In order to generate more information from historical weather and environmental records, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) created the Arctic Rediscovery Project. One initiative of the Arctic Rediscovery Project is the crowdsourcing transcribing website, Old Weather. Old Weather facilitates the digitization and transcription of historical images, logbooks, and documents by dedicated volunteers and students. As a part of their collection, NOAA has thousands of images featuring personnel from the Geodetic Survey, academic institutions, and crew from old research vessels. These images were digitized, but until now the public had no access to the collection. By constructing a searchable and browse-able database and designing a functioning website to display these images, our capstone project creates an access point for NOAA researchers, historians, relatives, and Old Weather volunteers.

The University of Washington (UW) Libraries, like many organizations, are facing a large number of retirements in the next 5-10 years. This could result in a massive loss of experience and institutional knowledge, which would be detrimental to UW as a whole. This is because the UW Libraries holds a central position in the success of the University as an academic research university. As the intellectual commons of the University, both physically and virtually, the Libraries address the information needs of the whole University community. By combining a literature review, interviews with staff, and case studies, I investigated current and future trends in academic libraries and higher education, identified necessary leadership competencies, and recommended best practices to help create an effective succession plan that will ensure a smooth transition to new leadership. 

Communications, including the sharing of and access to information, is crucial to any organization, especially non-profits that rely on a rotating mix of volunteers, have building space in multiple locations, and the inevitable shortage of paid staff. The Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, a member and donor-centric organization that fundraises and advocates for the library, have struggled greatly with these restraints. A plan to strengthen internal communications by creating digital platforms to access and share information was created. Virtual spaces were designed for all parties involved, enabling staff, volunteers and board members to become proactive and more self-sufficient. Two databases were built: one that eliminated a tedious daily data entry task, and another 26 that keeps track of all of the categories and subjects of donated books, which has tightened the organization’s successful book operations department.

Our project was assisting the new Philosophy liaison by revising the Philosophy collection development policy. To aid our revision, we performed a collection assessment and a user needs survey. We discovered unused parts of the collection, especially among the foreign language materials. We also identified services our patron group strongly desired, such as the PhilPapers database. Based on this data, we rewrote the policy. Our policy will allow the Libraries to better manage this portion of their collection and thus serve their users efficiently and effectively. Our project may possibly serve as a template for future collection development projects at the UW Libraries.

Over the past year the Information School’s Communications Department has experienced an increased ingestion of digital photographic material; these images, which total over 5,000, were being stored on an internal network drive with no standardized naming, organizational schema structure, or embedded metadata information. As these images are imperative in promoting the iSchool’s accomplishments, achievements, advances, and offerings—in a variety of print and digital media sources—the Communications Department sought to create a digital asset management system. By fashioning hierarchal structures, naming and taxonomy standards, and metadata templates, all of which are compatible with Adobe products, I was able to create a digital asset management system and organizational structure that is mindful of its current and future users. Ultimately, this will allow for the photographic content to be more easily accessible all while stimulating workflow and collaboration in promoting the iSchool brand. How are your digital assets working for you?

Despite the Jefferson County Jail’s proximity to the city’s public library, no formal relationship currently exists between the two organizations. In order to better serve a currently unserved population, a user needs analysis was conducted on the jail for the purpose of informing the library about possible outreach opportunities. This analysis identified the scope of programs and services currently available to inmates while they are incarcerated and upon release, as well as community organizations that are currently providing programs and services at the jail. The analysis also discovered gaps in the current services and programs being offered to inmates. Identifying these gaps better enables the library to develop an outreach program that is relevant to the jail population.

Seattle based radio station KEXP, a renowned music discovery powerhouse, acts as a launching pad for artists and as a go-to source for music enthusiasts worldwide. This reputation has been achieved despite their library and archives remaining in underdeveloped information silos without a unified approach or management system. To address this problem KEXP is investing in a new media asset management system to act as a central place where all assets can be ingested, processed, stored, indexed, searched and accessed. This project aims to ease access and bring curator and listener discovery to new and previously unimagined levels by developing a metadata schema capable of encompassing the entire collection. With the schema complete, focus can shift to an ingest plan for KEXP’s collections and an automated, human-supervised, metadata cleanup process. These efforts will improve user experiences, yield new insights into the collection and unlock value currently dormant in the library.

There was a time when an academic degree was earned on a physical campus, but those times have changed. As the mode of educational delivery has shifted to satellite and online campus options, the academic library system has had to adjust in order to meet the needs of their students and instructors. My project looks at the challenges and possibilities of a library presence for online students at Northeastern University Seattle. Realizing the strength of academic programs is found in the strength of its library system, I used existing scholarship and models to imagining new library possibilities and create recommendation that will equip NEU Libraries to be the information core for their online and satellite students.

The Bellingham Public Library offers community connection through programs, but the experience is fleeting. Patrons repeatedly request recordings of library events. Lives Change @ Your Library is a pilot program that digitally captures patron interviews so that people can access this local oral history at any time through the library website. Interviews focus on how libraries have transformed the lives of eight library patrons. Outreach and interviews occurred over three months. Patrons were all volunteers with an age range of twenty-one to eighty-seven. Four men and four women participated. Some of the topics raised were homelessness, adoption, physical disability, loss of a spouse, loss of a job, finding work, being inspired, and being empowered to find one’s own answers. It’s a way for patrons to share patron created content with each other as well as providing data to library staff members on what resources might be required for future projects.