The Malcom Stilson Special Collections, located in the Library Underground area of the Evergreen State College campus, houses the history of the institution, and consists of manuscripts and media in different formats. The purpose of this capstone was to assist with media digitization. I have also provided documentation on a new digitizing process, and metadata retention. It is believed that this will be of value to future students and staff, and help maintain consistency across multimedia collections. Additional deliverables include an analysis of DACS and EAD, and the pros and cons of incorporating EAD into a collection.

The Naturalist’s Scrapbook is a digital crowdsourcing project that activates the relevance of archival materials while growing community investment in the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History collections. Featuring digitized excerpts of the scrapbook made by the Museum’s founding collector, naturalist and lighthouse keeper Laura Hecox, the project asks volunteers to transcribe details and identify keywords for each scrapbook clipping. This information is operationalized by museum staff to engage nontraditional volunteers, enhance mission-relevant outreach content, increase awareness of the Museum’s history, and develop new directions for further research into the local history of Santa Cruz natural history.

The Soviet Broadcast Collection contains over a thousand hours of news, documentaries, and cultural programming aired in the Soviet Union from 1986 to 1992. The collection is currently stored on video cassette in the Suzzallo Library and is at risk of complete deterioration. Working with John Vallier in the Media Archiving and Digitization Lab, I was able to continue the work of digitally preserving this material. I have provided recommendations for the full preservation and sharing of the content, including creation of finding aids, adding media to the Media Arcade’s Jukebox, and making material available for language and culture studies.

Digitization has enabled inward-facing memory institutions to provide unprecedented access to archived records, contributing to interdisciplinary discoveries and knowledge dissemination. In addition to an extensive specimen archive, the U.W. Herbarium supports a consortial database for digitized records and virtual tools for images. This expansion of institutional responsibilities with static or ad-hoc funding provides the impetus for a digital curation plan which is capable of functioning within the parameters of a modern herbarium. This project examined the modern herbarium’s information landscape yielding 3,000+ processed images, documented workflows, a targeted data curation plan, and two related articles for submission.

Documents produced during the video game development process are generally scarce because of a lack of incentive for companies to share their work and intellectual property; however, academic and other institutions have begun collecting and persevering video games and development documents in order to preserve the history of this medium. I conducted a user needs assessment of five distinct user groups about what they considered a development document, their individual user needs, and their thoughts on video game preservation in general to develop an initial metadata schema that would support individuals using these types of documents.

The Washington Library Association (WLA) has a rich past, but the archival material documenting its history were confined to over a dozen boxes, stacked away, collecting dust. Although there was interest in the WLA in examining its history, they couldn’t spare the resources to thoroughly examine the material. Our capstone team, aided by WLA historians, went through the boxes, organizing the material, discarding surplus documents, and selecting items of particular interest. We also created fact sheets covering a decade of WLA history, as well as creating finding aids to help anyone wanting to use the material in the future.

Oregon Digital is an open access archive of historical documents jointly maintained by the University of Oregon and Oregon State University Libraries. Our project focused on Western Waters, a single collection within the archive that, following a recent system migration, consisted of duplicated, inconsistent, and fragmented records. To improve accessibility and recall, we developed a three-phase plan to remove duplicate records, create accurate parent and child records, and add standardized metadata such as Library of Congress Subject Headings and Name Authority Files. The completed collection will be submitted to the Digital Public Library of America.

The Woodmark Group is a not-for-profit organization that links children’s hospitals across the United States and Canada. They provide a platform called the Woodmark Exchange to manage communication and resources with over 2,000 fundraisers across 26 hospitals. Through an iterative user-centered design process, we built features such as email integration, user engagement, search optimization, and a master library to empower fundraisers to do their best work. The new platform enables fundraisers to discover, share, and implement best practices to ensure resources are used effectively and efficiently to lead the development of philanthropy, to improve the health of children everywhere.

While Seattle is best known for its grunge and indie music scenes, it has had a rich hip hop history as well. Currently there is no single repository, digital or physical, that is devoted to the collection and preservation of materials related to hip hop in Seattle or the Pacific Northwest. By building a robust collection of Seattle hip hop from the 1970s to current releases, making it publicly accessible in UW’s Suzzallo Library, and creating a LibGuide to promote the collection, we hope to bring more awareness and recognition to the diversity of voices in Seattle’s music scene.

Our project was twofold. First, we finished processing the Selma Waldman collection for the Special Collections Department at Seattle Public Library. Waldman was a local artist and political activist who left her extensive paperwork, marginalia, and correspondence to the library. The majority of the collection had been processed previously, but we still needed to finish the last few boxes and cross-reference our findings with the preliminary finding aid. Next, we designed an exhibit for SPL to use in the future. Using SmartDraw we came up with a design to showcase Waldman’s art and activism for the public.