Research Seminar Series Archive

  • Michael Olsson | Making Sense of the Past: the Information Practices of Field Archaeologists
    11/2/17
    This presentation describes the findings of a study of the information practices of archaeologists excavating at two sites: the Iron Age Broch of Gurness and Neolithic Ness of Brodgar excavations in Orkney, Scotland, through the course of two digging seasons. It focuses in particular on those practices by which participants made sense of the artefacts they uncovered, and through these, the site they were excavating.
  • Nicole Cooke | The GSLS Carnegie Scholars: Guests in Someone Else's House
    9/27/17
    From 1970–72, the graduate library and information science (LIS) program at the University of Illinois welcomed twenty-nine students of color known as the Carnegie Scholars. The Carnegie Scholars Fellowship Program was designed to increase the numbers of minority librarians in the profession and denoted a radical change at the school; it is a radical change we need to see again as we envision the future of the information profession and librarianship.
  • Louise Spiteri | In the Readers’ Own Words: How User Content in the Catalogue Can Enhance Readers’ Advisory Services
    4/26/17
    This session will discuss the findings of two studies conducted to explore user-generated content in public library catalogues, and its potential contribution to readers’ advisory (RA) services. The session will explore how user content, in the form of tags and reviews, provides a rich data set that connects to traditional RA access points. Further, the session will discuss the creation of three taxonomies for memory, emotion and mood based on user content, and the use of these taxonomies to enhance discovery and the reading experience.
  • Don Latham | My Information Literacy Odyssey
    2/27/17
    Information literacy has been a hot topic among educators and information professionals for over 20 years now, and it has shaped my own research agenda for the past decade. This presentation will trace my information literacy research journey, focusing on three projects: information literacy competency among college freshmen; teachers and public and school librarians as information literacy collaborators; and the Peritextual Literacy Framework as a strategy for teaching information literacy to middle school students. With all three projects, I’ll discuss the research questions posed, the methods used, and the results obtained.
  • Lynn Westbrook | Intimate Partner Violence Survivors: Gaining Agency Through Information Management
    11/28/16
    Survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) may seek assistance from governmental agencies (e.g., local police, family courts) and social service agencies (e.g., domestic violence shelters, job training programs). That assistance, however, comes with conflicting goals and priorities which are instantiated as information-dependent processes and procedures.
  • Lisa K. Hussey | White Privilege in LIS: How Do We Define It?
    10/26/16
    Diversity is a term that is both important and often misunderstood. Yet, despite this very nebulous understanding, it has been a continuous focus in the LIS professions, particularly in regard to recruitment and retention initiatives. According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, librarians are predominately Caucasian, with just over 13% of professionals identifying as African American, Asian American or Hispanic/Latino (BLS, 2015). Archives and museums report even lower levels of diversity. Hence, as a predominately Caucasian profession, the concept of White Privilege and the role of White Culture in the profession should be important discussion points.
  • Anatoliy Gruzd | Studying Online Interactions using Social Network Analysis
    9/28/16
    As social creatures, our online lives just like our offline lives are intertwined with others within a wide variety of social networks. Each retweet on Twitter, comment on a blog or link to a YouTube video explicitly or implicitly connects one online participant to another and contributes to the formation of various information and social networks. Once discovered, these networks can provide researchers with an effective mechanism for identifying and studying collaborative processes within any online community.