Research Areas

• Archives and Preservation

  Protecting and maintaining collections and materials in archives

• Argumentation

  Studying the construction of scientific arguments, including the use of information, evidence, and persuasion

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

  Researching the models, methods, uses, and impact of intelligent systems design for processing data and information

• Community Informatics

  Understanding how local communities and people in their everyday lives use and might use information technology, in libraries and elsewhere

• Computational Social Science, Social Computing

  Using computational methods to study and model social systems and user behaviors

• Computing for Social Good

  Understanding computing's potential for good (and harm), including the role of computing and technology in responding to social, ecological, political, and other challenges

• Cultural Informatics and Heritage

  Understanding the role of information technology in preserving, transmitting, and shaping human culture and heritage

• Data Analytics and Human Centered Data

  Using computational methods to transform both structured and unstructured data into actionable knowledge; and to understand and enable humans to explore and gain insight from vast data sets

• Data Curation

  Active and on-going management of data through its lifecycle of interest and usefulness to scholarship, science, and education

• Data Science

  Using statistical and computational techniques to discover and extract knowledge from structured and unstructured data.

• Design and Evaluation of Information Systems and Services

  Understanding the problems with existing information systems and services, and making them more effective and easier to use

• Digital Humanities

  Applying computing or using digital media in the humanities disciplines

• Digital Libraries

  Studying how to most effectively store, structure, retrieve, interpret and preserve collections of digital objects to serve a particular community or communities

• Diversity and Social Justice

  Addressing challenging, but necessary, topics such as racism, privilege, power, etc., and coupling them with critical theory in an effort to develop compassionate, proactive, and culturally competent information professionals

• Education of Information Professionals

  Evaluating the content of curricula and the methods for educating information professionals

• Ethics and Values for Information

  Assessing principles and standards that govern access to information

• FATE (fairness, accountability, transparency, ethics)

  Researching the complex social implications of AI, machine learning, data science, large-scale experimentation, and increasing automation; and developing computational techniques that draw on the deeper context surrounding these issues from sociology, history, and science and technology studies

• Foundations of Information

  Asking and answering the most basic and fundamental questions on the nature and uses of information resources

• Health, Medical, and Bio-Informatics

  Collecting and analyzing biological, medical, and health information

• History of Information

  Exploring the long history of  information helps us understand the effects of information technologies, systems, and practices on society and their implications for the future

• Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Computer Supported Cooperative Work

  Investigating the use of computers to support individual use; and investigating the use of computers and networked technologies to support small-group and human-to-human communication and its impact on collaboration

• Information Access

  Recognizing the issues with information access and the methods in which individuals and groups access information

• Information Literacy

  Information literacy is an important skillset that enables individuals to locate, contextualize, evaluate, effectively use, and appropriately communicate information in a variety of different formats

• Information Policy

  Examining the set of rules, laws, or regulations that affect the creation, process, use, and destruction of information

• Information Practices and Behaviors

  Discovering and explicating how people seek, use, avoid, and share information to advance knowledge, aid in decision making, solve problems, and engage in everyday life activities

• Information Retrieval

  Finding relevant documents and other information resources to satisfy an information need or desire

• Information Visualization

  Studying the visual representation of abstract data 

• Informetrics and Scientometrics

  Studying the quantitative aspects of information and the quantitative features and characteristics of science and scientific research

• Knowledge Representation, Ontologies

  Research related to semantic networks, formal logic, frame-based systems; and how the beliefs, intentions, and value judgments of an intelligent agent (AI) can be expressed in a transparent, symbolic notation suitable for automated reasoning

• Libraries and Librarianship

  Research related to the assessment, management, development, and delivery of services provided by professional librarians in libraries and similar information institutions

• Natural Language Processing, Text Mining, Text Analysis, Computational Linguistics

  Examining the process of transforming unstructured text into structured data for use

• Network Science and Network Analysis

  Representing, analyzing, and modeling the structure and dynamics of complex social, scientific, and technological systems as networks or graphs; and using computational tools for identifying, explaining, and understanding the patterns they contain

• Organization of Knowledge and Information

  Bringing structure to the record of human culture and our accounts of the natural and social world

• Privacy, Security, and Trust

  Studying the intersection of privacy, security, and trust with information systems

• Reproducibility

  Analyzing the challenges to and environments favorable to fostering reproducible research

• Science of Science

  Using data to study, understand, and quantify the mechanisms underlying scientific research

• Semantic Computing and Technologies

  Studying the structure, design, and manipulation of computer content and technologies (e.g., AI, natural language, software engineering) to better satisfy the needs and intentions of users and to create a more meaningful user experience

• Social and Information Networks

  Understanding the intersection between social networks and information networks

• Social Informatics

  Examining the social aspects of information technology and how social issues affect the organization of information

• Social Media

  Understanding how and why people use social media, and how it impacts access and dissemination of information

• Youth Literature, Culture, and Services

  Analyzing library and information practices, preferences, and play for children, youth, tweens, and teens