UCSC’s Special Collections needed to discover the prevalence and nature of outdated and problematic language within hundreds of finding aids that archivists have created. After conducting research and composing a literature review, I performed an extensive audit of the finding aids that included in-depth reviews of individual aids as well as keyword searching through the entire collection of finding aids. The changes that will result from this project will decrease the marginalization of subjects contained within the records while simultaneously allowing users of the finding aids to engage with a more inclusive discourse for resource description and access.

Epic Games provides the Unreal Engine to diverse users who use its functionalities for varied purposes. However, users often struggle to locate documentation most relevant to their needs. A keyword taxonomy would allow Epic’s technical writers to more consistently tag over 3,000 documentation pages, which would in turn improve searchability. By working to develop this taxonomy, we helped Epic to better understand the nuances of their unique knowledge management challenge. Our work yielded a proof of concept as well as recommendations that will help guide the company as they continue to work toward more equitable access to the Unreal Engine.

SPARC’s Author Addendum is a legal instrument that allows authors to modify a publisher’s copyright transfer agreement and keep key rights to their work, including the possibility of making it open access and widely available. For this project, I revised and edited SPARC’s accompanying explanatory literature about the Author Addendum and helped create four new deliverables for the information suitable for today’s information environment. At the conclusion of this project, authors who want to maintain their right to share their work widely and openly will have an updated resource for understanding the basics of copyright and open access.

Voices: Data from an Expansive Christian Community is a structured repository of people, published media, and affiliate organizations that expands beyond the hegemonic voices of white American Evangelicalism and represents a more diverse, ecumenical, and global vision of Christianity. It provides a metadata schema and selection criteria for a curated dataset intended to support further research and analysis. The structure aims to elevate diverse content creators across disciplines who engage in smart and significant conversation about Christianity and its intersections with other faiths, race, social justice, gender, sexuality, and environmentalism.

The Washington Department of Licensing (DOL) is a core agency of our state government, providing a variety of personal and professional licenses and other legal documents. It manages huge amounts of data about Washington’s people and economy, and its data analysis is crucial to our legislature. However, its data governance lags behind its goals. We conducted dozens of interviews with DOL employees on how and what data they work with to craft a taxonomy and recommendations for how DOL should organize/conceptualize its data, improving efficiency and making the agency more responsive and modern, resulting in better services for all Washingtonians!

Lower Lake Michigan – the area ringed by Illinois, Indiana, and parts of southern Michigan and Wisconsin – is full of shipwrecks and other sunken historical treasures. The knowledge of the wrecks’ histories, survey records for preservation purposes, what actions can be taken to recover artifacts and create new documentation, etc., is spread widely across the Lake Michigan dive community. The Wrecker’s Report is a new reference document that compiles federal, state, county, and city laws to assist divers in planning shipwreck diving expeditions.