Migration Trail is a board game that presents the lived experiences of Central Americans traveling from San Pedro Sula, Honduras to the Mexican and the United States border seeking asylum. Migration Trail uses the power of storytelling and narrative building to create realistic yet fictional characters, and scenarios that allow participates to experiences the plight of this mass migration. These methods of storytelling and gameplay are applied to connect and draw outsiders in understanding the issues surrounding these mass migrations. The goal of Migration Trail is to highlight, reflect on, create dialogue, and make agents of social change for migration.

My project focused on teen library services in Mohave County, Arizona. Teen usage has dropped off over the last few years and my task was finding ways to better engage with them. My research, done via countywide survey, indicated that teens want to engage more with digital technology, and that many are unaware that the libraries have teen centers. My report indicated that an emphasis on technology and more outreach would bolster library usage. My research helps the library to create a stronger informal learning environment tailored to their interests, and one empowered by keeping teen voices in mind.

We worked with the National Park’s NAGRPA staff to index specific issues, tribes, or institutions within the Review Committee minutes. The project created a thesaurus introduction and tagged institutions that update the Review Committee, as well as provided the reason (i.e. request for disposition, request for finding of fact/dispute, presentation, or public/written comment). Our project enables NAGPRA staff to search the minutes for specific issues they encounter regularly, and provides them a more comprehensive view of current needs. It will thus enable visibility of indigenous issues and make them more accessible, transparent, and useful to NAGPRA.

The mission of the Island County Historical Society & Museum is to collect, preserve, and interpret the rich and unique cultural heritage and history of Island County, WA to include the history of its earliest inhabitants - Coast Salish Native Americans. For my Capstone, I developed an interactive map that identifies the different Native American tribes and their permanent settlements located throughout Island County, WA. Though this project I hope to provide researchers and visitors a way to interact with information on Native tribes of this area and their contributions to Whidbey and Camano Island.

Between the years of 1890 and 1895, the town of Bethel, Maine had no local newspaper. Newspapers are a critical source of local information for researchers. The Bethel Historical Society’s collection of papers from the Herrick & Park law firm is large and important record of life in Bethel during that time period. Documents from 1890-1895 were digitized, cataloged, and re-housed. A finding aid was created with an index of correspondents. Finally, an online exhibit highlighting interesting examples of letterhead from the collection was created to generate interest.

An essay bringing to light several of the histories involving various Library Systems’ and Information Technologies’ specific sites. Through stories and questions, I demonstrate an approach to the epistemologies and ontologies I would like to encourage in Information Sciences. While detailing some recent developments in cataloging systems, this essay approaches philosophical questions regarding colonization and environmentalism. My intention is to present possibilities for further opening discussions.

The information problem for our capstone project focused on the creative work of Otherworld Media, a nonprofit educational group focused on encouraging reading and creativity in elementary aged children. Judith Walcutt, the creative director of the nonprofit, had created a radio play with the intent of touring and visiting public libraries to show children the wonder of reading and books. However, she needed resources that libraries could use to promote and use this radio play. We created an age-appropriate methodology using common core standards, and then created an annotated list of resources based on the content of the radio play.

Even though outcome based models of evaluating library services have become increasingly popular within scholarly conversation, public libraries often struggle to fully integrate such models within their organizations. Many public libraries collect outcome data, but end up wasting the time and resources they invested by not using the results. This project examines practices advocated by the scholarly community and their practical application through a survey of 39 public libraries. The resulting recommendations attempt to reconcile the theoretical with the practical and provide the Jefferson County Library with a framework for sharing program results and success stories with their stakeholders.

Warren G. Magnuson served as United States Congressman for Washington state from 1937-1981. An alum of the University of Washington, Magnuson gifted his collection of audio/visual materials in 1981 to Special Collections. This project required inventorying, assessing, and creating access to the original audio/visual collection, which consists of 171 films and 324 audio items. Initial preservation actions in the 1980s created hard copy finding aids, masters and user copies totaling in 1,274 physical items. Our work created access to all through a digital finding aid and detailed research to assist in grant drafting for future digitization efforts.