Katie Campana, Ph.D.

Katie Campana focuses her research on understanding the learning that occurs for children, youth, and families in informal and digital learning environments and how those environments support and impact the learning process. She teaches in the area of children’s and youth services and museum studies. She is the Principal Investigator for Project VOICE, funded by IMLS, and Read Baby Read, funded by the William Penn Foundation. Her work has been published in Library Quarterly, Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, Information and Learning Sciences, and Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, among others. She received her doctorate from University of Washington’s Information School. While working on her doctorate, she served as a lead researcher on two IMLS grants: Project LOCAL—which explored how libraries are using outreach programs to support children and families in underserved communities—and Project VIEWS2—which worked to establish the early literacy impact of public library storytimes.

*The School of Information faculty are superstars in the field. Therefore, it is impossible to list all of the great work they do on one page. Listed below is a small selection of their work. Further information can be viewed in Dr. Campana’s CV (found below), on her Google Scholar page, or on ResearchGate.

Teaching/Advising

Academic Program
Library & Information Science

Youth Engagement: Information, Culture and CommunityCultural Heritage Informatics (Museum Studies) 

Courses
LIS 60010    The Information Landscape
LIS 60625    Engaging Young Children and Families
LIS 60629    Engaging School-aged Children
LIS 60703    Museum Users

Research Specialties

Children's Information BehaviorChildren's ServicesCommunity-led ServicesSocial JusticeThe Digital DivideChildren's Literature & Services in the Digital Age

Selected Publications

Lenstra, N., & Campana, K. (2020). Spending time in nature: How do public libraries increase access? Public Library Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1080/01616846.2020.1805996

Campana, K. (2020). As easy as 1, 2, 3: Exploring early math in public library storytimes. The Library Quarterly, 90(1), 20-37. https://doi.org/10.1086/706310

Campana, K., & Agarwal, N. (2019). The landscape of research on learning in low-tech environments. Information and Learning Sciences, 120(11/12), 687-703. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-10-2019-0103

Campana, K., Mills, J. E., Martens, M., & Haines, C. (2019). Where are we now? The evolving use of new media with young children in libraries. Children and Libraries, 17(4), 23-32. https://doi.org/10.5860/cal.17.4.23

Campana, K., Mills, J. E., Capps, J., Dresang, E. T., Carlyle, A., Metoyer, C., . . .Kotrla, B. (2016). Early literacy in library storytimes: A study of measures of effectiveness. Library Quarterly, 86(4), 369-388. https://doi.org/10.1086/688028

Grants

Principal Investigator on IMLS Research in Service to Practice Grant (with Michelle H. Martin, Dr. Ricardo Gomez, and J. Elizabeth Mills at the University of Washington iSchool), $421,533, for “Project Voice” (Value-sensitive design of Outcomes Informing Community Engagement) for Libraries, awarded September 2018

Principal Investigator on the William Penn Foundation Grant (with J. Elizabeth Mills, a postdoctoral researcher with Kent State), $275,754, for “Read Baby Read,” to conduct an evaluation of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Read Baby Read Initiative

Awards/Achievements

• Nomination for Excellence in Research Mentorship Award, Kent Sate University, 2019
• 2018 ALISE/Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Competition Award for Mills, J.E., Campana, K., Bayo, I., Capps, J.L., Carlyle, A., Metoyer, C., . . .Kotrla, B. (2018). Early literacy in library storytimes, Part 2: A quasi-experimental study and intervention with children’s storytime providers. The Library Quarterly, 88(2), 160-176. https://doi.org/10.1086/696581
• 2015 President’s Award for Excellence in Research (to the VIEWS2 Team) - Washington Library Association