Researchers
Danielle Allard
Danielle Allard is an Associate Professor at the School of Library and Information Studies in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. She received her PhD and Masters of Information Studies (MISt) (with a collaborative designation from The Institute for Women’s Studies and Gender Studies) from the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto.
Allard’s research falls at the intersection of culture and community, information (its usages, representations, and institutions), and the role that information and information institutions might play in feminist, decolonizing, and anti-violence efforts. Her research interests include: sexual violence and sexual harassment in libraries; Indigenous, community, and activist archiving; critical information studies; and the inclusion of marginalized communities’ representation, cultural heritage, and knowledge domains in digital and real-world information institutions.
In collaboration with Dr. Tami Oliphant and former SLIS student Angela Lieu, Allard’s current research draws from feminist anti-violence and intersectional frameworks to examine and address patron-perpetrated sexual harassment in libraries. Her previous post-doctoral research on the SSHRC funded (2013-2017) Digital Archives and Marginalized Communities project examined how digital information systems and archival platforms can be used to create participatory activist archives that challenge violent, colonizing, and stigmatizing representations of Indigenous peoples – especially women and girls – and of sex work activists. Building on this work, and in partnership with Sex Professionals of Canada’s Executive Director Amy Lebovitch and Dr. Shawna Ferris, Allard is also presently engaged in a SSHRC funded research (2018-2022) project entitled the Sex Work Activist Histories Project (SWAHP), an exploration of sex work activism in Canada and the production of related liberatory histories and representations.
Email: allard@ualberta.ca
Website: https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/allard
Tami Oliphant
Tami Oliphant is an Associate Professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. Oliphant’s program of research centers upon using critical approaches to interrogate and critique conceptions of data, information, and knowledge and their attendant systems, platforms, and information institutions particularly public libraries. Oliphant is interested in the cognitive and social aspects of human information interaction and understanding people’s status as knowers (epistemology), social locations, the broader social forces that shape people’s interactions with information, critical approaches to the library and information professions, and LIS education. Her previous work has examined mental health and currently, she is collaborating with Dr. Tanya Berry and Dr. Colleen Norris in a project examining the information practices of women with heart disease and with Dr. Danielle Allard and Angela Lieu, she is engaged in a research project that draws from intersectional feminist anti-violence frameworks to examine patron-perpetrated sexual harassment in libraries.
Email: toliphan@ualberta.ca
Website: https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/toliphan
Angela Lieu
Angela Lieu is a graduate of the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) MLIS program and the Gender and Social Justice Studies MA program, both at the University of Alberta. She currently works as a youth services librarian. Her academic and professional interests include — among other things — the intersections of library and information work with gender, race, and power, and the role of libraries in advancing equity, inclusion, and social justice.
Graduate Research Assistants
- Kylie Day (2023)
- Karla Mallach (2021)
- Emma Uhl (2019)
- Carley Angelstad (2018)
- Kyla Lee (2018)