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Joseph Winberry

Assistant Professor - Not taking new doctoral students

Joseph Winberry

Pronouns

He/Him

Phone

(919) 962-8366

Email

jwinber@unc.edu

Office

Manning Hall - 200

Joseph Winberry

Expertise

Community engagement and organizing; critical library outreach and services to diverse populations; information marginalization; social justice in information and library science; qualitative and action research methods.

Education

Ph.D., Communication & Information, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Gerontology Graduate Certificate, Social Work, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
MS, Information Sciences, University of Tennessee-Knoxville
BA, History; Political Science, University of North Carolina-Greensboro

Biography

Joseph Winberry, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. His scholarship emphasizes critical library and information science—especially in relation to societal aging. Current research projects include the Aging Rainbow Coalition community-based participatory research project with LGBT+ older adults in East Tennessee and an Institute of Museum and Library Services funded program to develop public librarian training on serving older patrons in partnership with diverse older adults in North Carolina and across the United States.

Current service activities include serving as the co-convener of the Association for Library and Information Science Education’s (ALISE) Historical Perspectives Special Interest Group and as the founder of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table’s Elder Justice Task Force. Prior to academia, Dr. Winberry spent several years working for non-profit organizations in Tennessee including the American Red Cross, and the Knoxville-Knox County Community Action Committee’s Office on Aging where he originated the organization’s elder abuse response programs. He credits his time working in non-profits, archives, and libraries with inspiring a belief that library and information science can be used to help people make a difference in their lives.

Courses

INLS 500: Human Information Interactions
INLS 551: History of Libraries and Other Information-Related Cultural Institutions
INLS 776: Ethics, Values, and Society
INLS 843: Public Library Seminar

Awards

ALISE/Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Competition Honorable Mention (2024)
University of Tennessee-Knoxville Chancellor’s LGBTQ+ Student Leadership Award (2023)
University of Tennessee-Knoxville CCI Graduate Student Research Award (2022)
ALISE Best Conference Paper Award (2021)
ALISE Bohdan S. Wynar Research Award (2021)

Publications

Winberry, J. (2023). “People have died to get us to where we are”: Combating aging services information marginalization alongside LGBT+ older adults. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Tennessee)

Lenstra, N., Oguz, F., Winberry, J., and Wilson, L. S. (2021). Supporting social connectedness of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of small and rural public libraries. Public Library Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1080/01616846.2021.1970446

Winberry, J., and Potnis, D. (2021). Social innovations in public libraries: Types and challenges. The Library Quarterly, 91(3), 337-365. https://doi.org/10.1086/714315

Winberry, J., and Bishop, B. W. (2021). “Documenting social justice in library and information science research: A literature review.” Journal of Documentation, 77(3), 743-754. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2020-0136     

Winberry, J. (2018). Shades of silver: Applying the Strategic Diversity Manifesto to Tennessee’s Knox County Office on Aging. The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 2(4), 52-72. https://doi.org/10.33137/ijidi.v2i4.32203 

Selected Presentations
Winberry, J., & Gray, L. (2022). From “mesearch” to “wesearch”: The role of community in developing identity-centric research. 2022 ALISE Conference. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. https://doi.org/10.21900/j.alise.2022.1033 

Winberry, J., Gray, L., Hardy, J., Jaber, B., & Mehra, B. (2021). Conceptualizing relevance of information as a social justice issue: An interactive panel discussion. The 84th ASIS&T Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.524 

Winberry, J. (2021). Student perspectives of LIS education in an aging society: Initial findings. 2021 ALISE Conference, virtual. https://hdl.handle.net/2142/110942 

Winberry, J. & Mehra, B. (2021). Fifty years in the fight: A thematic analysis of Social Responsibilities Round Table newsletters, 1969-2019. American Library Association 2021 Annual Conference, virtual.

Zhu, X., Cowell, E., McBee, K., Headrick, J.S., & Winberry, J. (2019). Serving the community with trustworthy government information and data: What can we learn from the public librarians? 2019 ALISE Conference, Knoxville, TN, USA.  http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105341 

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