Lynn Silipigni Connaway

Lynn Silipigni Connaway

Lynn Silipigni Connaway
OCLC Research US

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at OCLC Research and has experience in academic, public, and school libraries and library and information science education.

She was a Visiting Researcher at the University of Sheffield, Information Studies Department, and collaborated on a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council project. Connaway has completed several UK projects in collaboration with JISC to investigate users' behaviors.

She currently is collaborating with JISC and the University of Oxford, with the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, to study digital visitors and residents. She is the co-principal investigator of an IMLS-funded project to investigate collaboration between libraries and the Social Q&A community.

She is the co-author of the 4th and 5th editions of Basic Research Methods for Librarians, has published numerous papers in refereed journals, and presents her research in both national and international venues. Connaway received two other research projects funded by the IMLS – one to study and evaluate the sustainability and relevance of virtual reference services (VRS), and the other to investigate the information-seeking behaviors of academics.

She was the Vice-President of Research and Library Systems at NetLibrary, the director of the Library and Information Services Department at the University of Denver, and on the faculty of the Library and Informational Science program at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

Research stay at UC3M: DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARY SCIENCE AND DOCUMENTATION

Project: I will be working with the Tecnodoc research group in the Departamento de Biblioteconomía y Documentación to build on the UK/US Visitors and Residents project and to compare the results of the UK/US academic environment to the academic environment in Spain. I will share the research methods, design, and results of my user behavior work and expand the projects on a broader global scale. I will assist and mentor faculty, graduate and postgraduate students in social science research methods, the publication and dissemination of research findings; collaborate on external research funding proposals; and help to expand the department’s research outputs.

This collaborative experience also will enable us to submit proposals for external research funding through the University. The findings from the research project will be shared with the University information technology and library services to help them make decisions and develop services that better meet the needs of the academic community. The research results will be shared with the entire UC3M community to explain the research methods used and to identify how and why the academic community engages with technology, which can influence the development of teaching and learning systems and services.

Stay period: FEB 2014 - MARCH 2014,  MAY 2014 - JUL 2014, SEP 2014 - OCT 2014