Trek.fm is an expansive podcast network of over 20 different podcasts that cover every corner of the Star Trek universe and beyond. Since 2010 the network has been consistently growing as thousands of listeners download Trek.fm podcasts each month to engage in fun, engaging, and thought-provoking discussions with other listeners. My project is focused on increasing the accessibility of the Trek.fm website. I cultivated data on the core series-focused podcasts on the network and developed a tagging system to better serve the users needs. This tagging system will make it easier for hosts to understand how to tag their own content in the future to keep the website cohesive as it grows. There are also new dedicated lists and guides for each show to act as a reference for listeners browsing for content as well. With this project Trek.fm is more accessible to both search queries and browsing.

The aim of our capstone was to create a sustainable backlist digitization solution, with supporting procedural documentation, for the University of Washington Press. Our work initiates a process that will give new life to thousands of out of print books and enhance the Press’s long-term product pipeline. Founded in 1915, the University of Washington Press has accumulated a backlist of books, spanning decades of important scholarly and cultural conversations. Our work extends the reach of Press, by renewing access to currently out of print titles, increasing opportunities for tie-in promotions, and generally allowing UWP to leverage their entire collection in new and exciting ways. In addition to providing benefit for the Press and their authors and publishing partners, increasing global access to UWP’s unique collection through libraries, retailers, academic institutions, and community partners will be a value add for scholarly and cultural conversation around the globe.

UW GAMER (GAME Research) Group has developed the UW/SIMM Video Game Metadata Schema. This Video Game Discovery Engine is constructed in order to implement the schema to catalog video games, and also to share this achievement to support the use of games in entertainment, education and science. The website enables users to find video games by searching or browsing through approaches that are more in quantity and better in quality when comparing to traditional websites. For example, users can browse by progression and visual style to discover video games on this engine. At this stage, our team has developed the website beta version and conducted user testing on visual design and functional design.

The Vermont Queer Archives contains the records and materials of the queer community in Vermont. Historically, the queer community is underrepresented in institutional archiving, and the preservation of its culture falls on the community itself. Providing access to the archives is important so that community members and researchers are able to appreciate queer history in Vermont. The archives is a large 30 box collection consisting of organizational records, event posters and handouts, and over 50 queer-related newspapers and magazines. Access to the archives was limited because of a lack of organization or a catalog and a lack of awareness. Additionally, boxes were dispersed throughout the building because there was not enough room to store them together. To solve this problem, I arranged and organized the collection of 30 boxes, initiated a blog, and created new procedures related to collection to help maintain the archives for the future.

Video Game Metadata Schema (VGMS) Publishing Print cataloging has a long and standardized tradition to draw from, but with the emergence of interactive media, the same standards do not translate. The GAMER (Game Research) Group, led by University of Washington’s Jin Ha Lee, has been actively creating a schema called the Video Game Metadata Schema (VGMS) that captures concepts that are important to those who research video games. Our project will make this schema publicly available and understandable to all who would like to implement it. It will be especially useful for catalogers, metadata specialists, and information architects working with interactive media. In addition to publishing the VGMS, we are creating a publishing toolkit for future use as the schema is still an evolving project for the GAMER Group.

Hillel UW maintains a small library (currently roughly 1600 volumes), but lacked any inventory record or formal policies. Our team used LibraryThing to catalog the collection and create a searchable online catalog with bibliographic information, subject tags, and appropriate classification, while reorganizing and weeding the collection as we went. We also worked with Hillel staff to draft a collection development policy that formalized the library’s subject scope, gift policy, and criteria for future collection building and weeding. Together, the catalog and reorganization improve access to the collection for those who wish to use the library as a research resource and for Hillel staff and community members’ daily needs. The collection development policy provides a formalized statement of procedural expectations for staff working with the library, which will increase the consistency of their application and clarify library needs for staff and members of the public interested in contributing to the library.

Woodhaven is a neighborhood with a rich history in the New York City borough of Queens. In 2008 the Woodhaven Cultural and Historical Society created a community wiki but within a year it fell into disuse. Due to recently increased interest in local history, including a library-driven "memory project" and a middle school history club, the organization was eager to make the wiki more accessible to the community. My project consisted of reorganizing the wiki with linking and tagging, publishing guidelines for editing and submitting articles, and using those guidelines to create new example articles. The recent uptick in interest demands an accessible tool where community members can share acquired knowledge of the area’s history and culture. Knowledge of local history enriches the experiences of both communities and individuals alike. This project will help facilitate increased community awareness and sharing of local history by providing an easy to use platform.

The University of Washington Library system currently holds a small collection of electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) accompanying materials from the late 1980’s to 2011 on floppy disks and CD-Rs. These materials will soon reach or have already exceeded the limit of their expected lifespans. This project looked at the digital preservation possibilities for this collection of materials using digital forensics as a model. Working with Preservation Services staff, a workflow using industry standard best practices and open source software was developed and implemented. Each item in the collection was forensically imaged, analyzed, documented and packaged for eventual preservation in the Universities’ online repository. A full inventory of remaining thesis materials on physical media in the library collection was also created and a digital preservation computer station with the BitCurator forensic environment was installed in Preservation Services for future projects.

Using images, moving pictures, documents, and narrative stories, our team has created an engaging digital exhibition in Omeka, an online digital collections management system, for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). This project explores the history of the Space Race between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from the launch of Sputnik I in 1957 through the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon in 1969. Team members addressed copyright issues, gained permissions as needed, and developed metadata according to Dublin Core standards. Since the DPLA is an aggregation of digital objects from partnering institutions all over the country, our project aimed to curate digital objects exemplifying a theme of national importance. In doing so, we hope to engage an audience of scholars, students, and all those who may wish to learn more about this evocative period in time.