Welcome
Lynn Westbrook, School of Information
Welcome. This site provides basic information on my professional life, and you are most welcome here. Please send me your suggestions and questions.
As my vita indicates, my background is in human information interactions with a focus on contextual factors, including the cognitive, affective, and behavioral facets of the individual's experience. Several students have worked with me on research projects and I always welcome new colleagues in this work.
I've published on intimate partner violence information issues, digital reference communication, mental model theory, interdisciplinary information seeking in Women's Studies, information literacy, and information needs analysis.
My current research projects center on identifying means of understanding and building the cognitive and affective infrastructure required to increase the efficacy of formal and informal community agencies who work with for people in crisis. My work is leading towards community-embedded digial library design, guidelines for e-government engagement over time, and evaluation methods for public libraries which accept responsibility for the information needs of citizens in crisis situations. My current work is rooted in the small worlds of domestic violence.
My teaching uses a praxis-based approach to management, information retrieval, reference, collection management, instruction, research methods, and information use analysis. My service includes research mentoring and working with students on domestic violence projects.
Again, you are most welcome and I hope to hear from you.