An enthusiastic new graduate, teacher turned librarian, I have a diverse background and broad interests. While primarily working with web technology, I have interests in general computing and technology, instruction, information management, publishing, technical services and metadata, among others.
I am always on the look out to improve existing services and implementing new ones. While not a programmer, I like to learn and I am not afraid to work with code. My methodology is very much user oriented in all my projects and work (at least as much as possible), and my aim is to improve the user experience for both the end-user and content creators.
You can follow me on twitter or find me elsewhere through about.me.
Current Employment
I am currently on contract as the Web Services (previously, Innovative Technologies) Librarian at Ryerson University Library & Archives (RULA) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
As of July 2013, I’ll be moving on to CILS housed at Langara College in Vancouver, BC.
Recent Employment/Experience
- Student Librarian at the UBC Education Library (September 2010 – April 2011, September 2011 – December 2011)
- information/reference desk
- instructional workshops on searching for library materials, and databases
- Information Management Analyst at Natural Resources Canada (Ottawa May 2011 – August 2011)
- Recordkeeping and Disposition Authorities Project joint with Library and Archives Canada (LAC)
- business case and work plan research and writing
- wiki (MediaWiki) support, training, and content management
- Web Services Co-op Student at UBC Library Systems & Information Technology (LSIT) (May 2010 – April 2011)
- website redevelopment, content inventory, mockups, consultation, etc.
- user studies/user experience
- migration and content centralization to WordPressMS and UBC Wiki (MediaWiki).
- see work projects below for examples
- Other previous experience include teaching, research support, tutoring, office/clerical support, and customer service.
Recent Volunteering
- Volunteer Mentor for Ladies Learning Code various sessions (June 2012 – Present)
- Organizer, Code4Lib North (Un)conference 2013 (May 2013)
- Program Committee Lead, Sponsorship Committee Member, MC for Code4Lib National Conference 2013 (February 2013)
- Human API at Mozilla Festival (November 2012)
- Program Peer Reviewer for Access Conference (October 2012)
- Volunteer for Ontario Universities’ Fair representing Ryerson University (September 2012)
- Volunteer for Webmaker Thimble Station at Mozilla’s HackJam (June 2012)
- MC, Microphone Runner at Code4Lib National Conference 2012 (February 2012)
Presentations & Other Activities
- Organizer of the Code4Lib Toronto/GTA Meetups (June 2012 – Present)
- TRY Conference 2013: Implementing WCAG by Making Your Website Accessible for Everyone; RULA Bookfinder: Getting People to their Books Fast!
- Code4Lib National Conference 2013 Bookfinder Lightning Talk
- Amigos Library Services’ HTML5 & CSS3 2013: Making the Website More Accessible
- Mozilla Festival 2012 Demo Party on Thimble Poster Project
- Ryerson University Faculty Conference 2012 on Search Everything/Summon (as part of Top 5 Time Library Savers)
- Code4Lib National Conference 2012 Lighting Talk on Processing.js
- LIBR 501 2011 Winter Term 1 Panel on Co-op: The Value & Experience
- Access Conference 2011 Lightning Talk on Processing.js
Education
I finished my Master’s in Library and Information Studies (LIS) at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies (SLAIS) in December 2011.
Although I graduated with first a double English and Psychology then out of Education, I began as a student in Software Engineering and Mathematics (at what is now SFU Surrey, but used to be TechBC), and I am still very much interested in computers and technology.
Personal Awards
- Code4Lib 2012 Conference Minority Scholarship
- Alice L. Haltom Educational Fund Scholarship 2011
Professional Affiliations
- Member of BCLA (2009 – Present)
- Member of CLA (2012 – 2013)
- Treasurer and ALPS (Academic Librarians in Public Service) Representative of BCLA/CLA Student Chapter (2009/2010, 2010/2011, Fall 2011)
- Member at Large of ASIS&T Student Chapter (2010/2011)
- Member of Golden Key International Honour Society (since 2002)
- Student Liaison of SLAIS Career Expo 2010
Projects
Work Projects (2012)
Most of the year was spent doing web redesign, web accessibility, and WordPress work, which is reflected in my blog posts.
Team Projects
Redesigns
- Getting Quick Feedback: Updating the Help Page
- Revised Articles Section & New Landing Page: Using Card Sort to Clean Up
- Redesigning the Digital Commons Page
- About Us Redesign & Reorganization
- Services Redesign & Content Overhaul
Guidelines
- Writing for the Web
- Making Your Website Accessible:
WordPress
- Moved Site
- Branding through the WordPress Theme
- Getting Staff on Board and Moved to WordPress
- Setting up WordPress for an Academic Library
- WordPress Development: Lessons Learned
Documentation
- Modifying the Comments Form: CSS & PHP
- Creating a Theme Options Page
Plugin Reviews
- Image Slider Carousel & Again
- Custom CSS & Social Media Sharing (later discovering, Jetpack has both)
- Publicize / Automatically Post to Twitter/Facebook
School Work (2010 – 2011)
- UBC Education Library Redesign (December 2011)
- Programming & Software Design (mini) Research Guide (November 2011) – Blog Post
- Evaluating the UBC Catalogue (November 2011)
- Current Job Opportunities for System Librarians (October 2011)
- Introduction to PHP (October 2011) – Many of these will break because e-mail is not enabled for PHP.
- Assignment 1: Show your knowledge of working with variables.
- Assignment 2: Create a feedback form, e-mailing the results to a specific recipient.
- Assignment 3: Create a mini-quiz and feedback form for a first year library workshop, e-mailing the results to the student and librarian. One specific improvement I made in this one is error listing (instead of listing only the first error encountered as we were taught in class). Of course, in the real world, I would never make people use the back button at all!
- The Five Digital Collection (April 2011) – Please note the actual collection on ContentDM is no longer available and sadly, I never took screenshots.
- Comparing Open Source Integrated Library Systems: Circulation Module of Evergreen & Koha (March 2011) – Blog Post Version with Minor Edits
- Site Index for Given Website (April 2010)
- Chocolate Thesaurus (March 2010)
Work Projects (May 2010 – April 2011)
As these projects are live and will constantly change, I’ve posted links to related posts, screenshots, documents, and/or reproductions (only content is reproduced).
Web Portals & Usability Tests
- Find Portal (prototyped) [Brief]
- About Portal [Summary]
- Task-based Usability Test (Services and Help)
- Services Portal [Draft IA, Card Sort, Timeline]
- Help Portal [Content Analysis Statistics, Draft IA, Card Sort, Launch, Timeline]
Wiki Work
A lot of the work that went into the wiki were minor edits and improvements as it was mostly maintenance and administration. Much of the work done is documented rather than done in full pages.
- UBC Wiki Library Space (include guidelines) [reproduction from April 2011]
- Wiki Conversion
- Wiki Help
