• Sarah Polkinghorne, PhD

      Hello! I'm a researcher and librarian.

       

      This page shares current highlights. My CV is available via this link.

       

      I'd be happy to hear from you. sarah.polkinghorne@ualberta.ca

    • Research

      A brief introduction

       

        My research focuses on information practices, including information organization and searching practices, which are unexamined, tacit, or assumed to be mundane. My research illuminates how people's everyday information practices are not mundane at all; they are complex, meaningful, and co-constitutive with identity.

         

        I also have an abiding interest in how language choices, such as those of information professionals, reflect power relations, norms, and ways of thinking. I'm moved to explore and document information experiences that are often taken for granted, and to question how such practices are predominantly or habitually discussed.

         

        In my current research, I work with people to create video and other forms of data capturing everyday food activities and the information practices within them. I also have a track record as a researcher in library studies, particularly in the area of information literacy.

      • Teaching

        Recent

         

          • Human Information Interaction, Winter 2021, for the University of Alberta's School of Library and Information Studies. An exploration of how people experience information.
          • Information Resource Discovery, Fall 2020, for the University of Ottawa's School of Information Studies. An introduction to information services, information practices and experiences, and search.

        • Publications

          In progress & recent

           

            • "Getting past 'approachability': What cultural humility brings to library and information education." With Lilliana Montoya. Forthcoming in Libraries & Cultural Humility, edited by Sarah Kostelecky, Lori Townsend, and David Hurley. ALA Editions.
            • "Love is a lens: Finding love in library and information studies." With Mary Greenshields. In press, Library Trends.
            • "Holistic approaches to research: From rhetoric to paradigm." With Lisa M. Given. Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology. [Link]
            • "Treading water: Results from the longitudinal study of information literacy instruction in Canadian academic libraries, 1995-2017," in the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 42 (1/2). With Heidi Julien. [Link]

          • Presentations

            Upcoming & recent

             

              • "Reconceiving trial and error: A central information practice in everyday food life." (2021, September). For the 2021 conference of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE).
              • "Interdisciplinary concept development as a path to impact: 'Vicarious sensory engagement' and YouTube food videos." (2019, October). Symposium of SIG-USE (the Special Interest Group for Information Needs, Seeking, and Use), at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
              • "Finding information at the intersections of gender" (2019, October). Working at the Intersections of Gender Fall Conference, Edmonton, Canada. [Link]

            • Practice

              As an academic librarian

               

                The core of my work as a librarian is leading several aspects of monograph collections at the University of Alberta, including ebooks, approval plans, demand-driven acquisition, and assessment.

                 

                Before becoming a collections librarian, I worked as a public services librarian for more than a decade. I helped people find and use information, manage research data, and work through processes such as making their publications openly available.

              • Service

                Recent & ongoing commitments

                 

                • Curriculum Vitae

                  The more complete chronicle

                This work is licensed under a

                Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

                 

                 

                Banner image by Kelly Tindall.

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