CIRI Blog

Overview

Center for Information Research and Innovation (CIRI) Blog

iSchool faculty are contributors to the CIRI Blog, sharing their thoughts, ideas, and experiences regarding a wide range of topics. This blog is updated monthly and managed by CIRI Coordinator Dr. Lili Luo. For more on iSchool’s faculty and student research, please visit the CIRI web page.

Return to the main CIRI web page.

CIRI Blog RSS

CIRI Blog

A Study about LGBTQ+ Students’ Library Privacy in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Published: February 16, 2024 by Dr. Michele A. L. Villagran and Dr. Darra Hofman

Given both the historical and ongoing surveillance and policing of marginalized communities, contact tracing, and other pandemic control measures pose additional dangers to marginalized communities that are not faced by members of dominant communities. While privacy rights have been a point of controversy and uncertainty for all in the face of digital surveillance and the exigencies of the pandemic, LGBTQ+ students may well struggle to assert even those rights to which they are unquestionably entitled. Utilizing a multi-method, multidisc

CIRI Blog

Information Literacy, Disciplinarity, and New Knowledge

Drs. Clarence Maybee, Karen Kaufmann, Virginia Tucker (l. to r.).

Published: January 16, 2024 by Dr. Virginia Tucker

A community of researcher-educators began meeting regularly several years ago for conversations around the disciplinarity of information literacy. The co-facilitators are Dr. Clarence Maybee, Professor and W. Wayne Booker Endowed Chair in Information Literacy, Purdue University, and Dr. Karen Kaufmann, Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of South Florida. The community has come to be called ILIAD, for Information Literacy is a Discipline, as it examines aspects of a discipline as discussed in the literature, such as having a code of ethics, modes of inquiry, scholarly

CIRI Blog

Scholarship of Engagement: Ukrainian Librarians

Published: May 15, 2023 by Dr. Ulia Gosart

While I was hired to develop classes and research in Indigenous librarianship, world events occasioned my work into a new direction. The war in Ukraine, the country where I grew up and have many friends, prompted me to apply my skills to support Ukrainian librarians. After a year of work I am excited to report that our collaboration made some difference in the life of Ukrainian people.

CIRI Blog

Computational Preservation vs. Social Preservation: What do Algorithms Require?

Published: April 13, 2023 by Dr. James A. Hodges

The digital technologies that we use every day are controlled by increasingly complex algorithmic systems. These run the gamut from the very banal (say, Netflix recommendations), to the very consequential (say, sentencing recommendations in the criminal justice system). As these systems become more widespread and impactful, there are more and more reasons that we may want to preserve them and refer to them later. Perhaps you’re a software developer and you want to look back at how your

CIRI Blog

Advances in Linked Data and KOS Research

Published: March 14, 2023 by Dr. Lei Zhang

Linked data is about publishing, sharing, and connecting data from different sources on the web. The application of linked data covers domains such as geography, government, life sciences, linguistics, media, etc. Linked data in cultural heritage institutions include cases of bibliographic data, authority data, controlled vocabularies, and metadata element sets, from national libraries, research libraries, public libraries to archives and museums. The development of conceptual model IFLA LRM and the

CIRI Blog

Digital Ethics and Digital Epistemology

Published: February 14, 2023 by Dr. Norman Mooradian

My current research has two central tracks, digital ethics, and digital epistemology.  The label digital ethics includes traditional information ethics[1], but also encompasses ethical issues arising from emerging technologies, for example, the ethics of artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Digital epistemology includes areas such as knowledge management and representation, as well as the application of theories of knowledge to computing and information science generally.

CIRI Blog

#NorthVanStories – Living History: A Collaborative Rapid-response Collecting Project

Published: January 10, 2023 by Dr. Jessica Bushey

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020, many archives, libraries, and museums launched rapid-response collecting projects to preserve material culture and documentary by-products of individuals and communities living through this difficult time.[1]  The projects varied in scope – from collecting physical records to engaging their communities in creating born-digital media – depending upon the institution’s existing technology infrastructure and staf

CIRI Blog

A Research Agenda Focusing on Academic Libraries, Organizational Culture and EDI

Published: November 9, 2022 by Dr. José Aguiñaga

As I developed my RSCA agenda during my 1st semester at the iSchool, I have focused on academic libraries, organizational culture, and EDI since March 2020. These findings may shed new insights into what is happening with academic libraries since the pandemic has caused societal and medical paradigm shifts across higher education. Another finding that I have discovered after breaking down my focus per each keyword

CIRI Blog

Research Methods Course Focusing on Historical Research

Published: October 18, 2022 by Dr. Donald Westbrook

I thoroughly enjoy teaching the Historical Research section for INFO 285: Applied Research Methods at SJSU. Students come into this class from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and no prior academic training in history is required. As I like to say near the beginning of the course, the study of history involves much more than memorizing “facts and figures.” Historical research is interdisciplinary, multifaceted, and global in reach.

CIRI Blog

Information Visualization in Academic Libraries

Published: September 22, 2022 by Dr. Michelle Chen

In recent years, as data have become more voluminous, versatile, accessible and digitized, new technologies have emerged with the goal of providing advanced analytical capabilities to support knowledge discovery and decision making. Information visualization, the technique of creating “2- or 3-dimensional representations of data that enable discoveries of insights and knowledge” (Soukup and Davidson, 2002), is one of the primary technologies being adopted as an analytical tool to enhance and shape data interpretation. More specifically, information visualization’s unique pattern and

CIRI Blog

Library Research Scholars Program: Encouraging Undergraduate Research at SJSU

Published: August 26, 2022 by Andrew Chae

For many people, doing research can often seem like a daunting task. This is particularly true for undergraduate students who are in the early stages of learning the myriad skills necessary to carry out a research project. In addition to being unsure of how to conduct research, students at this stage of their academic journeys may not be given any opportunities to do research on topics that truly interest them. This can lead many students to view research solely as an obstacle that they must overcome.

CIRI Blog

Research Methods Course Focusing on Program Evaluation

Published: May 17, 2022 by Jennifer Sweeney

I’m excited to share a reflection on my section of INFO 285, Applied Research Methods: Evaluating Programs and Services with you all here.  I developed and started teaching this course at SJSU in 2018. Teaching this course has been one of the most fulfilling aspects of my work life so far.

CIRI Blog

Being a Research Assistant: A Personal Reflection

Published: April 19, 2022 by Ed Matlack

I graduated from the iSchool in the Fall of 2021 with a Master’s in Informatics, specializing in both CyberSecurity and Health Informatics. Before entering into the program, I had spent thirty years in the software industry as both an engineer an engineering director. I am currently doing independent research in the fields of communications and decision science at both the ICANN lab at SJSU and the DDML at Carnegie Mellon. 

CIRI Blog

Award-winning Student Presentations at 2022 CPGE Online Student Conference

Published: March 22, 2022 by Dr. Lili Luo

The College of Professional and Global Education (CPGE) held its first Online Student Conference in February. The conference seeks to connect students across the college and promote student work. It aims to provide an opportunity for CPGE students to share their school or professional work, help students communicate and connect with each other, and ultimately foster a stronger sense of community among students.

CIRI Blog

Volunteering for CPGE Online Student Conference: A Personal Perspective

Published: February 22, 2022 by Rosa Rodriguez

[In this interview, iSchool alumna Rosa Rodriguez shares her experience and reflections as a lead volunteer working for the first Online Student Conference at the SJSU College of Professional and Global Education.]

Could you please tell us a bit about yourself? 

I’m a first-generation Mexican college graduate who came back to school after almost 20 years. One of the proudest moments was when my daughter and I both earned our Master’s degrees last year. Having graduated with a Master’s in Library and Information Science, I am pursuing a career in outreach librarianship.

CIRI Blog

Curious about emotional intelligence and happiness in academic librarians? And how this research collaboration came to be?

Published: January 23, 2022 by Dr. Michele A. L. Villagran

Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as, “the ability to understand the emotions of oneself and others and to regulate those emotions appropriately” (Martin, 2020)[1]. While happiness is defined as, “high psychological and social well-being” according to Diener (2019)[2]. Emotional intelligence and happiness in the workplace show some connection in three areas: increased competency in the areas of emotional intelligence, increased happiness or well-being, and increased ability

CIRI Blog

Research Methods Course Focusing on Action Research

Published: November 22, 2021 by Dr. Renée Jefferson

I love teaching the action research special topics section of INFO 285: Applied Research Methods because it is engaging, empowering, and motivating.  It is engaging to work with students as they discover how action research empowers them to examine policies and practices using sound methodologies, and how it motivates them to make evidence based decisions.  In this course, we cover the fundamental principles, processes, value

CIRI Blog

Search Engine Design Perspectives

Published: October 22, 2021 by Dr. Virginia Tucker

Two years ago, I had the privilege of participating in the IEEE Award Ceremony in Palo Alto, California, where the DIALOG search system was recognized with an IEEE Milestone Award (2019a), joining an elite group of inventions ranging from ARPANET in 1969 to Marconi’s telegraph machine in 1895 (2019b). The award citation describes how DIALOG, in 1966, was the first interactive, online search system to allow “iterative

CIRI Blog

Zooming into Problem Solving

Screenshot of the author hosting a Zoom Training Session

Published: September 23, 2021 by Melissa Foote

When I began the MLIS program in the 2019 Fall semester, I was completely new to the online learning environment, including the web conferencing software Zoom. While I initially missed in-person classes and chatting with classmates in hallways about that week’s unit or commiserating about midterms, I soon found myself making connections on Zoom with peers across the country while we collaborated on group projects. At this point, web conferencing was novel to me, and I had yet to experience the phenomenon of Zoom fatigue. Midway into the following semester the COVID-19 pandemic emerged

CIRI Blog

Reading Nation Waterfall: An IMLS Grant Seeking to Increase Literacy and Library Access for Native American Children

Published: August 23, 2021 by Dr. Anthony Chow

As the new iSchool Director, I’m bringing a three year $1.4 million IMLS grant to San Jose State University. This project called Reading Nation Waterfall is focused on studying the unique barriers to literacy resources and libraries for Native American children and their families. One of our primary goals is to help jump start community wide book sharing and distribution by focusing on children 3-10 years old and working