I am a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science Program at Wayne State University. In addition, I am a student assistant in the Technology Resource Center (TRC) working on digital humanities projects. Presently, I assist a NEH-funded team working on a Digital Humanities II Start-Up grant to foster greater use of the Wayne State Library’s digital image collections by building a website for creating digital learning objects with images from the collections and tools for exporting the images and metadata. In addition I serve as a personal research assistant for Dr. Julie Thompson Klein, Professor of Humanities in Interdisciplinary Studies/English and Faculty Fellow in the Office of Teaching & Learning. This work involves researching tasks related to a forthcoming book on mapping the field of digital humanities, a keynote volume in the University of Michigan Press new series of Digital Humanities@digitalculturebooks.
My personal area of interest is the role of digital storytelling in an academic library, a topic central to future TRC programming in digital teaching and learning. The combination of technology and storytelling offers a powerful tool for educators and students. Digital stories cross disciplines and incorporate diverse mediums (text, video, audio) to enhance the teaching and learning experience. They preserve cultural history through oral histories to foster greater understanding and a sense of community. Digital stories can disseminate the opportunities, programs, and unique collections a university has to offer.