Ocepek and Lee receive ASIS&T best poster award

Melissa Ocepek
Melissa Ocepek, Assistant Professor

A poster coauthored by Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek, PhD student Lo Lee, and Stephann Makri, senior lecturer at City, University of London, has been selected to receive the SIG USE Best Information Behavior Conference Poster Award at the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting, which will be held virtually from October 22-November 1. The award recognizes the best poster within the scope of information behavior, "broadly defined to include how people construct, need, seek, manage, give, and use information in different contexts."

In their poster, "Good, Bad, and Practical: Exploring Human Memory in Everyday Information Behavior," the researchers investigate how memory affects everyday information behavior. For their study, they interviewed and observed arts and crafts hobbyists navigating a creative shopping space designed to spark serendipity. Their findings demonstrate the distinctions between different types of memory and their impacts on everyday information behavior.

"The project came out of a larger project to design studies that explore spaces designed for passive information behaviors, such as browsing and encountering," said Ocepek. "We are interested in creating more empirically supported conceptual understanding of information behaviors that are more difficult to observe because they are passive."

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.

Lee's research interests lie at the intersection of information behavior and creativity. She earned her MS in library and information science from the University of Illinois and BA in foreign languages and literature from National Tsing Hua University.

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