I am a doctoral student at the University of Missouri's School of Information Science and Learning Technologies, where I also received my Master of Arts in Library and Information Science in May 2009. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy & Religious Studies, English from Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL in 1996.
My research interests will be fine-tuned as I proceed through the doctoral program, but they will most likely include some combination of the following: the organization of information, information retrieval, public and academic libraries, digital libraries, social computing, and ethics. I'm currently working on two research proposals. One deals with discussion forums, rationality in narrative, and discourse analysis in online classrooms. The other deals with a combination of social computing, relevancy of scholarly publications, and aboutness. Both proposals will be posted here at the end of the Fall 2009 semester. Studies should begin this Spring.
This site will document my work and activities as a doctoral student in Library and Information Science as well as my reflections on these activities. Although the structure of this site is intact, content will be added and revised as I proceed through my course of study.
If I am a Teaching Assistant for your class and you would like to schedule a meeting, or if you are any student and would like to discuss something about the program or about our discipline, my contact information is below. Electronic mail is the fastest way to get a hold of me and I normally respond very quickly. I enjoy discussing Library and Information Science issues, so please feel free to contact me anytime.