Assignment for my Information Architecture course.

1. 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
(Complimentary)
(Primary) Pauline, working
Caitlin, has heard (Primary)
Miguel, on a special
of “Art project to raise
beginning an (Secondary)
Librarianship” awareness about
MLIS program Britan, interested
and wants to literacy.
and is unfamiliar in museum
learn more.
with many curation and
modern digital gallery work.
media trends.

2. 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/

3. 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/

4. 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/

5. 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/

6. 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,

7. 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.