Internship at Skagit Valley College

Hi, my name is Sophie and I am a third year MLIS student at the University of Washington. This site will act as the artifact repository for my Directed Fieldwork Project during Autumn 2025. This fieldwork will take place at the Skagit Valley College (SVC) archive. The archive is housed in the middle of the Norwood Cole Library on the SVC campus in Mt Vernon WA. The main purpose of this project is to standardize the organization taxonomy and call numbers. We also wish to digitize a collection within the archive, the chosen collection is the collected volumes of the student newspaper, The Cardinal. This is because the collection is currently housed in a cardboard box and many of the copies have significant damage, they require urgent preservation and digitization for users to continue to access the collection.

The table below details the project tasks, the intended outcomes and the UW MLIS student learning outcomes that we will accomplish.

	Learning Outcomes and Program-Level Outcome mapping	Project/Task Description	Evidence/Criteria for Evaluation
1	By analyzing the needs and characteristics of the users and the community we will better be able to refine the taxonomy thereby accomplishing outcome 1. We will also accomplish outcome 9 by using concepts of an academic knowledge organization.	Process collection and refine taxonomy. The current taxonomy is not standardized and uses different schemas or has no taxonomy at all. We plan to standardize taxonomy, so it accurately reflects the community that the library and archive serve.	The taxonomy will more accurately reflect the content and the community that uses the archive/library.
2	Like task 1 we will be using knowledge of the community and concepts about academic knowledge organizations to take inventory of the archive. Additionally, we will be using the software system used by the college to inventory their digitized material and using other software to inventory the physical materials which accomplishes outcome 10	Inventory existing archive. Taking stock of the current archival material will help us build and refine the taxonomy and create accurate call numbers	Materials will appear in the SVC software alma with a call number that follows a specific taxonomy.
3	Following the pattern of tasks 1 and 2, we will utilize knowledge of academic knowledge organizations and their technology/software to improve access and preserve archival material.	Using scanning and OCLC technology to scan and digitize the collection of student newspaper, “The Cardinal” We will then upload the digitized collection to Content DM, SVC’s software.	Student newspaper issues will appear in content dm and users will be able to access content digitally.
4	By creating and refining call numbers we will allow users to acquire and access archival materials and knowledge. This also allows users to access material in the format that best serves them whether that is physically or digitally which accomplishes outcomes # 7 and 10.	Cataloging materials on the ex libris alma platform. Creating call number schema for physical and digital materials	The digital catalog will accurately reflect what is currently in the archive, both physical and digital materials.