In our capstone we wanted to engage patrons as participants in the learning process of an exhibit, rather than just as viewers. The New Soviet Child is an interactive user-collaborative exhibit that is meant to elicit patron responses as a learning mechanism. We believe that by having patrons engage with the material and offer their own interpretations, an exhibit can become a powerful tool for practicing critical thinking skills. The Pamela K. Harer Russian Children’s Book Collection was chosen for its vivid imagery that conveys the cultural and political changes of the late Russian Empire and early Soviet Union.

The correspondence of Cardinal Richelieu was last compiled in the 19th century. That collection is acknowledged as incomplete and biased; underrepresented are letters from aristocratic women whose influence over events might not be fully understood. To remedy this, I have visited archives in Europe and the US to identify and photograph letters to and from Richelieu that were not included in the Avenel compilation. I have begun to transcribe, TEI-encode, and publish these letters in a digital archive, and will upload the teiHeader metadata to correspSearch, making this valuable historical information more accessible and compatible with modern research methods.

The Seattle Chamber Music Society’s (SCMS) new move has made way for the new Toby Saks Sheet Music Library, a 1,272-piece collection of solo and chamber music that was once Toby Saks’, a renowned cellist and founder of the SCMS. To organize and preserve the music and annotations, I constructed a five-tier classification system, wrote collection management recommendations, created a preservation and conservation resource guide, improved the searchability of the catalog, and labeled the scores, housed in archival folders. The collection is now browsable, usable and accessible to SCMS staff, visiting musicians, and community supporters for years to come.

Readers ready to transition from one reading collection to another may find themselves in a new part of the library, unfamiliar with its layout and unsure of popular authors and titles within their new collection. To fill this knowledge gap, our group partnered with North Central Regional Library. We created twelve patron read-alike guides, six transitioning from Middle Grade to Young Adult and six from Young Adult to Adult, and an additional librarian guide, with information on all of the books from the patron guides. With our documented processes, NCRL can recommend transitional reading material for future popular books.

As more industries leverage real-time 3D creation, new roles with skill sets geared towards this technology are emerging all the time. For Unreal Engine, this generates an audience of learners with diverse and unique information needs. Unreal Engine taxonomy is the basis for unifying learning materials across sources. By providing standardized terms for Unreal Engine components, it is easier to surface relationships between various learning sources such as webinars, documentation, and online learning courses. Relating this taxonomy with learning skills through ontology strengthens paths and connects users in emerging roles with the learning materials they need.

This project addressed Scarecrow Video’s need for close assessment of part of its collection of 14,000+ out-of-print VHS cassettes. Records for the 500 oldest titles were transferred to an Excel workbook, and the data enhanced with copyright information, current fair market values, and notes on archival value. This information was then used to create: 180+ new “Rental by Agreement” (RBA) recommendations; a list of titles earmarked for future digitization; written suggestions for future VHS collection management; and several technical documents. This project provided Scarecrow staff with both enhanced collection management data, and tangible tools for future audits and volunteer training.

Our project focuses on providing web development solution to True Brand. True Brands is the leading designer and supplier of beverage lifestyle accessories worldwide, a perfect medium sized for-profit enterprise with startup mentality. Our solution focuses on web development. This web development project includes three aspects, data integration from NetSuite to Salsify, developing sub-brand website frontend framework using the page layout builder, and assess the performance of the current website using PageSpeed Insights and Chrome Devtools. This web development project aims to optimize the performance of True Brand website and drive more profit by focusing on long-term digital success.

It has long been debated if Walter Pierce, namesake of Eastern Oregon University Pierce Library, was affiliated with the KKK. The committee tasked with reviewing this issue requested access to archival materials about library history and Walter Pierce, but these materials were neither inventoried nor organized, leaving them inaccessible. To address this, I inventoried the items and organized them into two collections, then I produced finding aids and itemized spreadsheets for each collection. I also searched for library-related newspaper articles to supplement the collections. The Walter M. Pierce and Pierce Library General History collections are now accessible to library users.

While curating a library exhibit for Special Collections, I noticed the challenge of locating historical resources on the impact women had in the Pacific Northwest outdoors, in one accessible place. I bounced between local, state-wide, and national resources, adding much time to my research process. As a solution, I created and published a LibGuide for Special Collections, highlighting their resources on local women in the outdoors. They now have a public LibGuide showing primary & secondary sources with tips on researching historical women. This guide is a reminder to consider local women in research, contributing to outdoor preservation and advocacy.

Wrangling the Seattle Times Journalist Files is a project organizing and cataloging the journalist files that were acquired from the Seattle Times by the University of Washington Libraries about 9 years ago. These files contain numerous documents that the journalists collected while researching and writing pieces for the paper. The task of the project was to create a set of guidelines for cataloging these resources so that student workers at the library can continue the work of organizing these documents. A LibGuide was also created for these documents to make them more accessible to the users of the library.