By Christina Mascarenas
Going to America was more a dream than reality to Indah Setiwati; a 30 hour plane ride dream. Indah was the deputy editor for the Jakarta Post in Jakarta, Indonesia when she decided to make a change and apply to attend graduate school.
In the beginning, Indah only applied to local scholarships even though studying aboard is a goal for many Indonesians. Indah had her family to think about. Not wanting Indah to limit her academic potential, a friend encouraged Indah to apply for the Fulbright Foreign Student Program, a program that enables graduate students, young professionals and artists from abroad to study and conduct research in the United States. If Indah was accepted she would finally have her ticket to the United States.
After weighing the pros and cons, Indah decided to go for it and applied to four scholarships including the Fulbright program. One day, she was taking the train to work when she received an email telling her she was accepted into the Fulbright program. It was “surreal,” she said. “The Fulbright Scholarship is the most prestigious scholarship on earth.”
Indah did research to find the best journalism school in the U.S. that would fit her interest. She chose Missouri because it’s the best journalism school and was affordable with her Fulbright Scholarship.
According to Indah, the Journalism Library at Mizzou has knowledgeable librarians. “Sue is really helpful and resourceful,” she stated referring to Sue Schuermann, Senior Library Specialist. Sue took the time to show Indah how to do precise searches and search for specific journals. “She is very helpful. She is a great resource, all you have to do it ask,” she said.
When Indah needed a book that the library didn’t have Sue was able to purchase the book for the library. When it arrived two days later Indah borrowed it for the semester. Indah was especially grateful for the “really cool” interlibrary loan program is “really cool,” Indah said. When she wanted to read a particular book, she was asked if she’d like to read the PDF or the book, she chose both. She thought it was great to get the book in three days.
“Books in Indonesia are precious. They are like a treasure,” she said. “Especially children’s books, it’s really hard to get English children’s books in Indonesia, they are expensive.” In addition to the Journalism Library, she has used Ellis Library, and the Daniel Boone Regional Library. She said American libraries are great, “They are like wow.” In Indonesia, according to Indah, “If you want to get an affordable children’s English book. You have to go to a second-hand store. The upper-class Jakartans donate or sell their books to the second-hand stores. You can only find books at certain places.”
“I’m happier here to see the library resources,” she said. “Another cool thing about the library is you have access to the New York Times and other publications and you don’t have to spend your money to subscribe to them since the library already subscribes to them.”
Chris Allman of Charlotte, North Carolina, studies library and information science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He wants to learn more about how the local news startup Charlotte Agenda is preserving its born-digital news content, and develop additional guidelines for how Charlotte Agenda staff can improve those efforts.
John Berlin of Suffolk, Virginia, is a computer science student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he works for the Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group. His project goal is to improve the Web Archiving Integration Layer (WAIL) software system by adding a feature to enable users to specify criteria to track news or other content from media platforms such as Twitter. Once identified, this content could then be archived automatically.
Terry Britt of Sweetwater, Tennessee, is a doctoral candidate studying journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. He will write a research paper on the significance of efforts to assure the lifespan and accessibility of local online news content.
Itza Carbajal of New Orleans, Louisiana, is an information studies scholar at the University of Texas in Austin. She plans to conduct a research project that lists tools such as ArchiveReady.com that measure the ability for a website to be archived properly. She then plans to assess the web archiving readiness of a variety of online news providers.
Jiwon Choi of Osan, South Korea, is studying convergence journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. She plans to meet with international students from the University of Missouri to explore how to protect online media content and develop possible solutions.
Alison Guillory of Belmont, Massachusetts, is a library and information science scholar at Wayne State University in Detroit. She wants to determine which technologies have successfully protected content from the memory hole and which haven’t by studying how news saved in a digital format have fared over a 20-year period. She plans to document what she learns in a timeline.
Matt Hellman of Austin, Texas, is a journalism student at the University of Missouri in Columbia. His project involves a case study of how the Columbia Missourian photography staff is using open source software to provide access to and create a cloud-based long-term archive for digital content.
Shawn Jones of Virginia Beach, Virginia, is a computer science student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. His project will explore the potential relationship between social media sharing of news articles and how quickly those articles are identified by web crawlers as candidates for archiving.
Mat Kelly of LaBelle, Florida, is a doctoral candidate studying computer science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. His project addresses the need to provide individuals with ways to collect, archive and access news content they perceive as important. Kelly’s work is intended to supplement the large-scale collection work being done by institutions such as the Internet Archive and Library of Congress.
Eva Revear of Puyallup, Washington, studies journalism at New York University in New York. Her goal is to find a way to preserve data-driven news applications such as ProPublica’s 
Hanna Soltys of St. Louis studies library and information science at Simmons College in Boston. Her project examines questions surrounding how to create more complete preservation methods that accommodate the complexity of digital news platforms. She will also investigate why current archival practices are struggling to preserve online news content.
Carolina Vargas of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, studies journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. She wants to reach journalism students with messages that increase awareness of the problem of born-digital content loss and provide options for solving this problem.
Tamar Wilner of Dallas studies journalism through the University of Missouri’s online journalism master’s program. She seeks to address problems associated with inaccurate and outdated news content by exploring technology that supports online correction methods.
Elizabeth Zirk, of Palatine, Illinois, studies journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. She will help author and edit a white paper about the forum outcomes. This will include gathering details about the proposed national agenda for preserving born-digital news, projects proposed by working groups and reports summarizing panels and presentations from the event.