This PLO is, without a doubt, the reason I chose a career in Library Science. My whole life I have been dedicated to connecting people with the information they need or want, preferably before they even have to ask for it. I especially appreciate the way this PLO specifically calls out the need to “promote a just and equitable society” through information exchange. I think ensuring that as many people as possible have access to the best possible information is crucial to social justice, and it is an important part of my daily practice.

One of the most powerful assignments I had over the course of my time here at UNCG was from 640 Information Organization. We were asked to present to the class on a topic selected from a list, and I chose Indigenous Knowledge Organization, without really knowing what it was. My research led me down myriad pathways, learning about indigenous knowledge in Australia and all over the Americas. I was particularly fascinated by the Xwi7xwa Library at the University of British Columbia. A library created by and for First Nations scholars, and one that uses a customized organizational system designed to represent indigenous ways of thinking and learning.The Xwi7xwa Library not only provides an amazing and unique service to its users, but it represents dimension 1.1, Knowledge Production, in and of itself. As an example of how the concept of libraries can be decolonized, I was honored to be able to present it to my classmates alongside the greater concept of Indigenous Knowledge Organization. I also included in my discussion some biographical capsules about important figures in the history of indigenous librarianship, making my own small contribution to amplifying these voices and this unique perspective on the field. I’ll come back to this assignment often in this Capstone presentation, as it was truly powerful for me.

The Curation dimension of this PLO (1.2) is especially important to me. I’ve always felt a responsibility to make careful selections about information, and present those selections to others. Whether that was making mix tapes for my friends, or always having a “Hall of Fame” section of my childhood (and adulthood) bookcases, I am a natural curator. One of the crucial things the UNCG LIS program has taught me; however, is that an often overlooked part of curation is allowing the community’s needs to shape your curation process. In LIS 618, Materials for Adolescents, my group and I were asked to envision a new category of reading material for the class. We chose Video Games -- both books about video games and games themselves -- as a category that we knew would speak to many young people, but might not be well-known by prospective librarians.

An evaluation of the PubMed database in LIS 640 Information Organization represents dimension 1.3, Description. As an information organization system, PubMed uses a wide range of tools and strategies, including one of the most in-depth controlled vocabularies in the world (Medical Subject Headings, or MeSH), and has sophisticated tools to aid searchers in finding related content that they might not otherwise be aware of. It represents an impressive blend of approachability and sophistication. Average users can search through the single search bar and let PubMed’s Automatic Term Mapping do the heavy lifting behind the scenes, while advanced users can customize and fine-tune their own bespoke search strings.

In LIS 644 - Digital Libraries, we had a fascinating hands-on assignment to clean and migrate a significant quantity of data between two different metadata schemas (Dublin Core to MODS), which demonstrates the Organization dimension (1.4). Becoming familiar with the similarities and differences in the two schemas was enlightening and introduced me to an aspect of the field I had never had much contact with professionally. I really enjoyed learning about the tools available, like Open Refine, and I have since used it in my professional work. In the reflection paper for this assignment, I noted that it provided a much more user friendly approach than something like regular expressions, without sacrificing too much flexibility.

Dimension 1.5, Human Information Needs and Behaviors, asks us to describe “how the many forms of diversity in our society impact information provision”. As i mentioned above, for LIS 640, Information Organization, I investigated the concept of Indigenous Knowledge Organization (IKO) and specifically, the University of British Columbia’s Xwi7xwa Library, which is organized according to a customized call number system. This was a critical lesson to learn early in my progress towards my MLS. When we design a classification system, whose needs are we prioritizing? What types of information are we leaving out of our system, and what does that say about their value as information? As a profession, we are only just beginning to appreciate a broader and more inclusive definition of “information” and we must strive to consider our own cultural assumptions and biases when we connect people with the information they need.

Another Digital Libraries assignment made me think carefully about how historical documents find their way into library and archive collections, and provided me with an opportunity to think about how dimension 1.7 Professional Ethics can (and should) affect decisions that might seem like straightforward collection decisions. The item I was assigned to describe and digitize was a scrapbook of photographs taken by an undergrad at UNC Greensboro back when it was known as the “Women’s College”. This was a collection that provides an intimate look at a side of the history of education that is often neglected in favor of male-centered education. As collectors, we have an ethical obligation to make sure that our decisions and our allotment of resources ensure that diverse voices are heard, and that we are working consciously to correct the decisions of our predecessors that prioritized a more homogenous viewpoint.