Building upon the work of the “Poison Book Project,” I worked with the University of Washington Libraries to investigate the presence of the toxic pigment "emerald green" (copper acetoarsenite) in Victorian-era bookcloth published between the 1840s and 1860s. After extensively searching UW Libraries collections, 50 volumes were tested by the Pacific Northwest Conservation Science Consortium using x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy; nine were confirmed to contain arsenic. As a result, arsenical books are now labeled, and precautionary measures for the handling and storage of such books have been implemented to mitigate the risk of unintentional arsenic exposure for patrons and library staff.

While the UW Office of Global Affairs (OGA) relies on the Global Publications Dashboard to showcase UW faculty’s scholarship and worldwide collaborations, its user retention has decreased since the data source became outdated in 2019. Some users couldn’t find the desired information, such as statistics regarding the department’s global presence and international co-authorship. Additionally, some faculties’ work has not been acknowledged. To address this issue, we retrieved 2 million rows of up-to-date data, improved the name-matching process, added indexing to increase database performance, and developed a networking tool to empower UW faculties to enhance global engagement and facilitate research collaboration.

My project consisted of a deep dive into the legacy VHS collection at Scarecrow Video, assessing items on the basis of rights ownership & management and physical rarity. Over the course of my project I narrowed my focus to look at queer porn and erotica, as I felt they were a particularly vulnerable part of an already vulnerable collection consisting of an ephemeral and obsolete analog medium. My goal was to provide Scarecrow information which would help them maintain their collection in the future.

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 Flipgrid team at Microsoft believes that a healthy online learning platform is the combination of the sense of safety and the level of engagement from its users on the site. Using PowerBI as a vessel to track Flipgrid’s platform content and user activity, our mission was to help the Flipgrid team refine how they measure the health of their platform. The insights generated from this report will support Flipgrid’s effort to create platform policies and feature enhancements that make the online platform a safe environment for all users as well as a source of good connections and healthy experiences.

Finding research opportunities at universities is an extremely time-consuming and ineffective process that often leads to frustrated, empty-handed students, students who quickly churn out of roles due to poor fit, and research leads ending up behind schedule. Online research postings are often outdated, and the most common way principal investigators (PIs) find candidates -- through people they already know -- is neither an efficient nor inclusive process. To address this problem, we created MatchLab, an online platform that democratizes research opportunities and saves students and PIs time and frustration.

Spotty (Spot a Potty) is a mobile-first web application to help people on the go find public restrooms that fit their needs. Lack of bathroom access is a serious humanitarian and public health issue; good bathrooms are difficult to find, particularly for people who have to be on the move frequently. Spotty addresses this by allowing users to find nearby locations as well as view features and reviews in advance, helping them save time and have better peace of mind.

First-time homeownership is abundant in resources on purchasing a home, but resources about caring for one’s home lack in comparison. Additionally, these resources lack organization and information applicable to individual needs. As a result, two-thirds of first-time American homeowners ignore home maintenance until parts of their home begin to malfunction, leading to unexpected expenses. To mitigate homebuyer’s regret caused by being unprepared for home maintenance, UCHI organizes maintenance tasks relevant to each home. With UCHI’s recommendations and reminders to stay up-to-date with home maintenance tasks, first-time homeowners are able to protect their investments and better care for their homes.

In March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Washington State Library collected data on service disruptions across the state’s public libraries. We have built on this effort by curating, enriching, and tidying the information in this dataset — adding variables to transform it into a time series, filling in missing values, and archiving the digital sources we referenced for each observation. Our curated dataset and supporting materials, published on the Washington State open data portal, will serve as a comprehensive record to shed light on this historical moment and inform future research and emergency response planning.