Biography: Melissa developed her passion for information science while volunteering with the Thomas G. Carpenter Library Special Collections as an undergraduate student at the University of North Florida. While attending graduate school at the University of Texas’ School of Information, she is focusing on academic librarianship, particularly with small-medium universities and community colleges. After obtaining her MSIS, she will start her career as a Reference Librarian for the University of Louisiana Monroe’s College of Pharmacy. She hopes to develop skills in STEM librarianship while creating positive relationships with students and faculty in the College of Pharmacy on behalf of the University Library.
Project: Austin Community College Libraries provide resources for over 70,000 annually enrolled students and over 100 programs of study. To support teaching and learning at ACC, the Libraries need more data on software usage in university coursework to educate future budget requests. For my capstone project, I am designing a survey that will be distributed to ACC students that evaluates their access to technology as well as which software they are most interested in using on library computers. After the survey is disseminated among students, I will analyze the results via data visualization and a report that outlines the study’s findings. This project will help librarians at ACC determine which materials are most beneficial to student success.
