The job hunt can be stressful enough by itself; uncertainty surrounding hearing back and the next steps to interviews can make it difficult to find ways to gain control of the process. Sending materials en masse can easily lead to losing track of key information regarding positions, such as due dates and requirements. Many use spreadsheets to track online postings, which adds more work to the tedious process. Clarity simplifies the management of online job postings to return that time and energy to job seekers so that they can focus on what actually matters: bringing their best foot forward.

In order to provide inclusive service, UW Libraries needs to provide diverse collections with plentiful materials by, for, and about historically underrepresented groups. Most collection diversity resources are aimed at school and public libraries. My project focused on researching how other academic libraries have addressed DEI in their collections in order to provide methods suitable for UW’s large scholarly collection. I analyzed collection development policies incorporating DEI and conducted a literature review. With information about assessment methods and strategies to obtain more diverse materials, UW Libraries has access to a menu of possibilities to enhance collection diversity.

The UW Libraries Open Scholarship Commons (OSC) plans to expand its services to better support members of the academic community performing public and community-engaged research and scholarship. To inform the future development of the OSC, this project investigated the current state of public and community-engaged scholarship at the UW and beyond through a literature review, environmental scan, and interviews. Findings from this project will inform how the OSC develops its virtual and physical presence, the services and resources it offers, and how it fits into the University's broader efforts to support work with and for the community and public.

To help the Xbox team determine which technology performs better at detecting unsafe images, our project builds a comparison system that evaluates the performance of two image detection algorithms. The key results include: 1) a system that takes user images and generates similarity scores automatically; 2) an analysis pipeline that analyzes the data in Python and is live-connected with Power BI to show the key metrics. With our pipelines, the Xbox team can easily plug in images and see the comparison results on the dashboards. It eventually improves user experience by helping moderators remove the bad content effectively.

Many traditional entrepreneurship support networks exclude people from marginalized backgrounds. My research identified existing library resources that support entrepreneurship but no specific resources for marginalized entrepreneurs. From my research and conversations with librarians, I was able to identify a need: a resource designed specifically for supporting entrepreneurs from marginalized communities. I created a toolkit for librarians in Washington state to use in supporting entrepreneurs from marginalized communities. By using my toolkit, librarians in Washington will be able to support entrepreneurs from marginalized backgrounds. In turn, entrepreneurs and small business owners from marginalized backgrounds will be able to grow their businesses.

The Digital Theological Library (DTL) has a growing Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) collection that needs to be made accessible to subscribing schools and individuals as physical access to collections has been limited due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The CDL project is an effort to increase accessibility by digitizing books and then storing the physical copies so that only the digitized copy is accessible by users. The DTL has purchased, scanned, and uploaded thousands of print volumes. Reagan Callahan was responsible for linking approximately 3,000 digitized books in Dropbox to the library’s LibGuides and activating those records within OCLC World Share.

Our team set out to understand barriers to COVID-19 data publishing across the United States. Working with our sponsor, Sarah Schacht, we investigated how governments process and normalize a high volume of data as well as publish information to a variety of stakeholders. We conducted an ecosystem scan of all 50 states and key informant interviews to understand public health department needs. Using our findings, we produced reports highlighting shortcomings and obstacles in COVID-19 data reporting and provided recommendations. The report will hopefully be used to remedy existing problems and prepare government bodies to manage data in the future.

While the COVID-19 pandemic spared no region in the world and left in its wake an unprecedented public health and economic crisis, it has exposed and exacerbated pre-existing socioeconomic inequalities both globally and domestically. Using publicly available datasets, we have built a model that identifies neighborhoods in Miami that are most vulnerable to post-pandemic recession. This will enable government officials and policymakers to make data-informed decisions to spur the revival of the city’s economy.

With our nation’s declared quarantines and the drive to develop and administer COVID-19 vaccines, it is no surprise that young adults are prematurely socializing without heeding safety regulations. While tools have been released to help, they are unnecessarily complicated, time-consuming, and invasive. CovidAware, a COVID-19 risk assessment calculator, is our solution to young adults' needs for in-person social interaction, to mediate their less cautious behavior, and decrease stigmatization they face from their peers. With CovidAware we can reduce the number of new COVID-19 cases and provide the information needed to make informed decisions without requiring users to provide unnecessary information.