Aerowood Animal Hospital, a 24 hour emergency veterinary hospital, has been serving its community for decades. Unfortunately, an interoffice shared network with hundreds of improperly organized materials, as well as a backlog of physical materials in need of digitization, and several training programs in need of updates and/or expansion has left the staff exhausted when it comes to communication and data retrieval. This project heavily relied on digitization, categorization, organization, and instruction. More creative efforts went into updating and expanding training methodologies. The impact improves the working environment, staff relationships with clients, and hospital communications.

In 2017, the College of Southern Nevada library moved from the platform Millennium to ALMA. In the past, CSN Libraries allowed for the creation of brief records by circulation staff for reserve items that did not have enough information to provide discovery of these materials in the new discovery platform PRIMO. The solution was to create a bibliographic record procedure that allowed library staff to complete accurate information for these materials. As a result, staff members can revise and correct complete information in these materials successfully. Students, faculty, and staff can identify and view complete bibliographic records through the platform PRIMO.

The Colonial Theater in Idaho Falls, Idaho is turning 100 years old. The Idaho Falls Arts Council needed assistance in archiving and compiling photographs and documents to create a commemorative book for this 100 year mark. I arranged and conducted research at The Colonial Theater and The Museum of Idaho. I discovered, scanned, documented, and transcribed photographs and relevant records. I presented my findings to the Arts Council and they were pleased with the images and accounts that I discovered. Now there is more than enough content to create a book to celebrate this staple of the Idaho Falls community.

The Arizona Memory Project (AMP) is a digital platform providing access to primary sources from contributors across the State of Arizona. My project focused on Arizona Related Federal Publications, a collection of federal materials contributed by the State of Arizona Research Library. The collection, comprising over 1,500 federal publications, was too large to navigate easily and contained inconsistent and missing metadata records. To improve accessibility, I created a multi-stage plan to: i) begin organizing the large collection into smaller, topical collections, ii) standardize metadata to meet Dublin Core and AMP standards, and iii) digitize additional relevant federal publications.

Adolescent resources on puberty are lacking in public libraries. Information is scattered, outdated, and non-inclusive of LBGTQ+ children and children of color. All adolescents need more relevant, accessible information on sexuality, reproduction, gender, and their changing bodies. This project assessed over 200 books and online resources for sexual and ethnic diversity. The Lake Oswego Public Library collection was improved with materials purchased, consolidated call numbers, annotated booklists, and a blog. A toolkit was created for use by other libraries. The library’s collection now reflects the experiences of its diverse patrons, with better access to resources for their safety and well-being.

Descriptive standards used to develop archival descriptions—also called finding aids—are well-suited to describe the fundamental documentary elements of collections of analog materials; it becomes necessary to assess these standards’ applicability for born-digital materials, which are being ingested into repositories with increasing frequency. After writing archival descriptions of a born-digital collection which is to be accessioned by UW’s Special Collections, I have evaluated where these standards do not address the fundamental documentary elements of born-digital materials. I have also developed a set of recommended adaptations to these standards, so that they can adequately convey relevant information about born-digital materials.

Have you ever thought about what happened behind the scenes when you search databases on your library’s online catalog? Exlibris, a ProQuest Company manages about more than 15,000 titles of databases and provide libraries with title metadata. The company recently developed a new back-end tool which aims to better serve its clients. The goal of our project is to develop an efficient data migration strategy and migrate metadata from the old tool into the new one. Since the library’s online catalog are becoming an integral part of our professional life, we are hoping to make it more convenient for everyone.

Browsing for genre fiction and graphic novels is difficult for library users and staff with the current organization styles at Scenic Regional Library branches. Genres are inconsistently and incompletely labeled and graphic novels are organized in the 741.5s by author last name. In my proposal, I recommend the addition of more genre spine labels (fantasy/science fiction, romance, suspense) to the current use of mystery, religious fiction, and western. To make graphic novels more browser-friendly, I suggest disregarding the customary use of author name in the call number in favor of the series names to organize the materials on the shelf.

Missoula Public Library in Missoula, MT is building a new library website for 2020. Our capstone team sought to better understand the content, context, and users of the library’s website to improve the information architecture. We restructured the global navigation to have a topical organization scheme and eliminated ambiguous terms. We also developed a written report with a summary of our research, recommended information architecture, best practices going forward, and curated data for future analyses. The result being a "digital branch" that builds community, enhances library services, and saves the time of the user.