Author: Sam Lego (Page 2 of 2)

I'm Sam, and I'm a Youth Librarian going back to school for an Integrative Studies degree, with a focus in English, Digital Humanities, and Social Sciences.

TurtleStitch

February 12, 2025 / Sam Lego / 0 Comments

I’m a big fan of just playing with software, especially when it’s not going to break my computer, so I just started clicking and dragging. It does look a lot like many block coding softwares, where you chain commands together, however I am only familiar with those from watching coworkers plan their youth coding courses (and generally I say something along the lines of “Couldn’t be me!” and go to plan my art programs). This was interesting, and made me question my math abilities, minimal as they already are. I couldn’t figure out the inner degree of a point on a five pointed star, as shown below (though I got awfully close with the 145 degree turn) and the final product was a star that overshot its margins by a little bit. Getting to this point, however, took me awhile, as I kept trying to get the turtle to rotate an inner degree amount instead of the outer degree amount – it felt backward to me, but made sense after I drew it out, and it took a while before I made anything other than a clunky circle.

I had it start going around more repeats, and I loved that it started bringing out another star inside with the stitch lines and negative space with the white grid. I like mandalas, and I often will use my iPad to make them when I feel burnt out creatively, so it was interesting I accidently made one that worked infinitely.

(I just had to make a star that started and ended correctly – would’ve bothered me forever).

I also would’ve liked to try making a different type of pointed star, but my math brain was tired, and I didn’t want to find more degrees to try.

Cahokia AR App

February 4, 2025 / Sam Lego / 0 Comments

The app is a great resource considering that the museum is not available at this time. I think that the app itself is interesting, as it does provide a more immersive experience with history. Immediately my first concern was how quickly the app expects someone to be able to navigate the site, as it says the app provides a 90-minute tour. It definitely is dependant on the user being able to navigate the Cahokia site, and in a timely manner. This would restrict the navigation for people, in addition to the limited public transit options to reach the site.

The app is also potentially difficult to navigate for someone who cannot see, as it is a visual augmented reality tool, though it presumably has text that could be converted to speech. Due to this, it might make the app less useful and therefore restrict the number of people who could use it.

I also haven’t been able to find if the app uses more than English for its information, and since it’s not explicitly mentioned, that makes me think it might not be an option – or maybe will be an option eventually. This is a restriction of access because, according to their website, the Cahokia Mounds see approximately 350,000 tourists every year, from dozens of countries, many of which may not speak or read English well enough to navigate the app (CahokiaMounds.org).

All that to say, the app itself looks very cool, and would be a wonderful resource especially to contextualize history in the space it now exists.

SIUE’s CougarNet Page WAVE Accessibility

February 3, 2025 / Sam Lego / 0 Comments

I reviewed the CougarNet login page, and found the following results:

What accessibility issues crop up for the page you chose?
- There were a bunch of different problems that popped up, among them broken skip links, redundancy in text to speech, and low contrast errors.
Who is most likely to need the content on the page?
- All SIUE students and faculty will use this page.
How might the accessibility issues impede people’s access to the content? Who might be most impacted?
- This is something that could impede many students who require text to speech software in order to navigage the page. Behind all of the errors and reduncancies, the student needs to be able to find the login page, and access everything related to their academic career: grades, registration, student bills, financial aid, etcetera.
Name one or two ways that the accessibility of the site could be improved – the smaller and easier, the better!
- There were a lot of low contrast errors, which could be solved by making images, logos or text higher contrast. This is something that shouldn’t be too difficult for the purposes of this page, as most images are fairly simple, anyways. In addition, there are suspicious alternative texts attributed to images and links that should be updated accurately.

Week Two: Interest Statement

January 22, 2025 / Sam Lego / 0 Comments

Looking toward the next few weeks, my eye caught on weeks five, when we will be talking about AI and will be reading/watching AI generated content, and week six when we’ll talk about digitizing sources. The first one has raised my hackles a little, as I have a hard time (as an artist especially) feeling neutral about AI in a lot of newer iterations (thinking mostly about things like AI generative imagery), but I do want to learn more about it and keep my mind open. It also makes me nervous as a librarian to think about unwittingly providing patrons with AI generated content, as there are already AI books being sold on Amazon – often without any indication that they are generated with AI. I’m curious to see if my views on it change in the course of discussing it in this class.

Example of what I believe is an AI generated image on the cover of a picture book I found while looking for Christmas gifts for my young nephews. The listing, found on Amazon, does not give any indication that the images, at the very least, are generated. (Click the image to see the listing).

Another example, from the same seller, of a book with AI generated imagery. Like the yellow book, the image seems to have come from a generative image software. (Click the image to see the listing).

In terms of digitization of content, working as a librarian makes this interesting to me because my job centers around access to information for the community. I love that so many resources are being digitized and made accessible to wider audiences, and I’m excited to learn more about specific topics and the ways they are being presented, and how that might apply to my work.

Sam’s Introduction

January 18, 2025 / Sam Lego / 0 Comments

My name is Sam and I am a full time Youth Services Librarian, seeking my integrated studies degree in Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, and English. I’m technically a junior, but I originally went to school at Saint Louis University, so I do feel a little out of the times when it comes to being back in the classroom.

I grew up in Wisconsin, and although I’ve been living here for almost eight years, due to the pandemic I still feel very new to the area. In my job as a librarian, I work mostly with teens, and greatly enjoy my work providing art programs both to the general community, and to the Madison County Juvenile Detention Center. I also am currently on the board for the South West Advocates for Youth Services, which is a group of local public librarians who work together to share youth resources for south west Illinois.

An avatar of myself I drew in the last few months.

I love digital art, and I am constantly drawing and doodling on everything. I also enjoy reading and audio books (practically a requirement as a librarian), and I read a lot of fantasy. I’m trying to expand my reading horizon this year, though, and have already read one non-fiction, and have started another, both memoirs featuring women who grew up in religious ‘cults.’ Please feel free to ask about libraries and book recommendations!

In terms of the internet, and social media, I am a rather passive user. I rarely interact publicly on content, mostly on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. I do, however, use Discord regularly, and text with my friends and family. Sharing content is typically as interactive as I get with social media recently, and I try not to share anything too personal publicly, though I did post and stream my art for a long time.