E-Portfolio
Completed for the MSLIS Program at
Pratt School of Information
By Laura Indick
About
Below, you will find four projects that demonstrate my abilities as a thoughtful, passionate practitioner focused on issues of diversity, access, and multiple literacies. During my time at Pratt, I focused on user services, especially for youth, and community archives, examining how to provide access to a broad range of information resources for members of marginalized groups and communities. I hope to continue to build on the in-depth hands-on learning I did for these projects as I explore the next steps of my career.
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User-centered Focus & Communication
Project Title: Young Adult Resource Blog: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Sports”
Course: INFO 677, Literature/Literacy for Teens
Project URL: https://sportsintersections.tumblr.com/
Project description: For a course on YA literature and literacy, I created a topical resource blog aimed at a teen audience. Using guiding developmental assets appropriate to the age group, I explored sports-related resources from an intersectional point of view. I used Tumblr to reach social-justice focused teens and created “listicles” with eye-catching titles and short “spotlight” reviews on particular sources, to draw teens in and include a large amount of information in an accessible way.
Methods: I searched tags on Tumblr, BuzzFeed Books, Book Riot, Goodreads, and websites of bookstores and libraries, to find books about sports and/or with characters who are passionate about sports. I read multiple reviews of each book that I wasn’t able to read myself, in reputable sources including School Library Journal, Booklist, The Horn Book Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, and Publisher’s Weekly. I also read four books in their entirety and read part of 12 other books (in addition to the six books I had already read, which I revisited), watched three movies (in addition to the three movies I’d already read and another three movies I watched parts of), and listened to part or all of 13 podcast episodes. For the introductory texts to the book lists that link out to related news and information from the real world, I used my own existing knowledge and performed additional research to find sources to cite.
My Role: This was an individual project, and I created all of the content (except the images, for which I include credit/copyright information).
First Learning Outcome Achieved: User-centered Focus
Rationale: I did a great deal of research for this project to create a site that would be most useful and interesting to the intended audience. Teens are the primary intended user group, although the majority of the recommendations are also appropriate for “tweens” (ages 10-12), and 18-24+ year-olds, both important YA-adjacent audiences.
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Inspired by an article about the Brujas, a group of young women of color who are challenging the white male-dominated culture of skateboarding, I decided to highlight the stories of people who don’t fit the expected demographic of their sport, and the prejudice they often face as a result. I know that many teens fit this profile, but their stories are not the ones told by the majority of sports media, fictional and not. When their stories are told, it’s often in stereotypical and damaging ways. The goal of this blog was to reach diverse teens who don’t feel seen and heard by mainstream sports stories.
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The Brujas, a crew of female skateboarders in NYC. Photo © Edwin J. Torres for The New York Times.
My guiding influence in creating this blog was the Search Institute’s Developmental Asset of “Positive Identity.” I believe sports can be a crucial source of positive identity, self-esteem, and personal power for teens, which I tried to represent in this blog, while also discussing the ways this positive identity can be threatened by various forms of prejudice.
I chose Tumblr as the platform for my blog because, although fewer teens use it regularly than other social media, it is much more discoverable to teens than a WordPress or Squarespace website would be. Additionally, as a scholar of online communication explains, “Tumblr remains at the heart of an ecosystem that stretches far past the site itself, exerting continued influence across the social web.” She also points out that there is "a constant injection of youthful activity into the platform,” that the Tumblr community is “more politically aware and social-justice-focused” than other social media sites, and that users report it is the easiest place to connect with new people over shared interests. As Bustle puts it, “if you’re a book-obsessed social media user, odds are you have a Tumblr account.”
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The topic of the blog is highly relevant to teens’ current interests and concerns. Interest in sports is growing among teens: in 2018, there was a surge in teen sports participation, and there are currently more 13-18 year-olds participating in sports than ever before. I made a special effort to include mentions of the sports that were reported to be the fastest-growing, as well as a wide variety of sports, because teens are playing more distinct sports than ever. Sports are also an area of interest in young adult literature, with sports nonfiction being one of the top YA growth categories in 2019.
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I combined the sports focus with other issues that affect teens, as demonstrated by demographic data about Gen Z, the generation born after 1996 that includes current teens. Approximately one in five teens suffers from mental illness. According to Pew data, Gen Z is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in American history, and 22% of them have at least one immigrant parent. Five percent of teens had some type of disability as of 2015, and the number is likely higher now, especially with the long-term effects of coronavirus. 1.5 million high schoolers report being the victim of physical abuse from a partner. Finally, only 48% of Americans aged 13-20 identify as “exclusively heterosexual,” meaning that teens today are majority LGBTQ+. I kept these various (and intersecting) types of diversity in mind when writing my blog, and I tried to make sure that teens in historically marginalized groups felt seen by my blog and the media recommended within it.
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Image credit: Pew Research Center
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As explained by JUV Consulting, a company of teen consultants who are actual teens, the Gen Z era has been defined by the “substantial chaos” of the post-9/11 world, but it is also “characterized by the prevalence of diversity” and “overall greater equality.” Gen Z’s reading preferences were shaped by coming of age with Percy Jackson’s inclusive fantasy worlds and The Hunger Games’ empowering messages of standing up to oppression, they explain. They also state that Gen Z primarily learns about new books through social media, but not from marketers or brands — they want to hear from real people by word of mouth. I incorporated all of this information into my blog, emphasizing the types of diversity found in sports books and the serious issues they deal with, while also trying to maintain an upbeat and inspiring tone.
I also took advantage of the detailed user research done by YA publishers to inform their own social media and blogging strategies. In a recent report on these tactics, the key words and phrases I noted include “inclusive,” “diverse,” “excitement,” and “discovering your next favorite read” – all of which can also be used to describe my blog posts. The PR and marketing experts interviewed said that successful book-related content for teens “runs the gamut from articles on favorite book boyfriends to meatier thought pieces, including ones tied to Sexual Assault Awareness Month,” explaining that teens like funny listicles and image-heavy articles, but also “meatier” content regarding serious issues that affect teens. With this in mind, I worked to seamlessly combine fun and uplifting listicles with more serious content in my blog, to create the mix of fun and serious content that teens are looking for.
The description of each book in my blog’s listicles is written in the form of a short “booktalk,” which is a YA/school librarian strategy of sharing a “commercial” for a book to “hook” teen audiences. I employed tried-and-true “booktalk” strategies, like aiming for about 30 seconds in length (in this case, in reading time) and ending the book description with an intriguing question that leaves readers wanting more.
The main focus of the blog is on YA books, and I state at the beginning of each list that all books are YA unless otherwise noted, but I do include “crossover” titles, especially adult non-fiction and memoir, that I have researched or read and believe are appropriate and interesting for teen audiences.
Finally, teens report that they hate being “force-fed,” meaning feeling like targets of a marketing campaign or like they’re being pressured to buy something, so I chose to have each book title link to Goodreads as opposed to a link to buy the book.
Second Learning Outcome Achieved: Communication
Rationale: I believe that my blog’s specific focus is very original. Although there are other blogs and booklists around the internet that focus on either diverse YA or sports books, I didn’t find any others that focused on the intersection of the two topics. I made the purpose of the blog clear, both in the blog subtitle, which states that the blog is for those who have felt marginalized in the world of sports, and on the blog’s about page, which ties together the issues teens face in sports with the prejudice experienced by adult professional athletes.
The posts are a mix of detailed reviews, each of which delves into a specific issue affecting today’s teens, and lists of titles grouped by theme. Each post fits clearly within the stated purpose and is of a cohesive style and voice. I employed the “listicle” format, which is recognizable and comfortable for today’s internet users, makes its purpose and content clear from the title, and can “break complex topics down into digestible chunks.” For the titles of the list posts, I used numbers (because headlines with numbers generate 73% more engagement) and made them irregular/odd whenever possible, because those are considered more eye-catching and have a 20% higher click-through rate than round numbers. I used descriptive and evocative words to make the tone of each list clear from the headline. I also used multiple hashtags for each post, after checking that each one had a sufficient number of posts for it, to boost discoverability.
For content, the blog mostly focuses on books, but I also made sure to incorporate other media, in order to be accessible and reach teens who are "reluctant readers" or just prefer movies or podcasts.
For the blog’s tone, I aimed to be enthusiastic and authentic, noting that, as a scholar of online communities put it, “Tumblr’s focus on enthusiasm as the fulcrum point of its demanded performance of authenticity sets it apart from the aesthetic focus of Instagram and the verbal focus of Twitter.” I wrote only about books, movies, and podcasts about which I was genuinely excited. Overall, I aimed to communicate in an easy-to-understand way that was also enjoyable to read, while still maintaining my personal voice and not falling into the dreaded social media trap of being too informal or using too much slang.
To check that I was communicating effectively, I ran the site through text analyzer tools. The WebFXZ readability test tool reported an average grade level of about 8 and a Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease score of 66.9 for the site, meaning it should be easy for a 12-15-year-old to understand. The Hemingway app reported an average grade level of 9 for the posts, which was exactly what I hoped. I wanted the site to be readable for the youngest in the intended age bracket without being overly simplistic. I aimed for a reading length of about 5 minutes for the lists and 2 minutes for the reviews, to account for the fact that lists “feel” faster to read. According to the Hemingway app, nearly all of the posts were within 50 seconds of these goals, with half being within 20 seconds of it.
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I took advantage of the chosen medium by highlighting the high-resolution, colorful cover images available on publishers’ websites. The design of the site is simple, but it aims to pull in viewers, through a combination of the “endless” or “infinite” scroll style and “load more” design styles. Users say “endless scroll” creates an “incredibly smooth and seamless experience” if done well, and it leads to subjects browsing “vastly more” than with other website designs and is “ideal for quickly showing the breadth” of a subject or category. “Load more” is also well-received in usability testing and still leads to a good deal of browsing but with subjects tending to read the content much more closely than with “infinite zoom” alone. I also strategically chose where to cut the posts with “keep reading” links (Tumblr’s equivalent of “load more”) to fit with the design, so that, when my blog is read in a browser, a user’s eye will move seamlessly from the end of one post to the headline of another, keeping them engaged.
Finally, I carefully edited the content for readability and clarity.
Research
Project Title: LGBTQ + Archives: A Literature Review
Course: INFO 625: Management of Archives/Special Collections
Project URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j9l0ZEcO18E47lOhbQmQAf7T5vW3yLpFbp2FXHePQNs/edit?usp=sharing
Project Description: Written for an archives management class, this literature review describes and analyzes eleven significant sources about LGBTQ+ archives.
Methods: To find sources for this project, I performed keyword searching using the Pratt Institute Libraries' discovery layer and searched directly in three distinct databases. Methods are described in more detail below.
My role: This was an individual project, and all the content is my own.
Learning Outcome Achieved: Research
Rationale: The first paragraph of my literature review clearly defines my goal and research topic, explaining why I believe the state of LGBTQ+ archives to be an essential consideration for the archival field in the 21st century. I use my own field experience to argue for why I have a specific foundation of knowledge necessary to examine the topic and why my work has the potential to contribute to the field. In the remainder of the introduction, I perform a critical appraisal of the sources as a whole, grouping the types of archives represented in various ways, and then identifying themes seen throughout the literature, including the drawbacks of or gaps found in certain types of articles.
I employed multiple research methods for this project. I knew that this topic would pose a research challenge, as I specifically chose a subject I felt was underrepresented in the professional literature. I consulted Pratt Institute Libraries' LGBTQ-related research guides for guidance, which presented a wide array of databases, journals, and collections. However, because I was highlighting archives specifically, not libraries, and I didn’t want to look at huge institutions like NYPL, much of what was focused on in lists and libguides did not fit my needs.
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The list of LGBTQ+ libraries and archives listed in a Pratt Resource Guide. Although a great starting place, it didn't fit my needs for this project.
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For my search, I performed multiple keyword searches using the Pratt Institute Libraries' EBSCO discovery layer. Because LGBTQ+ subject matter uses such a wide variety of terms, I used search techniques especially suited to the topic, such as truncation and wildcards. I made sure to search with as many distinct keywords as possible, especially searching for groups within the community who are historically less represented; unfortunately, however, it seemed that there simply are not many archives or much literature focused on transgender, intersex, and asexual individuals and communities.
Later in my research, unsatisfied with the diversity of the results I was getting through the discovery layer, which I had expected to be an issue, I chose to directly search databases that are not indexed or are less effectively indexed by EBSCO. I focused on JSTOR (which holds the American Archivist archives, which my professor had recommended specifically as a source, as it is an essential publication for the field), ProQuest’s Ebook Central®, and Project MUSE, which I know to be well-respected sources for professional literature. At this stage, I specifically searched for sources to round out the review, especially ones that focused on archives outside of the U.S. Although I also looked at LGBTQ+ specific magazines, journals, and other materials held by the Pratt libraries, I found that in general the articles there were not at the level of scholarly writing that I needed for this project and/or did not speak to archives specifically.
I also used my own knowledge of the field to search for specific archives that I knew were giants in the field, such as the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA), which I found written about in non-archive-focused sources.
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Header image from the Lesbian Herstory Archives' website
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Ultimately, I believe that this literature review goes beyond merely summarizing the sources and analyzes, synthesizes, and critically evaluates the literature on the topic, in order to give a clear picture of the field.
Citations are consistent with APA citation style and carefully edited.
Technology
Project Title: Digitization of At-Risk LGBTQ+ Materials in Analog Audiovisual Formats
Course: INFO 665: Projects in Digital Archives
Project URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10uHoUdOhWytni-6qZzrlxCiQM8PtzB38L6-LfXMGj6s/edit?usp=sharing
Project Description: Working in a group, I digitized significant portions of two analog audio-visual collections: an audio reel-to-reel collection from the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and a U-matic video tape collection from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Community Center of New York (colloquially called the Gay Center or The Center). We carefully documented and reported on our experience.
Methods: In order to complete the project, we learned how to operate a reel-to-reel player and a U-matic player. We also learned how to digitize video materials using UltraStudio 4K Black Magic digital converter and Black Magic Media Express software, creating access copies with the Adobe Media Converter, and how to digitize audio materials using Audacity Software. We had to make a number of decisions along the way, including the ideal file sizes, how and where to save archival and access copies of the materials, and how to do a variety of physical/analog and digital troubleshooting.
My Role: This was a group project, within a class-wide project. The entire class worked with the same materials, divided into a research/curatorial group, a design/user experience group, a metadata design group, and a digitization group (my group). Within the digitization team, we worked completely collaboratively, aiming to have the full team together for all in-person work sessions, although that wasn’t always possible due to schedule constraints, and all doing each part of the digitization process, so that we could each learn how it worked. We made decisions as a group, from which tapes to prioritize to file naming conventions. Whenever possible, we also followed the conventions established by the student group from the previous semester, who had begun digitizing the video collection.
Learning Outcome Achieved: Technology
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The box of one of the reel-to-reel tapes
Rationale: This project demonstrated critical decision-making around technology that had real-life consequences. I developed and employed skills relating to two different types of analog technologies that are commonly found in audiovisual archives, as well as two types of digitization software. As the tapes were extremely fragile, we ran into a number of issues that we had to troubleshoot as much as possible, including the breakage of a number of the reel-to-reel tapes. Sometimes, as with the project ceasing early due to the pandemic, the lesson was that non-technological challenges can pose larger problems for digitization efforts.
A broken reel-to-reel tape. Photo credit: Anthony Cocciolo
Our group worked together to create detailed workflows and define file naming practices, detailing every step carefully to maintain as much consistency as possible. We valued documentation highly. In a shared Google Doc, which eventually became our final report, we carefully described every challenge and technological issue that we encountered. To keep track, learn from our experiences and challenges, and inform any future digitization volunteers of our progress, we also kept more succinct notes in the inventory spreadsheet. These notes included any issues we had run into and whether we suggested the materials be re-digitized or otherwise edited at a later date. This practice served us well when we had to stop digitization suddenly. Thanks to our detailed documentation, future archives students could pick up where we left off, which they have been able to do during the Fall 2020 semester.
The inventory spreadsheet for the reel-to-reel audio from the Lesbian Herstory Archives
As with all technology, it wasn’t just the technical abilities that we needed for this project, but also a strong awareness of the historical contexts, professional ethics, and needs of the communities involved. We understood that it was essential to digitize the materials, especially the open reel tapes, which are considered critically endangered (U-matic tapes are considered slightly less imperative to digitize immediately but are still threatened). As a former intern, I knew that the Lesbian Herstory Archives did not have a reel-to-reel player onsite, rendering the reel-to-reel tape collection completely inaccessible prior to digitization. For this project, technology served as a powerful tool to provide access to previously inaccessible sources and to protect legacies and preserve stories for the future. We took the opportunity and responsibility very seriously, as we discussed for this Pratt Newsletter piece.
The inventory spreadsheet for the U-matic video tapes from the Gay Center
One lesson of this project was that part of working with technology and A/V archives is prioritizing access over perfection. A number of the videotapes had playback issues, which could have been part of the original broadcast, occurred during the initial recording, or been the result of deterioration of the tape. Some we could fix or ameliorate by adjusting the tracking, but for a number of them, there was nothing we could do. However, we realized that, from a preservation/conservation point of view, we were already taking a crucial step by digitizing the material. Considering the age of the tapes (nearly 50 years old; CLIR estimates that thirty years “appears to be the upper limit” for magnetic media), and the various types of serious physical deterioration possible, we realized we were very lucky that the content was as intact as it was. In the case of the videos that had artifacts (some of the visual issues that can show up on analog video), the sound was luckily still intact, along with the visuals during the majority of the playtime. We realized that access was our highest priority, and that researchers would be interested in the historical evidence the videos could provide, not perfect high-definition viewings. We did, however, note the issues in the inventory spreadsheets for the metadata group to incorporate into the public-facing website.
Examples of the video playback issues
The video access copies we created are available to the public here, and the audio access copies are publicly available here (note that some digitization of the video collection had been done by a previous semester, and that the website design was done by a different group). The archival master copies are saved to Dean Cocciolo’s hard drive.
Reflective Practice
Project Title: “Patron Satisfaction” and “Cordiality”: Examining Emotional Labor and Harassment at the Reference Desk (A Thought Paper)
Course: INFO 601-02: Foundations of Information
Project Description: Tasked with writing a “thought paper” on a topic of my choice related to the field of Information Science, I examined the American Library Association’s guidelines for reference service, analyzing them from a feminist perspective, and looking at how the history of the librarian profession has created gendered expectations that can harm women working in libraries in multiple ways, from emotional labor to sexual harassment.
Methods: I began with a close reading of the ALA Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) guidelines, which I had read for my Reference & Instruction class. I recalled a mention of these guidelines in an article that had been optional reading for that class – Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz’s piece in Out Behind the Desk, so I reread that chapter and found it extremely relevant. This became an essential source for my final paper.
As I was interested in a feminist viewpoint specifically, I searched the Pratt Institute Libraries' catalog for books that had “feminist” in their title. Two of these were particularly interesting to me, both edited by M.T. Accardi: Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction and The Feminist Reference Desk. I read both of them and looked closely at the bibliographies for each essay, where I found a number of useful sources. Browsing the Pratt library’s shelves nearby, I saw a number of books that I was also interested in, so I checked them out as well. They included The Librarian Stereotype and Librarianship: The Erosion of a Woman’s Profession. These proved very useful and suggested a link to the history of the profession, which was a thread that I followed next. This led me to multiple sources, including Roxanne Shirazi’s blog post, which cited Arlie Hochschild’s The Managed Heart. I couldn’t find Hochschild’s book at the Pratt library but actually ended up purchasing it for my own collection, and it became a central piece of my argument.
I also used other sources that I already had in my possession, especially Reference Librarianship & Justice, which had been an optional text for my Reference class and in which I found a number of useful sources cited by the authors, and classic feminist theory texts including two books by bell hooks.
My Role: This was an individual project, and all the content is my own.
Learning Outcome Achieved: Reflective Practice
Rationale: I believe that, in this paper, I show a strong understanding of the library profession, including the profession’s history and how that affects current LIS practices, and the difficult question of how to balance standards for interacting with patrons with consideration of our colleagues’ and our own well-being. The research topic was partly inspired by recent trends in critical librarianship, demonstrating my awareness of contemporary discourse in the field. I noticed that I had seen multiple references to affective learning, emotional labor, and other terms from the feminist theory, feminist pedagogy, and queer theory traditions in LIS literature (as seen, for example, in the titles of Litwin Books/Library Juice Press’s recent publications). I think that this paper demonstrates my ability to turn a critical eye to the LIS profession, while also suggesting both concrete and more abstract ways to improve it for the future.
In this thought paper, I reflect on my personal experience at a library help desk, placing my experience in context and attempting to use it to guide my personal and professional practice moving forward. I have only grown to believe more strongly throughout my semesters at Pratt that strong relationships with professional colleagues are essential to feeling emotionally and intellectually supported and confident in our practice. I hope to apply the argument that relationships with mentors and peers can provide the collaboration, coalition, and support needed for reference work as I enter the field and, one day, as I become a mentor and leader within it myself.