Projects

Elective Coursework

Title

Islamic Center of Southern California Physical Space Assessment

and

A Volunteer’s Guide to the Islamic Center of Southern California Archive: Getting Started and Working with Metadata

Background

Over the course of two separate classes — IS 431: Archives, Records, and Memory and IS 433: Community-Based Archiving — I had the opportunity to work with leaders from the Islamic Center of Southern California to contribute to the development of their preexisting digital archive as well as to create a plan for the physical preservation of these same objects.

Description

This space assessment identified needs within the building to better preserve documents held by ICSC, and a necessity for a policy so that the collection can be digitized and reviewed by approved researchers. My group recommended a phased approach for accomplishing this work.

View/Download PDF of ICSC Physical Space Assessment

The Islamic Center, with major support from MLIS students between 2021 and 2023, created their digital archive in Omeka and began the process of adding collections. As the archive grew and members of the community expressed interest in contributing to the growth of the archive, leaders of the ICSC identified the need for robust documentation in aiding these volunteers with varying levels of Omeka knowledge in getting started. Additionally, when browsing the archive, leaders expressed that the search function, largely driven by the tags and subjects added to entries, could be improved. To address these concerns, I conducted a thorough review of the folksonomy within the archive, added LC Suggest to the Omeka site, and created a Tag Inventory with future recommendations to assist Omeka users adding metadata to items. This Volunteer’s Guide also consolidated all previously created documentation and could hopefully serve as a one-stop-shop for new volunteers.

View/Download PDF of A Volunteer’s Guide to the Islamic Center of Southern California Archive: Getting Started and Working with Metadata

Photo of the Islamic Center of Southern California

Title

Decolonizing Astronomy Zines

Background

These zines served as my final creative project for IS 289 Global History of Libraries: Colonial Pasts, *(Decolonial?) Futures.

Description

These zines attempt to reflect on the tension between Indigenous peoples and their cosmological ways of knowing and western astronomers and their studies, systems, and accompanying infrastructures. The first zines focus on the foundational theory of “astro-colonialism” and the second, a current event that exemplifies this aforementioned tension (the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawai’i).

View Introduction to Astro-Colonialism zine

View Mauna Kea and the Thirty Meter Telescope zine

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