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Faculty Expertise:
Education:
BA, Dartmouth College
MS (Library and Information Studies), Florida State University
PhD (Information Studies, Minor in Geography), Florida State University
Biography:
Dr. Amelia Gibson studies health, wellness, and information practices and access in local communities and on the internet. She is particularly interested in the effects of place, space, power, and community on information worlds, information behavior, information needs, and information access. Her current work focuses on information poverty and marginalization, and how intersections of identity, place, space, and social and economic power/privilege influence information access and information behavior among young women of color and people with disabilities.
Dr. Gibson is an associate professor at the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and director of the Community Equity, Data and Information Lab (CEDI) at Chapel Hill. She is an affiliate of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies and a fellow with the UNC Center for Media Law & Policy, the Parr Center for Ethics, and the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. She is a graduate of the Thorp Faculty Engaged Scholars program and the recipient of a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian IMLS Early Career grant from the U. S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
She earned her PhD and MLIS from Florida State University in Tallahassee, and her AB from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Prior to joining the SILS faculty, she was a research associate at the Information Use Management and Policy Institute, where she studied issues related to rural communities and e-government, and broadband adoption through community anchor institutions.
Courses Regularly Taught:
INLS 500: Human Information Interactions
INLS 584: Information Ethics (master's level)
INLS 690-230: Information Exchange/Seeking in Local/Place-Based Communities
INLS 581: Research Methods Overview
INLS 781: Master’s Paper Proposal Development
INLS 690: Local Contexts and Information Behavior
ILNS 691H: Undergraduate Honors Thesis Development/Research Methods
Awards and Recognition:
2019 Deborah Barreau Award for Teaching Excellence
2017 REMCo Roadbuilder's Award (Library Education), North Carolina Library Association
2017 Kilgour Research Award (Funded Grant)
2017 Junior Faculty Development Award (Funded Grant)
2014 Outstanding Dissertation Award, Florida State University College of Communication and Information
Selected Publications:
Gibson, A. N., Chancellor, R. L., Cooke, N. A., Dahlen, S. P., Patin, B., & Shorish, Y. L. (2020). Struggling to breathe: COVID-19, protest and the LIS response. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, ahead-of-print https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-07-2020-0178
Gibson, A. N., & Hanson-Baldauf, D. (2019). Beyond sensory story time: An intersectional analysis of information seeking among parents of autistic individuals. Library Trends, 67(13), 550-75. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2019.0002
Gibson, A. N., & Martin III, J.* (2019). Re-situating information poverty: Information marginalization and parents of individuals with disabilities. Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 70(5), 476–487. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24128
Gibson, A. N. (2019). Civility and structural precarity for faculty of color in LIS. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 60(3), 215–222. https://doi.org/10.3138/jelis.2019-0006
Gibson, A. N., Cooke, N. A., Chancellor, R., Dahlen, S., Lee, S., & Shorish, Y. (2017). Libraries on the frontlines: Neutrality and social justice. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 36(8), 751-766. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-11-2016-0100
Gibson, A. N., and Hughes-Hassell, S. (2017). We will not be silent: Amplifying marginalized voices in LIS education and research. Library Quarterly, 87(4), 317- 329. https://doi.org/10.1086/693488
Gibson, A. N., Kaplan, S., & Vardell, E. (2017). A Survey of Information Source Preferences of Parents of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 47(7), 2189-2204. doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3127-z
Gibson, A. N. (2017). Place, community and information behavior: Spatially oriented information seeking zones and information source preferences. Library and Information Science Research, 39(2), 131-139.
Gibson, A. N. (2016). Building a Progressive-Situational Model of Post-Diagnosis Information Seeking for Parents of Individuals With Down Syndrome. Global Qualitative Nursing Research, 3. https://doi.org/10.1177/2333393616680967
Gibson, A., & Kaplan, S. J. (November, 2015). A family like ours: Demographic variations in information seeking behavior and community participation among parents of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In Proceedings of the 78th ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Information Science with Impact: Research in and for the Community (p. 60). (Poster/Short Paper) http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pra2.2015.145052010060
Gibson, A. N. (2014). A better place? Factors in community assessment for parents of children with Down syndrome. In Proceedings of the 77th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Volume 51, Seattle, WA.
Book Chapters:
Gibson, A. N., Hughes-Hassell, S., & Threats, M. Critical theory in the LIS curriculum. Advances in Librarianship Volume 42, Re-Envisioning the MLIS: Perspectives on the Future of Library and Information Science Education. Emerald.
Kazmer, M. M., Gibson, A. N., & Shannon, K. (2013). Perceptions and experiences of e-learning among on-campus students. In A. Sigal (Ed.), Advancing library education: Technological innovation and instructional design (pp.45-64). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-3688-0
