Kent State University iSchool Associate Professor Kiersten F. Latham, Ph.D., has received a Fulbright Scholar Award to teach at the University of Zadar in Croatia for the fall 2017 semester. She will teach a course she created, Current Issues in Document/ation Studies, guest lecture in other courses, participate in several conferences, and advise students. She will also have the opportunity to lecture at the University of Zagreb and collaborate on a project around Ivo Maroević, a Croatian museologist who has been very influential in her work.
Dr. Latham created the iSchool’s museum studies specialization and is the co-author of Foundations of Museum Studies: Evolving Systems of Knowledge (2014) and Objects of Experience: Transforming Visitor-Object Encounters in Museums (2013), which was named the Best Museum Education Book of 2014 by the Museum Education Monitor (MEM). Among her other significant publications are “Numinous Experiences with Museum Objects” (Visitor Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2013, pp.3-20) and “Experiencing Documents” (Journal of Documentation, Vol. 70, No. 4, 2014, pp.544-561).
She also is part of a University of Northern Norway research group that recently received a $1.75 million three-year grant from the Norwegian KULMEDIA, (2014-2018) to investigate the impact of digitization on the role and function of archives, libraries and museums as public sphere institutions.
For more information about her publications and other scholarly activity, visit http://kentstate.academia.edu/KierstenFLatham.
In addition to her research and academic work, Dr. Latham is director of the iSchool’s MuseLab -- a place for thinking, doing and learning about museal things -- an experimental space for pushing the museum studies envelope. She has worked in, on, and about museums in various capacities for more than 25 years, serving as a director, educator, researcher, collections manager, curator, volunteer and consultant.
Dr. Latham holds a bachelor’s in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, a master’s in Historical Administration and Museum Studies from the University of Kansas, and a doctorate in Library and Information Management from Emporia State University, Kansas. She is on the board for ICTOP-ICOM, International Council for the Training of Museum Professionals, and a member of the International Council of Museums, American Association of Museums, Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, Association for Information Science and Technology. She is co-editor (co-founder) of the Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Document Academy (DOCAM); she has been a manuscript reviewer for Museum Management & Curatorship, Museologica Brunesia, and Journal of Documentation, among others, and a conference proposal reviewer for the annual meetings of the iConference, Visitor Studies Association, Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIST), and Document Academy, among others.
The School of Library and Information Science (iSchool) at Kent State University offers a Master of Library and Information Science (M.L.I.S.) and Master of Science in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management (IAKM), with concentrations in health informatics, knowledge management and user experience design. In addition, the iSchool participates in an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the College of Communication and Information. With more than 700 students enrolled, the iSchool has the largest graduate program at Kent State. Its M.L.I.S. is the only American Library Association-accredited master’s program in Ohio and is recognized by U.S. News and World Report among the nation’s top 20 LIS programs. For more information, visit ischool.kent.edu.