Building upon the work of a previous project, we have expanded and enhanced the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines for application to the Svoboda Diaries. The Project had an initial set of guidelines but were seeking a more robust model for representing the intricacies of the diaries. In this project, we developed a Svoboda specific schema, established a method of encoding the margin notes, and provided training materials to ensure the sustainability of this initiative. These resources bring the Svoboda Diaries Project one step closer to digitally representing the diaries in their collection and making them more accessible to researchers.

Swedish Medical Center had a collection of materials documenting their history that they were unable to adequately preserve. I worked with Jay Augsburger, their Medical Historian, to fand an organization that could hold and preserve those materials and to prepare them for transfer, as well as to use their information to prepare historical documents for SMC's staff and the public. This ensures that a key part of Seattle's medical history will remain preserved and available to those who need it.

Acción Latina, a largely volunteer-run community organization based in San Francisco’s Mission District, has been publishing a twice-monthly, bilingual newspaper since 1970 and producing an annual festival celebrating Latin American music since 1982. In 2017, the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley acquired the Acción Latina pictorial archive. For my capstone, I processed and arranged the nearly 10,000 photographic prints and over 600 posters in the archive, and wrote a detailed, searchable finding aid that is now published on the Online Archive of California.

Building upon the work of the “Poison Book Project,” I worked with the University of Washington Libraries to investigate the presence of the toxic pigment "emerald green" (copper acetoarsenite) in Victorian-era bookcloth published between the 1840s and 1860s. After extensively searching UW Libraries collections, 50 volumes were tested by the Pacific Northwest Conservation Science Consortium using x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy; nine were confirmed to contain arsenic. As a result, arsenical books are now labeled, and precautionary measures for the handling and storage of such books have been implemented to mitigate the risk of unintentional arsenic exposure for patrons and library staff.

The Recipe Book Compendium addresses the inaccessibility of Early Modern recipe books to the general public. With barriers such as academic pedigree limiting engagement, these books have remained largely hidden away in institutional special collections. However, they hold valuable insights into the lives of Early Modern families and their knowledge creation and organization practices. This free online resource connects the average person to digitized recipe books and myriad resources to assist with understanding Early Modern material and social culture. By making this information accessible to a wider audience, the Compendium promotes a deeper understanding of Early Modern knowledge practices.

This project helps Bridwell Library reconstitute its World Methodist Museum Collection through the creation of an exhibit. This information problem was addressed by researching and writing the necessary materials for the exhibit brochure and the information accompanying the displayed documents and artifacts. Specifically, the essays focused on the history of how John Wesley and other early Methodists were represented in sculpture and art, what his letters tell us about Wesley the preacher and person, and how present-day Methodists can contend with problematic aspects of their history. The exhibit, which will be digitized, will benefit Bridwell, its surrounding community, and Methodism.

Seattle nonprofit Scarecrow Video is world’s largest publicly available audiovisual archive, with over 145,000 titles spanning 125+ years. Many of these titles are only available on VHS, a medium that is highly susceptible to physical degradation. With funding from 4Culture and in collaboration with Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound, my project resulted in the digital reformatting of 40 rare VHS tapes, with special focus on works by historically marginalized peoples and pieces spotlighting cultural heritage in Seattle. The digital preservation of these works will aid in their indefinite accessibility to researchers and film fans around the world.

As a group, we (Erin Shapland and Zach Wagman) worked with Washington Center for the Book to design a zine workshop. We sought to address a lack of knowledge about zine history among the general public. We also wanted to teach members of the public the basic skills involved in creating zines for oneself, with the hope of fostering a sense of freedom and artistic whimsy in our attendees! We recorded a workshop for all ages that can (and likely will) be used for programs in the future, which will ideally inspire more people to create and learn about zines.

My project consisted of a deep dive into the legacy VHS collection at Scarecrow Video, assessing items on the basis of rights ownership & management and physical rarity. Over the course of my project I narrowed my focus to look at queer porn and erotica, as I felt they were a particularly vulnerable part of an already vulnerable collection consisting of an ephemeral and obsolete analog medium. My goal was to provide Scarecrow information which would help them maintain their collection in the future.

MindFreedom International is a coalition of grassroots organizations and individual members who unite to win human rights and alternatives for people labeled with psychiatric disabilities. The MindFreedom International records in the OHSU Historical Collections & Archives are rich yet underutilized. I aimed to bring more exposure to the records and to center the voices of psychiatric survivors by curating a physical and digital exhibit that highlights the collection, including newsletters, visual art, event flyers, and photographs. This exhibition and the accompanying digitization efforts demonstrate opportunities for future archival research and will generate greater awareness of the psychiatric survivors movement.