In 1941, a group of Seattle citizens joined together to create the Friends of The Seattle Public Library, a non-profit which advocates, educates, and raises funds on behalf of The Seattle Public Library. The Friends group has been and still is influential in supporting The Seattle Public Library by supporting existing library programs, funding new library programs, improving library facilities, and purchasing tools and technologies. I have partnered with the Friends of The Seattle Public Library to create a digital collection as well as training materials for future volunteers. The organization has archival files from its past but has no method for managing these materials. Therefore, I selected and digitized documents to create the start of an online repository, using Omeka, of key documents from the organization’s history. These documents shed light and provide unique perspectives on the organization, the library, and the history of Seattle.

Research and professional journals confirm micro and small businesses lead the way in Web 2.0 adoption. Although these businesses “are increasingly using social media technologies as part of their business activities… [it is] often as a supplemental promotional tool and without any clear idea of how to measure performance” (Atanassova & Clark, 2015). Many lack a strategic plan guiding their social media practices in a manner supporting their overall mission and goals. The barriers creating these gaps are often identified as lacking time, budget, and technology skills. Knowledge barriers include a limited awareness of information resources, software and platform features, implementation strategies, and best practices for user engagement and interface design. Our workshops help business owners overcome these barriers by providing a methodical approach, information resources, and analytic training with the goal of integrating social media as a tool into their overall business plan.

We collaborated with the Pilchuck Glass School to survey, assess and curate a collection of their library resources to be properly preserved, described and made accessible for research. These resources include an archive of DVDs that consist of artist demonstrations dating back to the early 1980’s and ephemeral items such as museum catalogues from all over the world. We delivered a detailed strategy plan for the preservation of these items, including a collection development policy to guide the future development of the library. Our hope is that with this foundation in place Pilchuck will be able to apply for grant funding to continue the preservation process.

In 2013, Western Washington University’s Office of University Residences began creating a departmental intranet. As of December 2015, though the intranet was up and running, staff were not confident working within it. Administrators worried that a lack of training would lead to a disorganized intranet. My Capstone sought to build staff enthusiasm and confidence around the intranet, giving them the skills to add content in ways that ensure easy access to well-organized content. I collected staff feedback, which I used to develop and implement two in-person intranet trainings. Trainings focused on skill acquisition as well as active discussion about the intranet. I also created supporting documentation and recommendations for the future. Staff evaluations of these trainings were encouraging, and this in-person training will be incorporated in new employee orientations. This Capstone helped to build energy and discussion around the intranet, and will assist with its long-term success.

The Kearsarge Seed Savers Group is a small group of farmers and gardeners in rural New Hampshire with an interest in preserving open pollinated seeds that are either rare or of local interest. Due to competition with hybrid varieties more suitable to long distance transport and disease resistance, more than 90% of the United States fruit and vegetable varieties have vanished. This group’s mission is to preserve heirloom varieties whilst also creating a Darwinian effect that increases production by saving seeds from the best plant and utilizing each generation. Although dedicated to the conservation of often long forgotten varieties, the group has struggled with organization and communication. The solution presented was the development of an Access database to serve as a dynamic catalog for the seed collection that monitors inventory levels for storage and distribution. This is connected to a website for means of communication via xml.

Caldera is an Oregon-based nonprofit that provides mentoring to students through arts and environmental programming. Its staff works with youth year-round for seven years, starting in middle school and continuing through high school graduation. The White House recently recognized Caldera as one of only twelve nonprofits to receive the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program (NAHYP) Award. As the organization celebrates its 20-year anniversary, its stakeholders have become critically aware of the need for an organized, centralized digital image repository to serve as an archive of organizational history and enable discovery to promote future work. Currently, its digital images exist across upwards of ten poorly organized hard drives. For my Capstone project, I have assessed Caldera’s collection and available technology and developed a long-term project plan for establishing a repository. This plan includes recommendations on ingest, preservation, and discovery.

The Bancroft Library on the University of California, Berkeley campus is one of the most heavily used repositories of Western Americana in the United States. Our project makes thousands of manuscript items and printed materials relating to Indigenous communities of present-day California more approachable, searchable, and accessible. With assistance and feedback from members of Indigenous communities in California and subject specialists, we have created a cohesive, detailed guide listing individual titles of items with links to their related collections, catalog records, and finding aids. Our records are organized by language family, and again by four categories we created: Lifeways (physical culture), Worldview (relationships, geographic location, and activism), Mythology & Storytelling (narrative representations), Language (linguistic materials), and General (all material not appropriate for other groupings). We hope our project assists in the preservation and revitalization of traditional culture and language through increased knowledge, respect and understanding of our California communities.

Willows Preparatory School (WPS) is a private institution affiliated with Bellevue Children’s Academy in Redmond, Washington. While the elementary school was established in 2000, WPS is only in its second year, therefore, the library is relatively small and consists largely of donated resources. Despite the small size, the new librarian has created an excellent base of resources in nonfiction and a good selection of new and popular books. As an International Baccalaureate (IB) candidate school, with a diverse student population, WPS is looking to add more international and multicultural resources that will both interest the students in their personal reading, support the school’s curriculum, and meet IB standards. With this in mind, my goal was to cultivate high quality international and multicultural resources that the librarian can immediately add to her emerging library.

Investigating the Status of Anime Collections in Public Libraries As anime grows in popularity, so grows demand for access. Anime conventions, such as Seattle’s SakuraCon, bring together fans to celebrate, discuss, and watch anime; and websites such as Crunchyroll provide legal access online. Public access through libraries is also important, particularly to people who cannot attend conventions or pay for streaming services, and to provide this access it is necessary to determine how metadata systems created for print media can be redesigned to accommodate the increasingly visual and mobile nature of global information. Specifically, what are the challenges and needs of developing, cataloging, organizing, and providing access to anime collections in public libraries? This project’s analysis of a survey sent to 248 American public libraries identifies areas where access to anime can be improved. By highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the current systems, this project lays the foundation for future work to create better metadata systems for anime. Thomas Disher—Residential MLIS