Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and PhD student Jamillah R. Gabriel will present their research at the Information Behaviour Conference (ISIC 2020), a virtual event held from September 28-October 2. This conference is devoted to information-seeking behavior and information use, focusing this year on analytical investigations of the connection between information research and information behavior and practices.
Ocepek will moderate the panel, "What's Fun Got to Do with It? What Fun-Life Contexts Teach Us About the Bounds of Context." The panel will explore the bounds of fun and fun-life contexts to examine "what context means and how important are our definitions and boundaries."
Ocepek's research and teaching interests include everyday information behavior, cultural theory, critical theory, food studies, and research methods. She holds a BA in sociology and political science from Pepperdine University and a PhD in information science from the University of Texas at Austin.
Gabriel will present the poster, "Investigating Reading Culture in Tanzania," which examines issues around Tanzania's reading culture and its relation to information behavior, highlighting factors that play a major role, such as book retail, libraries, and publishing.
Gabriel's research focuses on issues at the nexus of information and race and interrogates how these issues impact Black people and communities. She earned her MLIS from San Jose State University and also holds an MA in museum studies from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.