iSchool Capstone

2019

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Historical Connections: Processing Historical Visual Materials for a Modern Audience at UW Special Collections

My aim for my Capstone was to make some of the previously unavailable historical visual materials housed in UW's Special Collections accessible for researchers by providing organized, digitized, and searchable collections. To do this, I identified photograph subject matter, researched historical context and significance, inventoried collections, determined appropriate organizational schemes, created indexes, digitizing prints and negatives, preserved materials by moving them to appropriate archival housing, created finding aids using the XMetaL Author program, and linked XML entries to corresponding digital scans. By the project's end I had completed two collections, and determined organizational systems and background information for two more.
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How Can a Dollar Generate Data?

We reimagined how a dollar can generate data. The Food Access Partnership on Vashon Island distributes cash to the community to minimize costs of locally grown food, but the paper currency they create and distribute suffers from low redemption rates. Improving this system, our solution provides real time data for partnering nonprofits and farmers while preserving the familiar paper “Farm Buck.” Now, our stakeholders can track Farm Bucks through the system and encourage users to redeem them at farmer’s markets and farm stands. Placing data in the hands of organizers, we’re helping Vashon Islanders address food equity in their community.
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IAC Homelessness Data Model

The City of Seattle Human Services Department (HSD) contracts with community organizations to provide housing & health services to people experiencing homelessness. Previously, HSD staff pieced together program & contract data from many sources. This is a time-consuming and frustrating process, but this information is critical for informing policy and highly visible through media outreach. To meet their needs, we produced a data warehouse and reporting system that captures institutional knowledge, automates data ingest, and makes data analysis more streamlined and trustworthy. We hope to help HSD tell a more complete story about Seattle’s service to its most vulnerable populations.
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Inclusive Information Mapping for the Great Outdoors

As Washington Trails Association’s (WTA) hiking guides and user-submitted trip reports are mostly created by those who have been a part of the outdoor community for a long time, there is often a natural and unconscious bias imbedded within the information resource. This project helped WTA gain insights on how they can effectively design a content standard for their user-generated Trip Reports so that in turn, the system can be more inclusive, empowering, collaborative, and accessible. Some proposed solutions were to incorporate enhanced search capabilities of trip reports, trip reporter identifiers, and a revised trip reporting framework for quick reporting.
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Increasing Browsing and Discoverability Through Virtual Bookshelves

Being able to browse print collections is an important step to discovering information. This project explores the impact of using virtual bookshelves at ASU Library to create a browsing experience for those not in physical library spaces. The Library’s development team has agreed to redesign an existing virtual bookshelf application to meet the goals of this project. This project identifies communities to share this tool with and outlines a specification document to aid the development team in their redesign. This application will allow the Library to build partnerships across campus and provide opportunities to browse and discover information.
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Information Architecture for the Missoula Public Library Website: Research & Recommendations

Missoula Public Library in Missoula, MT is building a new library website for 2020. Our capstone team sought to better understand the content, context, and users of the library’s website to improve the information architecture. We restructured the global navigation to have a topical organization scheme and eliminated ambiguous terms. We also developed a written report with a summary of our research, recommended information architecture, best practices going forward, and curated data for future analyses. The result being a "digital branch" that builds community, enhances library services, and saves the time of the user.
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Information Literacy Toolkit: Identify. Find. Evaluate.

Often, librarians create information literacy resources based on what they deem to be essential. We took a different, collaborative approach. Partnering with Highline College and the Puente Cultural Cohort, we produced 14 information literacy videos and infographics tailored to the Puente Cohort’s wants and needs, based on informal interviews, student feedback, and beta tests. Our videos aren’t just about information literacy skills. They are about creating culturally sensitive products that highlight and celebrate Highline’s diverse student body. The items in this toolkit give students and instructors the resources they need for both now and the future.
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Intentionality & Access: Designing a User-Centered Library for Literacy Source

Literacy Source is an educational non-profit in Lake City that offers classes in English for speakers of other languages and adult based education to low-income adults. Though they have a Reading Library with many great materials for students and tutors, circulation is low. We worked with Literacy Source and the various users of the Reading Library to gather data and perspectives, leading to a re-design of the space. As a result of more concrete leveling criteria, re-organizing the ways books are shelved, and inclusive signage, users are now able to more easily browse the library space independently.
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It's A Circus! Library Proposal

Developed in Spring of 2019, this proposal provides the foundational intellectual groundwork for the establishment of a library collection for the Synapse Circus Center in the city of Auburn, Washington. Synapse Circus Center teaches students (from 2 to 75 years old) a wide range of circus performance arts. This proposal is intended to not only guide but also justify the necessary investment of money and time into the creation and management (via a custom-built basic circulation database) of a small library collection. Drawing on research and analysis, we are confident our findings represent valuable educational and inspirational resources.
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Joe Karpen Photograph Collection

UW Alum, Joe Karpen, donated the photographs documenting his years at the Seattle campus university between 1968 and 1972. His collection includes seven boxes of negative film, copy sheets, prints, and enlarged mounted photographs. Student events, concerts, construction, protests, rallies, and speakers were captured by his camera. These moments caught on film deserve to be protected, preserved, and processed. Current student, Kelly Omodt, is processing his work to ensure its viable use in the future. Besides following UW standards for processing a collection, Kelly researches places, people, and events to create context for the collection.