cobell v. Norton (now Cobell v. Salazar) which successfully argued that the United States Federal Government was lax in its handling and storage of these records and the issues related therein. Until now, NARA has been unaware as to the extent of AIRR’s holdings and has not had a way to assist information seekers in locating their needed documents. Through data sorting and analysis, I created a finding aid which now makes it possible for NARA to assist those seeking their educational, personal, and financial records.