Our spring remote project series concludes today with another great batch of students/volunteers. If you missed any of our highlights, please see our previous posts on the American State Papers, Official Titles for Bills, Legal Gazettes, and Transcribing the Century of Lawmaking site.
For this project, we look to expand our options for historical bills. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) writes summaries for all current bills added to Congress.gov, but did you know that they have been providing this service to Congress since 1935? As we continue to add historical bills to Congress.gov, we also want to provide extra information (like bill summaries) to give the most options for accessibility and searching. Historical bill summaries are in older PDFs, so this group led by Stephanie Williams is looking at the most efficient process to connect the summaries to the bills and make them easily machine digestible. This project will likely carry on for several years as we take a journey back through time to include all that we have available.
Stephanie Williams is a Kentucky native who moved several times with her parents in the military before settling in New Jersey. She holds a B.A. in historic preservation from the University of Mary Washington and currently attends Syracuse University for her M.L.I.S. program. Stephanie lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her fiancé Kevin. She hopes to work with metadata and digital curation to ensure online collections are accessible to all.
Robyn Balay was born, raised, and currently resides in Durham, NC. She holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Asheville and hopes to graduate in May of this year with her M.L.I.S. from the University of North Carolina – Greensboro. Robyn has two cats and enjoys reading and writing in her free time. She works in the retail industry now, but she loves the research process and aspires to one day work in an academic library as a research librarian or as an archivist.
Alex Boeckman is a current M.L.S. student at Emporia State University. She is the Senior Library Information Specialist at the Zalk Veterinary Medical Library at the University of Missouri – Columbia. Alex’s interests in libraries seem to grow each day – she enjoys learning about health science librarianship, metadata, and open access. Alex lives in mid-Missouri with her fiancé and three cats.
Matthew Burke is a New York native who holds an A.A. from Suffolk Community College, a B.A. in history from Stony Brook University, and is in pursuit of his M.L.I.S. at the University at Buffalo. He has always had a passion for learning history, as well as for politics. His goal is to pursue a career handling collections and archives at the Library of Congress or National Archives. Matthew likes to read, watch sports, and spend time with his family.
Rose DeLuca is a reference and instruction librarian working at Harford Community College. She originally hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan, but now calls Maryland her home. She earned her B.A. in psychology from the University of Michigan and her M.L.S. from the University of Maryland. Rose has a spouse, two kids, a feisty dog and enjoys camping and hiking with her family. She is passionate about teaching her students how to access the resources they need for their research assignments and is looking forward to learning all she can about metadata.
Zhanna Griffin currently lives in Ohio, but she considers Florida to be her home state. She has a B.A. in English and international studies from Mississippi College and is currently an M.L.I.S. student at Valdosta State. She has a professional background in records management and is especially interested in digitization and archival studies.
Cameron Hannon is an M.S.I. student at Florida State University. Currently, he is working at Chesapeake Public Libraries in cataloging and circulation. He also interns at the Richmond Lewis Ginter Botanical Library to digitize and augment records on ArchivesSpace and Koha. He currently resides in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He loves to hike at national parks and read mystery novels.
Steven Humiston is Idahoan-born but lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with his partner and dog. He holds a B.A. in history from Boise State University and plans to graduate in spring 2022 with an M.L.I.S. from the University of Maryland, College Park. He currently works for the Omaha Public Library and continues to expand his knowledge on information literacy and health information access.
Grace Neeley is a Memphis, TN, native and is a current graduate student in the University of Southern Mississippi’s M.L.I.S. program. She previously obtained her M.B.A. from Bethel University. Presently, Grace works for her alma mater at the University of Memphis as an Administrative Assistant, and very soon, she will be starting as a library assistant in the special collections department of the university library. In this position, she will be creating metadata, creating and maintaining the digitized special collections, and assisting with collection management and preservation. These are all areas in which Grace is especially passionate and she is excited about her ongoing librarianship journey. During her downtime, Grace is a cross-stitch enthusiast, beagle parent, and avid reader.
Danielle Pytko is a recent graduate of the library and information science master’s program at Simmons University. She has worked in public and academic libraries and has a B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College. Her professional interests include digital archiving and preservation.
Michelle Rupert-Baumiller lives with her family in Mesa, Arizona, but started her life in Pennsylvania, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature and a certificate in women’s studies at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2011, her family started a new life in Arizona, where she began her M.L.I.S. in 2018 at the University of Arizona. As for her hobbies, Michelle belly dances and loves gaming. She also has an extensive family, including four mischievous cats and one small dog. Michelle is interested in metadata and digital information and hopes to work behind the scenes in information organizations. Still, she is interested in embedded librarianship and plans on advocating for early literacy.
Cathy Seidenberg is originally from Queens, New York, and now lives in New Jersey with her husband, two sons, and two cats. She holds a B.A. in German area studies from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in Brooklyn, NY, and is a student in the M.L.I.S. program at Rutgers University School of Communication and Information, in New Brunswick, NJ. Cathy has been a legal editor at LexisNexis for over 30 years. In her spare time, Cathy reads many books, mostly non-fiction (especially history of medicine), and enjoys taking long walks with her family.
Christa Shusko lives in Gothenburg, Sweden, and is pursuing an M.A. in Digital Humanities at Linnaeus University. She holds a Ph.D. in religion from Syracuse University; her past research has focused on unconventional 19th century American religious figures and groups who often found themselves at odds with anti-obscenity laws. In her current studies, she is especially interested in the ethical curation and management of digital collections.
Seth Wells is a graduate of the University of Texas with a B.A. in history, currently pursuing a master’s in library science at the University of North Texas. He has experience working in museum collections and cataloging, which he plans on turning into a career as an archivist. Working with metadata this spring, he can see future opportunities as an archivist doing the same work. In his spare time, he likes to play PC games, collect old books, and listen to audiobooks.
Victoria Yetley, originally from Laurel, Maryland, is currently pursuing a graduate degree in library and information science at St. John’s University. Victoria also works in data and records management at a private school, as well as this spring project. Victoria enjoys working with the public and solving new problems.
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