04 - 030ADV26R0021 - Vivian Li - Proposal-redacted-PII.pdf

Activities and stories from the digital collections of the Library of Congress

Vivian Li Library of Congress Innovator in Residence x vivianlikesfruit@gmail.com vivianlikesfruit.com

June 20, 2024

Anywhere Adventures Education | Art | Discovery

Unique Entity ID: GVMAXBWCJYB7 https://vivianlikesfruit.com

Volume 1Anywhere Adventures

Anywhere Adventures is a website providing guided activities and fun missions for people to learn stories of the areas near them. Activities will be collected around subjects focused on a geographical area, such as rural Illinois, Michiganʼs Upper Peninsula, or the Puget Sound and inspired by items from the Library of Congressʼs digital collections.

Adventures will be created for six to eight regions with a large number of young professionals and far enough from the Library of Congress that most would not consider it as a resource available to them.

Each adventure will culminate in an final zine that people can share. Photos, drawings, and observations can be used to fill the pages. The zine can be printed out and assembled so users can distribute the zine they made, or shared as a series of images.

The theme and structure of the zine can be changed between adventure locations while using the same underlying technology. For example, zines could be:

A magic 8-page zine with prompts for each page.

A map of the town where key locations will be filled in.

A long accordion zine with scrapbook elements.

To promote the project, short form videos will be created to share the stories and introduce the website for users to experience on their own. Social media algorithms encourage local content and educational videos, making this an effective way to inform, entertain, and attract site visitors.

As the innovator in residence, I would also like to develop partnerships with libraries and other community organizations across the country in the areas adventures are developed for. The main focus of the second year will be to host local events that encourage people to use the website to explore, like a day where the library will host a zine printing and folding workshop after visitors complete the adventure, or a stamp rally where people are awarded stamps for visiting specific locations.

Why is it transformational?

The Library of Congress digital collections are a treasure trove of interesting anecdotes but are extremely dense and intimidating for non-researchers to navigate. By using activities to bring people funny and awesome stories about places they can experience firsthand, we can introduce them to what is available in the libraryʼs collections in a novel and engaging way.

By building trust with users that there is interesting content waiting for them in the LOCʼs digital collections, we will encourage them to invest time into learning how to navigate the collections and make discoveries that they want to share.

Intended audience

This project is intended to reach young people who are not necessarily researchers, but have curiosity for the world around them.

Gen Z commonly uses social media such as Instagram and TikTok to find recommendations on places to go and things to try.

By creating high quality short-form videos that distill stories from the libraryʼs collections, we can meet a younger audience where they already are and inspire them to engage with the digital collections for themselves.

I personally observed a hunger for local history among young people when I created some Instagram reels during my residency for the Fremont Bridge here in Seattle. The videos got over 100x the amount of views as my typical art content, demonstrating demand for entertaining and informative presentation of stories about a local landmark.

Library staff time

Feedback from staff on content and site design would be highly appreciated, but it depends on how much time staff are willing to dedicate to it. In the schedule, Iʼve highlighted five key points for feedback in the development process, but we can be flexible!

Additionally, if any staff have connections to libraries or organizations that could be interested in hosting a partnership for the project, I would love to use that as a first step in reaching out to partners.

Intellectual property

All assets and sources will be in the public domain or created for the project.

Introduction table of contents

Volume 1

Introduction

Technical approach overview

Schedule

Activities + projects

Engaging Gen Z

Social media content strategy

Testing approach

Research approach

Capabilities and experience

Volume 2

Price proposal

Volume 3

Diff file

SAM registration

References

Revised with suggestions from the Peer Review Board https://www.instagram.com/vivianlikesfruit/reels/ technical approach overviewThe activities website will be built on a stack of React and NextJS and deployed on Vercel, which is stable and offers a free tier for web hosting. User data storage will all be done locally on the usersʼ web browser so that no accounts are needed and security will be less of a concern (since no user data will be stored on a server).

There will be three primary areas of development:

1. Activities: building components that are reusable between adventures and cities. Activities could be recording audio, using the phoneʼs camera interface, or creating a custom stopwatch as a tool for users to collect data about the environment.

2. Project: a culminating zine that will be generated from the results of the activities. Work will have to be done to create robust editing, export, and processing.

3. Website infrastructure: typical website needs – a homepage so users can see the different adventures available to them, flows for them to revisit their work, a map interface to see where the key locations are, and other routing details to enable navigation.

processes + procedure

By starting with sharing sketches and design mocks, it will be possible to get feedback early in the development process and iterate on the design. With early discussion of designs and by validating assumptions with testing we will create the most usable and reliable product possible. It is also important to create thoughtful tests when soliciting feedback so the results can be actioned on.

At the beginning of the project, I will prioritize what work needs to get done as a “completed” project, then work that would be nice to get done, and finally “hopeful” work. For example, loading images quickly and efficiently is necessary for “completeness” but creating smooth transition animations would be “nice”.

For content writing, the process will be: outline of content, rough draft, final copy, with opportunities to find feedback from community members at the rough draft stage.

quality requirements

Accessibility

The project will be a mobile-first website for highest accessibility. Mobile traffic accounts for at least 50% of the total web traffic[1], and smartphones are more accessible to lower income households[2]. Building on the web instead of an app means a download is not required and is more resistant to the deprecation of hardware.

Iʼve worked with designers and accessibility professionals in the past and have conducted accessibility reviews of legacy websites, and I can build a website that goes beyond the minimum requirements in using accessible color, sizing, navigation, touch targets, and more to create a better user experience for everybody.

Security

There will be no cloud components for data hosting – all user data will be stored on their local device. This also has the benefit of being cheaper to maintain.

Sustainability

The site can be deployed on Vercel, which is free to host. In development, I will try to minimize the dependencies taken on with other libraries to increase the longevity of the site.

development

CC0 1.0 universal license.

All assets used will be created by me or sourced from the library

No limitations on any intellectual property, no proprietary software or data restrictions

As the project uses social media for promotion, finding an audience can be a bit luck-based. However, by making good, high quality content, we can ensure higher chances of success. Good content is content that provides value to viewers, has a clear call to action, and has high video and audio quality.

Finding community and library partners with a social media presence could also be challenging, but successful collaboration on quality social media engagement would be beneficial to both LOC and partners.

potential challenges

[1] Mobile vs Desktop Usage Statistics for

[2]Digital divide persists even as Americans with lower incomes make gains in tech adoption feedback design development testing releaseideas / rough sketches https://research.com/software/mobile-vs-desktop-usage https://research.com/software/mobile-vs-desktop-usage https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/

Scaffold basic website needs

Add styling

Finish development – feature complete

Development from feedback

Soft launch

Development from feedback

Hard launch Bug fixing if neededBug bashing

Accessibility testing + local device testing throughout

Create a sample guided journey

Make location selections

Create a comprehensive design and style guide

Decide and design activities

Create assets for the website

Create a public Kanban board

Come up with script and testing for focus groups for types of activities

Focus groups of Gen Z audience to find most compelling activities

Meet with community partners

In person testing on devices

Test tour around town

Surveys Zine templates at library

Create an initial content plan

Begin Anywhere Adventures location discovery campaign

Reach out to potential community partners

Anywhere Adventures campaign begins

Website scaffolding: build things that are needed no matter what activities are chosen (routing, location, map)

Brainstorm activities to be tested with focus groups. Create wireframes if needed for accurate testing of activities.

DELIVERABLES

Sample guided journey on a location where I can physically visit to test with in the future (could be Seattle, or other areas in WA or OR)

Social media content plan: an overview of video topic ideas and the shots that need to be taken for each.

Report on focus group results about design and activities.

Report on case studies – social media accounts that are successful, and why.

MILESTONE 1

Reach out to community partners – help find people for focus groups and initial pulse check on local culture.

Location campaign and selection –ask online to submit stories about their town that they found in the LoC. Use that as a starting point for selecting finals locations.

DELIVERABLES

Choosing final locations for full guided journeys.

Start to release videos on social media sharing stories from the project.

First draft of text and activity pairings.

Build the activities and zine generator decided on in Milestone 1.

MILESTONE 2

Conduct in person testing with community members for usability tasks to see if features are intuitive.

Time is scheduled to be able to incorporate this feedback.

Conduct a focus group to see how content lands with local communities.

Soft launch: first release with all features, not heavily promoted, but it’s the “complete” website

DELIVERABLES

Feature complete –all features that are necessary for launch are done.

There might be bugs

Testing plan for usability at various scales (in person, large surveys)

Report on in person usability and focus group results.

Final copy for all location journeys.

MILESTONE 3

Refine the website from feedback while allowing time to fix the bugs that come up.

Creating a survey that can handle a large volume of results and will give parsable data.

Host a tour in the location that is chosen near me to see how people like doing the activities while on location.

DELIVERABLES

Report on testing – survey results and people’s thoughts on local test tours.

Hard launch – should be stable, bugs are rare. Most development work should be done and we expect the website to handle large amounts of traffic.

MILESTONE 4

Find creative ways in the community to promote participation – through libraries

Anywhere Adventures campaign –ask people to share via hashtag, share about the stories and the website specifically

DELIVERABLES

Deliver a stable and fun website.

Releasing social media content to promote the website and announce its launch.

MILESTONE 5

Year 1

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The main goal for year 1 is to create a beautiful, fun, sustainable website that people will want to use.

Users will be engaged at every point of development to incorporate feedback as well as create a community around the project before its final release.

One point of transparency will be to communicate about the project through social media, which will release content throughout the year.

The project will be developed with accessibility in mind throughout.

Tasks below have been broken into five separate workflows.

MILESTONE 1 MILESTONE 2 MILESTONE 3 MILESTONE 4 MILESTONE 5

3 months 3 months 2 months 3 months 1 month

Start releasing content –about LoC collections, Anywhere Adventures, and about the LoC itself

Brainstorm all possible kinds of activities

Develop activities

Collection research – find interesting stories to share

First draft of copy for collection items and their activity pairings

Finalize content

Community focus group to give feedback on research and activities

YEAR 2

The second year of the residency will be focused on engaging communities where adventures have been built and creating fun events with their libraries and other community organizations.

I would like to partner with local libraries to host events so that the adventures will find their audience of people who can experience them. Activities could be a workshop run by library staff where teaching materials are provided, or an online class that I could host, or even longer events like a stamp rally around town at the sites where the adventure takes them.

After reaching out to gauge interest from libraries, Iʼll create packages of digital materials that can be used to run workshops that tie in to the adventures. For example: a workshop on creating a magic zine, with a component in using the LoCʼs digital collections to find images to collage into their zine.

Physical materials such as stickers, stamps, or enamel pins could also be created as part of a package for libraries. These could be supplies or promotional materials for running the event.

For the final portion of the residency, I will budget for four trips that can be made to participating cities if the partners are interested in doing larger workshops.

mi les to ne mi les to ne mi les ton e 8

Check out the Library’s digital collections!

six seven eight

Milestone 6 (4 months)

Development work. This could be another “create” pathway, such as a project to make a song, or it could be features requested from community partners. It will also be an opportunity to make any changes from the first release.

Story development. With most of the primary development work done, time can be invested into adding more journeys and locations to the website.

Event dreaming With community partners, start planning what kind of event is feasible and exciting for each location. Many factors will vary – such as length, content, and form.

Creating materials Any digital or physical assets that need to be created for the event will be made. If possible, it would be good to contract out work to local artists who could create some art that gets incorporated.

Milestone 7 (3 months)

Event logistics Planning each event and logistics such as what support or volunteers might be needed, coordinating sign-ups, promotion, etc.

Running one pilot event

Bug fixesWith the changes from

Milestone 6, some issues might come up that need to be cleaned up.

Social media content. With the bigger release campaign, questions about the Library of Congress, the residency, and the project will be asked. Content addressing these specific questions should be created to engage with the community.

Milestone 8 (3 months)

Run events and support Over the course of three months, prepare and run all the events.

Release content collaboration If the communitiesʼ libraries have a social media presence, collaborative content can be release to promote the events and Anywhere Adventures

Collaboration + Celebrations!

From the materials created from the activities in the “collect” phase, a zine will be generated that users can edit.

These zines can include images, text, and even items from the Library of Congress itself.

Different base zines could be created for each location. They could vary in form or content.

collect create share Users will visit locations and use Anywhere Adventures as a self-guided tour. Locations are inspired by items from the digital collections.

Each location will have activities to collect observations. Activities will be accessible and encourage participation.

Zines and activities can be exported with the hope users will be proud or excited about their experience and share it.

The Library of Congress items that inspired each activity will also be included so users can learn more and discover more stories.

Examples:

•Tell friends about their experience •Social media – on stories or a post sharing their creation

•Teaching – sharing the stories they learned during their adventures activities + projects digital zine generator

Smaller activities that are inspired by library digital collection items can be done on location. They will be pieces to help the user create a zine which they can print or share digitally.

All website components for activities and projects can be reused between cities while content can be specialized.

Examples:

•Take a photo at a location •Record an interesting sound •Draw a landmark

•Count how many things pass by

•Track movement (using phone accelerometer)

•Scrapbook-like, collecting memories

•Map / adventure

•Following a specific subject

•Abstract forms generated from data.

they ca n conta in anyt hing – photos, though ts, poet ry, drawin gs.

are ha ndma de DIY books they come in m any forms –

BIG and small, bla ck and white or c olorful they are distribute d so that anybody can publish a nd share their stories

Innovative components:

Music Maker (sound of a city?)

collect The primary goal of Anywhere Adventures is to act as a tool for self-guided tours. The Library of Congressʼs digital collections host many interesting items with stories that just take a little digging to find. By gathering these stories into a fun adventure, the LoC can support cultural and historical learning across the United States.

Activities will be created for each location so visitors can engage in deeper learning and creation. They will feel approachable with a low entry so anybody can try it with high quality results.

However, the ceiling will be high so that creative people can practice that muscle!

Completed activities will be collected into an overarching zine project that can serve as a souvenir for users.

Interview with Frank Blade.

Location: McCaw Hall, home of Seattle Opera

Learn: Blade talks about building sets for the Opera and worked on creating a boat for Tristan and Isolde and then sets for the Ring Cycle which Seattle Opera has been performing since 1975.

Olmsted Associates Records

Location: Seattle city parks

Learn: Seattle has one of the best-preserved Olmsted parks in the country and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. Learn about the design philosophy and process of the Olmsted brothers and how elements can been seen in Seattle parks.

Activity: Draw or count the variety of plants and creatures you see there.

Link to resource

Link to resource

Link to resource

Susan B. Anthonyʼs diary

Location: Sinking Ship parking in Pioneer Square

Learn: Susan B. Anthony had a tour of the Pacific Northwest when campaigning for womenʼs suffrage and stayed in the Occidental Hotel where the Sinking Ship now is.

Activity: Look around – write about what things might have been around in 1871 and imagine what things might still be around in 100 years.

Color film negative of Pike Place Market

Location: Pike Place Market

Learn: The history of the market and the types of vendors through the years.

Activity: Take 4 – 6 photos in sequence of an interesting stall. The photos will get stylized in the film strip similar to the libraryʼs item

Link to resource https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.63282/ https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.63282/ https://www.loc.gov/collections/olmsted-associates-records/about-this-collection/ https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.63282/ https://www.loc.gov/item/2020655516/ https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss11049.mss11049-001_00683_00886/?sp=159&st=image&r=-0.078,0.046,0.878,0.572,0

While visiting locations and participating in activities, a culminating zine will be generated from the materials that users created.

The zine can serve as a representation of the experiences users had while on the adventure and will want to share. In creating and customizing the zine, we will need to balance giving users enough control to take ownership over the creation with enough guidance for a high quality result.

Users will be able to edit zines and use assets from the Library to decorate and customize it. Zines will be created from photos, text, observations, drawings, and other data that the user generates.

Since the zine is digital, we can also play with the medium and include sounds, videos, or other media not typically found in printed zines.

After creation, zines can be printed out, assembled, and shared. They can also be shared digitally if exported as PNG images or as a video sequence.

Events with local libraries could include workshops on creating and assembling zines or even just printing out the zines created through Anywhere Adventures.

Processing content

A big part of development work for these projects will be automatically processing user content to refine them and pull out pieces to use without users needing to edit. For example, taking images out to use as sticker options in the zine.

create

DIGITAL PHYSICAL

share online export image files edit sizing, filters, and add other assets take photos add text generate a blank template use a blank page or printed template draw or write observations collect stamps or other materials color and decorate print and assemble give zines to friends

Different pathways for making zines can be explored. Some things like drawing or gathering might be more fun to do physically, while others like editing or using weird filters might be enhanced with a digital experience.

After the zine is generated, users can edit to add images and text

Assets from the LoC collections can be used as stickers

Elements from completed activities can be processed to be fun things that users can play with

Different kinds of zine structures can be explored to add variety share After going on an adventure, users will have many paths to share their experiences and learnings and spread the word of Anywhere Adventures and the online resources provided by the Library of Congress.

The nature of a zine is to be distributed. If create digitally, users could print and assemble many copies, or they could choose to explore their pages as image files to share online.

All the digital items from the Library of Congress that inspired activities, provided learnings, or were used as assets in project creation will be linked so users can continue exploration on their own.

Users can also just share the cool places they visited or tell the facts that they learned along the way. A campaign to use a specific hashtag to gather all zines could also be created.

Sharing the project with friends in person.

Sharing it online while experiencing locations.

Making a social media post about the project or adventure.

Sharing stories and facts that were learned through the adventure.

share collect create ways to share sources of interesting stories about the location

LOC resources that inspired the activity public domain assets to be used in creation users can explore and learn more on the LoC website

Making successful videos

Bump from viral videos

Distribution of Instagram users by age in the United States as of January 2024. The two largest groups are 18-24 and 25-34.

Reels are created to share the experience of going to the restaurant have high likes, comments, and most importantly, shares.

Accounts who are not typically food bloggers have had reels go viral, and this whole ecosystem benefits Kasama.

1. The videos themselves have to be good: they need to provide value to the viewer, have a clear call to action, have high production quality in audio and image, and be as concise as possible!

2. Collaborate with local libraries and organizations. That will help Instagram learn that the video is about a specific area as well as share the audience of all accounts.

3. Instagramʼs algorithm really favors localized content, which is why restaurants do so well.

4. Create engaging adventures and experiences. That way people will want to share it themselves and it will grow exponentially.

Of course, there is a touch of luck for a video to find its audience. But there are things that can be done to help its chances!

Rapid City Public Library does a series of ʻTaskmasterʼ like challenges on how Gen Z uses IG for discovery and impact.

case study: Kasama

After their initial success, Kasama became famous on Instagram and TikTok, and the ecosystem of content being created has boosted their popularity to long-lasting demand.

The videos show people lined up around the block. Gen Z is not only seeing the content, but acting on it and visiting it.

Kasama is a Filipino restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. They are critically well received – in 2021 they were included in the New York Times Restaurant List and received their Michelin star in 2022.

This effect is from Gen Z using Instagram as a platform for discovery – to find local experiences, shops, and restaurants.

Theyʼll share it to their friends to gauge interest which creates accountability for them to visit.

Instagram keys on this ʻshareʼ metric and will keep pushing the video into more feeds.

Instagramʼs algorithm also favors hyper-local content and will serve videos based on the viewerʼs location

With users motivated to share, there is also potential for exponential growth when they visit locations and create content on their own.

For Anywhere Adventures, videos can be made about the history and stories of local areas.

Distilling interesting stories found from the Library of Congressʼs digital collections where people can go visit a physical location encourages sharing.

Videos can also be created about the library items themselves to bring visibility to digital resources available from the Library of Congress.

Social media content will be created throughout the residency to be very transparent about the process of creating Anywhere Adventures and how the Library of Congress can be a resource to anybody.

By sharing a behind the scenes look, we start to build a community around the project before it launches so that when it is available, people will already be invested. We can also use feedback at various stages of development and use it as a temperature reading.

Create videos sharing how the Library of Congress operates.

For example, the processing process, the amount of materials received, and how to navigate.

Interviews with people involved with the library could also be shared if thereʼs interest!

Behind the scenes of developing the project, including bug bashing, feature development, and design.

Other parts about the Innovator in Residence program can be shared as well.

Share interesting items, stories, and facts found within the digital collections

Show how the collections can be used for research and strategies for parsing the large amounts of information

Content created can fall into three themes:

Collections and story based About the LoC About Anywhere

Adventures

What mysteries are in your town?

Do you walk past something every day and wonder why it’s there?

What surprising sounds can you find in the Library of Congress’s digital collections?

What questions do you have about the Library of Congress?

To find locations that could be candidates to create full journeys for, we can create a campaign to ask people to share stories that they find about their town in the Library of Congressʼs digital collections.

This will help to gauge interest in communities, filter research, and build transparency in the process from an early stage.

Should Anywhere Adventures come to your town?

Our content can be interactive with audiences We can create prompts for them to ask us questions and see what content would be interesting to them.

To create the most accessible website, it should be able to work on even the lowest range budget phones. When developing a web application, there are three main factors to keep in mind to maintain cross-device coverage:

– screen size, where small screens are the limiting factor

– browser compatibility, which is dependent on operating system

– processing power, which is dependent on the RAM and CPU of the phone.

To test these factors, I propose to buy two phones to use for local testing of the website:

- 1 budget iPhone (such as the 2nd generation iPhone SE)

- 1 budget Android (such as the Moto G Play)

I personally have an iPhone 12 mini, which has a smaller screen that can be used to test layout and function.

iPhones are overwhelmingly popular across Gen Z in the United States, with over 94% owning an Apple product according to Consumer Technology Association.

Gen Zʼs preference of Apple compared to other generations.

Another study from Fast

Company shows that 87% of teenagers in 2023 own an iPhone

Different methods of gathering user feedback will be used to test both usability and the experience.

As the scale of users for each test increases, more planning will be needed to ensure the results of testing are actionable and definitive.

Changes from feedback can be in any part of the development process – design, content, future testing, etc.

Gen Z uses iPhone

All features will be tested locally first and basic usability issues will be caught.

Small groups of users will test both usability of the site as well as the overall experience: if it is fun, exciting, and intuitive to use.

This could be setting up at community spots, or inviting people to take a test tour with the guided journey to give feedback. Itʼs an opportunity to test the experience while using your device in the world as well as start testing for more kinds of devices.

Create a survey for usability and bug tracking as well as open feedback if people would like to comment. This mainly will test for any bugs across all devices, locations, and kinds of users. It will be important to design the survey so results can be interpreted from a large amount of data.

Surveys will have the largest reach and can help understand the experience the most varied set of users and devices.

A test tour will show how the website experience will be while on the move.

Asking library patrons could help to test the site on a variety of phones.

We can also collect feedback on experience.

Initial user testing with Gen Z users will help determine what activities are fun and engaging.

Testing with focus groups created from local communities will help show if the content is relevant and let us dip our toes in the community culture.

D https://www.cta.tech/Resources/Newsroom/Media-Releases/2024/February/CTA-Research-Exploring-Gen-Z-Views-and-Preferences https://www.cta.tech/Resources/Newsroom/Media-Releases/2024/February/CTA-Research-Exploring-Gen-Z-Views-and-Preferences https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/insights/data/smartphone-study-shows-apple-clear-favorite-of-gen-z/ https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/insights/data/smartphone-study-shows-apple-clear-favorite-of-gen-z/ https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/insights/data/smartphone-study-shows-apple-clear-favorite-of-gen-z/ https://www.fastcompany.com/90965872/gen-z-teens-favorite-brands-apple-nike-chick-fil-a-goldfish-crackers-vr https://www.fastcompany.com/90965872/gen-z-teens-favorite-brands-apple-nike-chick-fil-a-goldfish-crackers-vr https://www.fastcompany.com/90965872/gen-z-teens-favorite-brands-apple-nike-chick-fil-a-goldfish-crackers-vr https://www.fastcompany.com/90965872/gen-z-teens-favorite-brands-apple-nike-chick-fil-a-goldfish-crackers-vr

Collections will inform development, and development will inform what we need from collections. In this cyclical situation, itʼs best to first determine what our ideal city would be and then work from its constraints. A location could be either a city or a rural town.

Locations to be included for consideration can be sourced from the public to share stories about their towns found in the collection. This can also help gauge community interest.

Geographic isolation: The town should be at least 1 hour away from the nearest moderate to large metro area.

Micropolitan: This term is defined by US Census Bureau as an area with a population of at least 10,000 but under 50,000.

There is no one definition of rural, so it is suggested to use a definition that best serves each case. For Anywhere Adventures, the goal is to provide some cultural resources in towns that might not have much other support, so the concept of a nonmetro-micropolitan county would have enough clustering of people so that impact can be greater while still being a rural community.

To determine if an area has enough materials to draw from for activities, some metrics can be used to get an initial temperature reading:

First: Determine number of items connected to the state and the city.

Second: Go through the items and assess how many are unique (for example, fire maps are a lot of items and can only really use 1 of them). Images, audio, and text are all good!

Third: Pick out a couple of interesting items and categorize them as: good story, good asset (could be used as a sticker or background), good visuals (could be a basis for an activity).

From development, determine a baseline number for visual assets and story assets. By seeing what materials are common across locations, development work can be shared across adventures. So if most cities will have maps, or audio clips, or photographs from the 90s, a basic activity can be developed for that and impact will be greater.

Evaluating compatibility of library collections for an area

Approach for selecting locations

Good location geographically: The city should be far away from the LoC, be a moderate to large metro area, and be far away from the other chosen cities. Ideally, there are also destinations around it that also have library items associated with them that could be visited in an hour or less drive so multiple adventures could be created in a concentrated area.

Population: The city has a large number of young people that could be reached through social media.

However, not all of the cities should be college towns.

Library collections: The library has a variety of materials about the area and enough to create compelling adventures. A base set of materials should be defined (such as birdʼs-eye view maps, sound bites, recent and old images), but research should also be done to see if any special collections could refer to it (such as Susan B. Anthonyʼs diary or the Olmsted Associate records).

Community partner: The city has a local library, museum, or archive with an online presence that could be a potential partner for year two collaborations.

To be selected, a location should be either:

A metropolitan area

AND include these qualities

A micropolitan area

OR

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/rural-classifications/what-is-rural/

2023 - 2024

I am a software developer, comics artist, and educator. I graduated with a bachelorʼs degree in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and my art has been displayed with the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, Shunpikeʼs Storefronts program in Seattle, and published in various anthologies.

Substantial is a Seattle based consulting company with a design-forward approach.

• As a software engineer, I worked with people from nonprofits to understand what they want and how to get it done within time and budget.

• I supported all of the Bezos Family Foundationʼs websites and programs.

I worked atMicrosoft’s Surface division as a firmware engineer for the Pro X Typecover keyboard.

• Worked on low-level hardware to manipulate lights, memory, and input for the keyboard.

• I was responsible for getting the organization on the latest firmware for testing and prioritizing what issues would be blocking and shipping the product in time.

2018 - 2020

2018 - 2020

I am a teaching artist with Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers in the Schools program, which brings creative writing to public schools in Seattle.

• I create activities and classes to teach kids from 2nd grade to 11th grade how to tell their stories through comics.

• My activities have enough guiderails so that kids who arenʼt confident artists will be able to create a comic by putting the pieces together.

However, the product is something that is uniquely theirs.

2023 - 2024

I am doing development and design work for Allmaps, an online platform to work with the online IIIF maps available through libraries, archives, and museums, in partnership with Boston Public Library.

• I am designing interactive components for tutorials so people can learn how to find the Allmaps ID and use the plugin.

• I am also doing illustration work to build a visual language to help people understand difficult concepts by making them more accessible.

Microsoft MakeCode is a website to teach kids how to code with a project-based approach.

• As a web engineer, I worked with educators, students, designers, and researchers to create approachable features.

• I ran a daily livestream for students to learn how to code.

• Worked on music, art, and hardware features to enable kids to create retro-style arcade games.

The Explore AANHPI Heritages website is a map-based storytelling platform to share the stories of AANHPI people living in the Pacific Northwest. It was created in partnership with the Wing Luke Museum, National Parks Service, National Forest Service, and a task force of community members.

• I worked as the only developer and designer with artists to build a platform that could properly display their works. The first set of Khmer American stories was released at the end of 2023.

• The website was built with accessibility, longevity, and ease of access in mind - the hope being that people who are not technical will be able to update the content with confidence.

2023 - 2024

2020 - 2022 https://vivianlikesfruit.com/bridge https://www.instagram.com/p/C2QkCBTPY6w/ https://www.instagram.com/p/C2QkCBTPY6w/ https://allmaps.org/ https://arcade.makecode.com/ https://www.exploreaanhpiheritages.org/ https://www.exploreaanhpiheritages.org/

Milestone 1 Milestone 2 Milestone 3 Milestone 4 Milestone 5

Labor

Duration (months)

3 3 2 3 1

Hours worked per month

120 120 120 120 120

Total hours worked

360 360 240 360 120

Work rate (per hour)

$60 $60 $60 $60 $60

Total for labor $21600 $21600 $14400 $21600 $7200

Travel and Materials

Number of trips 0 1 0 1 0

Travel Costs 0 $300 0 $300 0

Lodging 0 $1050 0 $1050 0

Website storage

0 0 0 0 0

Sub-contractors 0 $200 $450 0 0

Materials $230 0 0 0 0

Total for travel and materials

$230 $1550 $450 $1350 $0

Total $21830 $23150 $14850 $22950 $7200

Year 1

With this schedule allowing for 1400 hours of work at a rate of $60/hour, I estimate the budget to be $89,980 in year one, which includes travel, lodging, materials, and development costs.

A majority of the work will be done remotely from Seattle, Washington.

I am planning on doing two trips to Washington, D.C. – during

Milestone 2 and 4 – where the primary purpose is to do research and filming.

The cost of web hosting is free to keep in mind the longevity of the website. No cloud services are planned to be used either in the same vein. It will be hosted on Vercel, which is stable and free.

Focus groups will be paid to compensate for their time and expertise.

The purchase of two devices is budgeted – a lower end iPhone and Android.

Volume 2: Price ProposalAnywhere Adventures

Milestone 6 Milestone 7 Milestone 8

Labor

Duration (months) 4 3 3

Hours worked per month 120 120 80

Total hours worked 480 360 240

Work rate (per hour) $60 $60 $60

Total for labor $28800 $21600 $14400

Travel and Materials

Number of trips 1 0 4

Travel Costs $300 0 $400

Lodging $1050 0 $450

Website storage 0 0 0

Sub-contractors 0 $500 0

Materials $1000 $50 $400

Total for travel and materials

$2350 $550 $3800

Total for milestone $34030 $22150 $18200

Year 2

Volume 2: Price ProposalAnywhere Adventures

For year 2, I estimate the budget to be $74300.

Development will be done to add some more features for the site depending on feature requests from community partners and feedback from the first major release of the website.

A majority of the work will also be to support partnerships across the country to increase awareness of the website and the Library of Congress as a digital resource.

A trip to the Library of Congress for milestone 6 is planned with the intent to do more filming and research. Some of the budget is designated for trips to partner libraries to assist and promote the events they host. Iʼm planning for 4 trips in total of 3 nights each in milestone 8.

Each library could have a different type of event depending on their needs, and could vary from a day long to a weekend or even a week.

For all libraries hosting events, items will be manufactured to support them, such as stickers, prints, pins, stamps, and other materials to generate excitement.

The materials cost includes the cost to create these items as well as shipping them to their destination.

Budget is also allocated to pay local artists who can work in collaboration to creating materials for the event.

• The only planned “create” pathway will be to make zines. This will reduce scope and make sure that one path is super stable.

• Overall, incorporating more community feedback, transparency, and content throughout.

• Included a page for testing at different scales and for different purposes.

Also includes a breakdown of hardware testing and what devices are best.

• Added budget to pay focus groups and for the purchase of two mobile devices.

• In the first year, reworked the schedule to incorporate testing and community feedback earlier.

• In the second year, added a trip to the Library and a plan to add more locations for written content.

• Added location research and eligibility to include rural communities.

• Added a content plan to explore the ways that social media can connect us to community and add another channel of feedback.

These are the highlights of the differences between this proposal and the one submitted in May.

Volume 3Anywhere Adventures

SAM Registration

Unique Entity ID: GVMAXBWCJYB7

As Vivian Li