I began work toward the MLIS degree at the University of Washington in September 2009 after a long time out of school. My profession had long demanded applications of the principles of information science, and I made the best decisions I could based on the understanding I had developed in my day-to-day context. As devoted as I’ve been — and remain — to practical application, and as tolerant as I am of bricolage, the time came to build a solid foundation of theory beneath my long-established practice. My school portfolio documents parts of that story.
My curriculum choices grew out of those intentions. My studies have emphasized user experience in information seeking, the principles of organization and information architecture that underlie UX, interface design, and search. All these topics provide partial answers to puzzling questions about what relevance is, after all, how it’s determined and measured, and how it can be made visible to users as they circulate in their information environments.