Tami Oliphant, PhD, MLIS, BA

Area of Study / Keywords

library and information studies social information practices epistemic injustice public libraries patron-perpetrated sexual harassment

About

I received my PhD from the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario and I am a proud alumna of the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta where I completed my MLIS. I am particularly interested in the social aspects of human information interaction and understanding people’s status as knowers (epistemology), social locations, and the broader social forces that shape people’s interactions with information, data, knowledge production (including publishing), and information institutions such as public libraries. My research seeks to understand the intersections of people’s social locations and roles, who they are as knowers, speakers, and listeners, how others perceive them in these roles, and how people’s beliefs, worldviews, and experiential knowledge shape their information interactions in a variety of contexts. My previous work has examined how beliefs, worldviews, and experiential knowledge inform the discursive constructions of mental health information as authoritative. More recently, a CIHR-funded project with Dr. Tanya Berry and Dr. Colleen Norris and the Patron-perpetrated Sexual Harassment project with Dr. Danielle Allard and Angela Lieu have used intersectional feminist anti-violence methods, frameworks, and lenses that center women’s expertise and knowledge of their own experiences of heart disease, which continues to be perceived as “a man’s disease,” on the one hand, and in the case of library workers, experiences of sexual violence in the workplace. My long-standing interest in public libraries considers the library as the site where unfolding social relations between library workers and patrons are informed by library context and values and narratives about the place of libraries in the public sphere. The overall objective of my research program is to make visible how the field of LIS, including LIS education and institutions such as libraries, can move toward social, epistemic, and informational justice.

Research

• Human information interaction and social information practices
• Epistemic injustice, knowledge production, experiential knowledge
• LIS education
• Patron-perpetrated sexual harassment, feminized labour, feminism, and gender-based violence
• Public libraries
• Publishing

Teaching

• LIS 505 Introduction to Research
• LIS 543 Human Information Interaction
• LIS 591 Publishing
• LIS 597 Seminar in Advanced Research and Scholarship
• LIS 598 Knowledge Production, Dissemination, and Reception in LIS
• LIS 599 Directed Study

LIS 600 - Capping Exercise

The required capping exercise for the MLIS degree is an ePortfolio representing examples of the student's course work, leadership and innovation potential, communication skills, and involvement in professional life. Normally students are expected to begin developing their ePortfolio during their second semester. The ePortfolio must be completed and submitted during their final term of coursework. It will demonstrate that the student has met the Program Level Learning Outcomes (PLLOs) of the MLIS degree.

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