School of Information and Communication Studies
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The School of Information and Communication Studies engages in a wide range of research activities in the field of information studies. Its academics are active members of multiple research groups and teams, both locally and internationally. For more projects and information on library related research from the school, please visit the Libraries Research Group website.
Outlined below are the areas of expertise and focus in their information research:
Exploring the practice, context, and history of collections and collecting institutions in documenting society. Research areas include archives and records, community archives, the interaction of 4th Industrial Revolution technologies and archives, collection management, institutions and repositories, material culture and cultural heritage, conservation and preservation, and the history of archives, libraries, and information science.
Key people: Dr Mary Carroll, Dr Sindiso Bhebhe
Investigating how and why people interact with information. Research areas include information seeking behaviour, information literacy, information behaviour and flow, information seeking and serious leisure, and the affective impact of information interaction.
Key people: Dr Waseem Afzal, Dr Hamid Jamali, Dr Yazdan Mansourian, Dr Asim Qayyum, Krystal Gagen-Spriggs, Dr Kasey Garrison, Dr Kay Oddone, Dr Jane Garner, Dr Niloofar Solhjoo
Focusing on information and knowledge organisation, and the uses and value of metadata in the context of document retrieval systems. Research areas include search system evaluation and development, library cataloging and classification, social tagging, information resource description outside of libraries.
Key people: Professor Philip Hider, Dr Debbie Lee
Examining leadership and management in an information context as well as the role and functionality of information systems. Research areas include marketing for information services, information leadership, and library management systems’ features and functionality.
Key people: Dr Waseem Afzal, Dr Simon Wakeling, Dr George Yi,
Considering the role and impact of libraries in a range of social contexts. Research areas include public libraries, libraries in educational settings, including school and university libraries, prison libraries and other kinds of special libraries as well as work-integrating learning research in the context of library and information studies. More researchers in this area are members of the Faculty’s Libraries Research Group.
Key people: Dr Waseem Afzal, Dr Mary Carroll, Krystal Gagen-Spriggs, Dr Jane Garner , Dr Kasey Garrison, Professor Philip Hider, Dr Kay Oddone, Dr Asim Qayyum , Dr Anita Dewi, Dr Simon Wakeling, Dr Yazdan Mansourian, Dr Hamid Jamali, Dr Edward Luca
Multispecies Information Science explores the animal turn as a theoretical, ethical, and methodological approach in Information Studies. It focuses on contact zones where boundaries between humans and animals, and nature and culture dissolve, creating mutual information ecologies. Using ethnography, phenomenology, archival research, and natural sciences methods, we examine how organisms, including humans, co-create information phenomena in areas like information behaviour, information technology, and knowledge creation.
Key people: Dr Niloofar Solhjoo, Dr Yazdan Mansourian
Understanding, mapping and informing changes in the ways that academic research is communicated. Research areas include open access, open data, measuring research impact, and the theory-practice relationship.
Key people: Dr Hamid Jamali, Dr Simon Wakeling, Dr Edward Luca
Teacher librarianship and school library research is an interdisciplinary field focusing on teaching information, digital, and traditional literacy to help students locate, critically evaluate and use information in educational and recreational contexts. Researchers in this area also investigate children’s and young adult literature, resource provision and access, and lifelong learning.
Key people: Krystal Gagen-Spriggs, Dr Kasey Garrison, Dr Kay Oddone, Marika Simon