HEM Journals Digital Archive- https://krcarpenter.github.io/hem-journals/
This is a personal digitization project I launched to preserve a series of family journals documenting my grandparents' lifelong work in bonsai cultivation, dating from 1972–2021. The entries are rich with information—tree collection sites, show horticultural history, artist collaborations, and more.
This hands-on project gave me valuable experience with:
--Preservation workflows and digitization tools
--Metadata creation using Dublin Core standards
--GitHub and CollectionBuilder for building an open-access digital repository
--Long-term digital stewardship and content management
🌱 While still in progress (I’m halfway through Journal 2 of 5!), this work has been a meaningful intersection of personal history and professional growth. It’s also reinforced my passion for community-centered archiving and the role of digital libraries in making stories accessible across generations.
📣 Project Spotlight: Campus Chronicles – A Gamified Approach to Archival & Social Science Research
🔗https://urilis.libguides.com/campuschronicles
I'm thrilled to share a project that grew out of my coursework in Special Reference for Subject Liaisons in Academic Libraries—and combines my passions for archives, instructional design, and social science research.
Originally inspired by a collaboration in my high school library, where historical yearbooks served as rich archival artifacts for sociological analysis, this project was reimagined for an undergraduate research methods course.
Students engage in a gamified, inquiry-driven experience where they:
🔍 Analyze public datasets to explore campus demographics
📦 Dive into archival materials to build time-specific user personas
📚 Use scholarly and authoritative sources to craft historically grounded interview questions
🗝️ Present their findings to “unlock” a time capsule representing student life from a specific era
This interactive approach merges primary source literacy, data interpretation, and qualitative research skills—while fostering creativity and historical empathy.
I loved designing this guide and hope to bring it to a college campus soon as an embedded library instruction module or collaborative teaching tool for liaison librarians working with the social sciences.
Check out the LibGuide here ➡️ Campus Chronicles