Research
Our School of Information faculty are internationally known scholars, performing meaningful and innovative research across library and information science, user experience design, health informatics and knowledge management.
Research Areas
Faculty research areas include but are not limited to the following:
- Cultural Heritage Informatics
- Data Sciences & Strategy
- Database Systems and Design
- Digital Humanities
- Digital Libraries
- Digital Preservation
- Diversity/Materials/Service
- Ethics and the Information Profession
- Health Informatics
- Human Information Interaction
- Information Literacy
- Information Retrieval
- Information-Seeking Behavior
- Knowledge Organization Systems
- Library Management
- Library Services & Studies
- Linked Data, Semantic Web Technologies
- Multicultural Materials for Youth
- Museum Studies
- Organization of Information
- Sociotechnical Research
- User Experience Research
- Youth Services
For more information about specific faculty research, visit our Faculty profiles.
Recent Grant-Based Research
In just the last year alone, our faculty have secured nearly $5,000,000 in funding to pursue work that helps create educational materials for school children affected by civil war in Nigeria, to digitize community assets for historical documentation, to help build family engagement at the local library level and to create community engagement projects that nurture children’s early learning and development and more. Here are just a few of our recent projects.
- Project VOICE: Value sensitive design of Outcomes Informing Community Engagement
- $421,533 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services
- Mobile Digitization for Community Memory Projects in Northeast Ohio
- $4,999 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services / State Library of Ohio
- Addressing Education in Northeast Nigeria - Adamawa and Gombe States
- $3,940,113 from USAID / American University of Nigeria
- Working Towards a Smarter Ohio: Supporting Family Engagement through a Strong Preschool-Library Partnership
- $4,999 from The Institute of Museum and Library Services / State Library of Ohio
- Exploring Cohort Models for Capacity Building in the Archival Process
- $3,000 from the Society of American Archivists
- Leveraging Cognitive Task Analysis Methods and Data eHMP Interaction Design
- $123,118 from the Veterans Health Administration
- Energetic Alpha, Numero and Script: Continued Research and Development Costs
- $22,585 from the College of Communication and Information / Kent State University
Research Spotlights
The research that Dr. Meghan Harper has done into care-based practices and trauma informed care in libraries has found an audience with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners in Boston. Having seen Dr. Harper present at a number of conferences regarding how libraries can help address the opioid crisis in their community, staff in Boston recognized her insights into the library's role in as a safe space for the public. Her work, "Libraries Lending Hope" will be utilized in a November Massachusetts state library conference to help educate and inform public and school librarians how they can better serve members of their community through bibliotherapy, mindfulness and creating supportive networks. Dr. Harper has also been invited to speak on this same topic at the Akron-Summit County Public Library, the Ohio Educational Library Media Association 2019 Conference, the Northeast Ohio Network for Educational Technology (NEONET), and the Ohio Library Council (OLC).
Recently Dr. Lala Hajibayova published results of her research into how cultural sites and objects in former conflict zones are constructed in user-generated narratives. For "An investigation of cultural objects in conflict zones through the lens of TripAdvisor reviews," she analyzed TripAdvisor reviews and images of the South Caucuses, finding that these reviews and images demonstrated the embodied orientation of reviewers’ narrations. Further, where the nature of the cultural sites was disputed, these reviews are mainly voiced in the form of dissatisfaction with the socio-economical situation and services. This research suggests that the forgotten nature of frozen conflicts engendered an erosion of and disconnect from cultural heritage, ties and significance for those who fled the contested areas.