I believe that this is one of the first steps that should be taken when embarking on any project that will have an impact on our users and communities. People can tell when their needs, wishes, or goals were ignored when a project or service is put together. The community is a driving factor in keeping the doors open, without community interaction things can shut down due to engagement and it is hard to build back up the trust that you are looking out for the people. There have been multiple projects that have demonstrated the assessment of the community’s needs. The first was the AT Report & Recommendations Project for IST 564 Accessible Lib & Info Services and a second project was a Final Research Proposal Project from IST 671 Research Methods in Information Studies. The AT Report & Recommendations project saw me assessing the Assistive Technologies present at a local college library to see how good they were for the disabled community at the college. I looked at the ATs that they had such as elevators and wheelchair accessible tables and offered 5 high priority recommendations. These recommendations were based on people with disabilities and what the college did not have in place for them. The second project mentioned here was a Final Research Proposal Project, For this project I wrote about Native American Repatriation, and as someone who wishes to work in a museum with collections, repatriation is an important topic to me. In this project asked the question of how Native individuals not actively involved in repatriation process view this process, and how does repatriation affect them or their culture. To answer this question, I wrote up a research plan to conduct surveys & interviews in Native American communities to speak with people directly. Even though this project was just a plan and not conducted it made me think about how to approach communities and the best way to get information I can use to better understand or help them.

We live in a big world now and the communities we serve are most likely not going to be one culture but a melting pot of different things, it is important we can engage with them in a way that does not insult that culture or make it left out. Being culturally competent can have a great effect on people who maybe just moved to an area, if they interact with their culture in your space it makes them feel welcome, and give them a feeling of home while they are building a new one. A project that demonstrates this was the Advocacy Essay in IST 511 I had mentioned in objective 1.1. The Advocacy Essay fits here because I looked a few studies for the paper looking into Native Americans and user data from public and academic libraries and had found a lack of cultural resources for them off reservations. I argue for some cultural depositories where libraries would be linked with tribes who would provide materials for people to learn about native culture and for the Native people going to these libraries have materials about their culture there.

Learning from user feedback and engagement data gives a connection between the community and the library or museum. If people notice that their feedback is taken into consideration or even acted on, then it gives a good feeling of being heard and strengthens bonds. A project that covers this area is the Social Justice final project from IST 564 Accessible Lib & Info Services. For this project I wrote up a program to serve Hispanic students with ADHD at a local college located in a area with a large Hispanic population. In this project I identified a need to better serve this population and part of the project was to come up with some prospective partners, one of those partners was local Hispanic speaking community members or staff to assist with bilingual area of the service.

Providing resources for all is extremely important in an information profession, everyone accesses information differently and you cannot just provide a single way easy way that serves as a solution for all. There are multiple projects that demonstrate this objective that I have already mentioned, the AT Report & Recommendations Project for IST 564, the Social Justice final project from IST 564, and the Library Accessibility Evaluation from IST 564. All three of these projects made me look at the library space and see what was just equal and what was equitable for the user. This was done in the AT report and recommendations and the Library Accessibility Evaluation. Both projects had me investigate equitable and just services and resources for the users. While the Social Justice project had me look at the culturally responsive services and resources side of this objective.

Everyone learns and ingests information differently, as someone with ADAH and ADD I know how hard it can be to learn in a way that does not best fit you and the challenges that come with it. Educational development is something that should be considered in all collections where learning is an outcome. There is one major project that demonstrates this and that is the Lesson Plan Project from IST 632 Management & Organization of Special Collections. For this project I stepped into the shoes of a special collection manager working with a college level class to teach using primary resources. The class I choose was an American Military History course and I a plan to fit also of learning styles. From 40 minutes lecture style with the primary source chosen, then 15 minutes of a show-an-tell of other items in the collection, then a 35-minute activity split into a creative activity followed by a short presentation of what was created during that activity.