Raymond Dean, a spring 2009 San José State University School of Information graduate, has continued to grow his web design business, Digital Stax, which he began while completing the MLIS program. He has developed websites for many local businesses and organizations in his hometown of Springfield, Missouri and has now began to geographically expand to increase his client base. Dean has recently taken on new clients as far away as Japan and anticipates that his newest project will continue this trend.

He has announced the launch of The Website Creator, a website creation service targeted toward small businesses and nonprofit organizations. He has spent the last several months developing the project fulltime and is “nervously excited” about its prospects.

Dean emphasizes that his accomplishments are due in large part to the education he received in the MLIS program.

I learned so much during my time at the iSchool about information organization, usability, web development, and technology, in general. A degree in Library and Information Science was the perfect choice for my career. While my client group is different from those working in a library setting, our roles are essentially the same. We both organize and present information so that it is accessible and relevant to our client groups.

I am especially thankful to Diana Bradley and Heather Ebey for their wonderful instruction and mentoring. While I had some experience in web design prior to taking INFO 240 with Diana Bradley, it was her instruction that taught me the modern and correct way to develop websites. While working as a graduate assistant for Heather Ebey, I was given the opportunity to work on a variety of web projects that were amazing learning experiences. I am very thankful that I chose the iSchool for my graduate education.”

Dean worked as a student assistant on the iSchool website from fall 2008 through spring 2009. Heather Ebey said, “Raymond has a knack for organizing and the debut of the greensheet self-service project would not have gone as smoothly without his assistance. We greatly appreciated his professionalism, hard work, and ideas for improvement.”

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