PLO1: Apply the field’s foundational theories, principles, values, ethics and skills to everyday practice.
SAA Core Value(s):
- Develop and follow professional standards that promote transparency and mitigate harm
- Cultivate collaborative opportunities not only with creators, users, and colleagues, but with any interested parties who wish to engage with archival records.
This project was an application of library technology in an effort to trace ones family tree as far back as possible. The goal was to meet with a reference librarian, and use research tools such as ancestry.com to conduct a search for the benefit of learning how to assist users in the very same task. This was a challenging. Assignment for me because lineage for African Americans is rather tricky. “During the slavery period, enslaved African Americans were considered property and were prohibited by law from reading, writing, attending school, legally marrying, owning land, owning a business, voting, and participating in many other privileges granted to citizens of the United States. In fact, citizenship was not granted to African Americans until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868” (Burroughs, 201, 29-30). As such I knew that trying to find a complete history past four generations would be staggeringly difficult. Not to mention the added issue of not knowing my father and having much of his family lineage missing from my awareness as well. Nevertheless, I endeavored to take the more difficult road and attempt to answer the great question of “who am I?” with a genealogical search. This process enriched my knowledge of how to search for genealogical information specifically for African American populations and use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to aid in that research.
MLIS E-Portfolio 