Micah Vandegrift LIS5786 Info Architecture 3/25/2010 Personas and Scenarios for HackLibSchool.com Website

Personas and Scenarios for HackLibSchool.com Website by Micah Vandegrift is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Summary Page

(Primary) Caitlin, has heard of “Art Librarianship” and wants to learn more.

(Primary) Miguel, beginning an MLIS program and is unfamiliar with many modern digital media trends.

(Secondary) Britan, interested in museum curation and gallery work.

(Complimentary) Pauline, working on a special project to raise awareness about literacy.

Primary

Name – Caitlin Jones

Demographics – 19 years old, grew up in Providence, RI and attending school at Brown, currently in the spring of her junior year.

Quote - “I’m worried about what to do after graduation. Grad school sounds like a good idea, but what if I pick the wrong degree program and can’t get a job?”

Profession – Student in Art History

Personal Background - Born into a relatively well-off family, Caitlin has been to Europe once and seen many of the western world’s greatest art works. Now, 19 years old now, she is active in the school’s Art History student association, enjoys the occasional independent movie and going out to the same coffee shop to do homework. She is interested in special collections and has heard of art librarianship, which seems like something she could really be interested in, especially if it allows her to work in New York City, London, or Florence.

Goals – Caitlin wants to graduate first and foremost! Her goals are to attend grad school, study abroad, intern at MoMA, travel to Hong Kong and get a job doing something related to art, art history and special collections.

Computer/Technology competencies – very comfortable with her MacBook Air, Caitlin considers herself a “digital native.” She is self-taught on most software, including Adobe Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. Regularly active on Facebook, and she sleeps with her iPhone in hand.

Credits: Photo from Flickr User Kashirin Nickolai - Creative Commons Attribution License. Available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nkashirin/5324444893/in/set-72157624245529225/

Primary

Name – Miguel Delaurenta

Demographics - 43, living in Tampa, FL, born in Honduras, married with a 12-year-old daughter.

Quote – “Do I really have to live my entire life online in order to get a job these days? I hear that librarianship is a growing field, but I’m worried about being able to keep up, much less get caught up.”

Profession – Formerly an investment banker, Miguel was laid off 6 months ago when the financial crisis hit. He is currently unemployed and going back to school to develop a new skill set and

Personal Background – Always a “numbers” man, Miguel has an MBA from Georgia Tech. He enjoys a round of golf on the weekends, and is casually training as a boxer at a local gym (he really just does it for exercise). Financially secure and proud of his accomplishments, Miguel doesn’t mind splurging very now and again, and recently returned from a last minute cruise with his wife. He and his family felt very secure in their life until Miguel was laid off. After a few bad months, Miguel decided to take this as an opportunity to pursue some of his life’s passions. Writing as a hobby for many years, Miguel is considering going back to school for librarianship to get more acquainted with the culture of books these days.

Goals – He wants to find a way to retire comfortably, and enjoy life. Feeling both young and old, Miguel hopes to have time to reinvent himself professionally. Wants to become technologically competent. And of course, to get his golf game under par.

Computer/Technology competencies – Comfortable with email, Miguel has recently begun texting to keep up with his daughter. He likes technology, but is more apt to pen and paper, or a good old-fashioned face-to-face meeting. Amazed at the amount of time younger people are spending online.

Credits:

Photo from Flickr User Guilherme Kardel – Creative Commons Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives License

Available from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/guilhermekardel/4064824615/

Secondary

Name – Britan Kumon

Demographics - 22, born in South Africa, raised in Detroit, living in Chicago, IL with her boyfriend of 3 years.

Quote – “I love my life! Ready for whatever is next!”

Profession – Employee at Chicago Field Museum Souvenir Shop.

Personal Background – Britan joined the staff at the Field Museum after graduating from U Michigan. Her boyfriend is a sous chef at a well-known Chicago restaurant, and he and Britan moved to the city purely for the experience. She loves wandering the exhibits before and after hours. The opportunity to work around curators and gallery assistants has provoked an interest in Britan, and she has begun checking job listings for requirements. Coming from a lower-class family uninterested in mid/high culture, Britan finds it difficult to talk to her parents and siblings about her interests.

Goals – Britan wants to be the director of a gallery someday. She has recently realized this and so her immediate goal is to figure out the steps it will take to get there. She reads ArtForum and Juxtapose regularly, hoping to develop her artistic eye and keep up with the trends. Also, knowing that networking is key, it is her goal to break in to the art world by being at the right place at the right time, so she attends as many openings and special events as she can.

Computer/Technology competencies – Familiar with some graphic design programs, Britan is an average user of computers and technology. She enjoys her Kindle, but still buys books now and again. She prefers to use the internet for casual things like shopping and listening to music. Her boyfriend recently got them on a new phone plan and she’s still getting used to her Droid X.

Credits:

Photo from Flickr User Nar8iv / Scott W – Creative Commons Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives License

Available from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_williams/1891010025/

Complimentary

Name – Pauline Maxwell

Demographics - 35, San Francisco, CA, born and raised in San Antonio, TX, mother of two, and one child is autistic.

Quote – “Literacy is a fundamental of democracy.”

Profession – Assoc. Director of Programming at Civic City, LLC.

Personal Background – Pauline has been an activist and advocate since her teenage years. She cares deeply about community engagement, and has worked in social services for 10 years before moving into her current position. Raising an autistic child had profound affects on her, and she works diligently to advocate for a variety of issues mostly relating to children. She lives her life fully devoted to reaching out to those in need, and rarely takes time for her own interests.

Goals – to raise awareness to literacy issues in children from all walks of life. To develop programs that will assist teens and parents dealing with autism. To be a good mom.

Computer/Technology competencies – Competent at a base level, Pauline uses email a lot, and does research online. She is comfortable with search engines and databases, and enjoys using her local library for research.

Credits: Photo from Flickr User ahockley – Creative Commons Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives License

Available from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahockley/3488082252/

Scenario:

Britan Kumon (Secondary)

Information Need/s: What additional education is required to become a curator? How might the MLIS degree help me achieve my goal of running a gallery? What sorts of programs or tracks are available?

Britan begins her search for information on the curatorship and gallery management and quickly is overwhelmed with details. Starting off with Bing and some related search terms (curator, MLIS, Art Gallery management, Art Curator) she quickly decides to narrow her search to educational items. Navigating a few schools’ web pages, Britan finds some mildly useful information. Then she comes across a link out to “Student Blogs.” One of the more interesting titles catches her eye, and thus she lands on the homepage of the present site. The site offers several navigation options, with a main column serving as a news/updates feed. As her eyes move around the screen, Britan gets the sense that there was a lot of thought put into organization of the page. She notices the creative elements of the page though not distracted by them, and her artistic senses enjoy the details that make the page flow. This site feels and acts very different than the sites she’s just visited for University programs. Britan observes the neatly placed Authors and Editors section, and reads through the 2 line bios for the featured authors. Scrolling down a bit she notices a section called Museums, and clicks into that page. While her ultimate goal is to manage her own gallery, Britan understands the importance of establishing herself as a knowledgeable and tasteful person first. The page she is on has several articles of interest to that end, including “Establishing oneself in the art world” and “Curation starts in the classroom.” The page also offers several columns of links, as well as a search box, and each column is titled with an particular aspect of considerations a new student would want to take: Education, Practical Experience, Art Criticism, Stories, and Job Prospects. Following her train of thought, Britan clicks right on the Education tab. Inside she finds a top 10 list of programs to consider, each with a brief paragraph description. She also notices that after clicking on a program link, there is a button that offers to save/email the chosen link. “This will be great to email to myself, so I can read through more of them later,” she thinks. After selecting several programs to check in on later, she moves her attention to the other sections. Returning to the previous page, Britan begins to wonder how a degree in Library Science would relate to working in the art world. She scans and notices several “featured” articles in the other sections that might shed some light. The Stories section is most appealing to her, as she notices articles on Galleries, Librarian as Curator, and Art Librarianship. After “clipping” all the articles she is interested in, Britan decides to read the Librarian as Curator article. As she has been saving the articles they had been “jumping” from the middle of the page to a small icon at the top of the page that looked like a moleskin notebook with a red badge showing the number of articles saved. “How unique!,” she thinks. Navigating to the notebook she finds the Librarian as Curator article in the list and begins reading. The page features a small toolbar at the top of the reading notebook with familiar icons to send the article to Instapaper, a Kindle, Email address, or Evernote. It also allows her to highlight,

change the text size and color of the reading notebook’s background. Aside from the reading features, Britan finds valuable information about how librarianship is a practice in information curation, and how that skill can be applied to working in museums or galleries. She also finds contact information for the author, who happens to work at a gallery Britan has visited in the past few months. Returning to the home page, Britan is impressed with the amount of content that seems to be represented in the site. She continues to click through other pages, spending much more time on this site than any other before, and discovers some reviews by current students on several programs she might be interested in. The reviews contain not only positive notes, but also some things the student didn’t like, or thought could have been done better. Also, there are courses listed with titles that get Britan more excited about this as a possible way to break into museum and gallery career. She makes a point to bookmark the site in order to return later and check out more articles. Feeling much better about understanding some possible tracks toward her goal, Britan goes to close the web browser. A dialog box pops up with a message, “It looks like you still have some articles clipped in your notebook. Want to save them for later?” with a Yes or No buttons for options. Upon clicking Yes, Britan is taken back to the Notebook page where she discovers she can zip all the articles and email them to herself, or export them as a PDF file. She opts for the PDF, saves it to her Dropbox folder, and leaves the site with plans to read the articles on her Kindle the next day.