Researcher Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway Joins School of Information Studies as Follett Chair

Senior researcher Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway will join Dominican University’s School of Information Studies as the 2023-24 Follett Chair.

Connaway is the executive director of research for OCLC, formerly known as the Online Computer Library Center, a global library organization providing shared technology services, original research and programs for the library community. 

As Follett Chair, Connaway will teach a course in research methods for Ph.D. students in Dominican's School of Information Studies and lead a writing workshop. In the spring she will deliver the Follet Lecture on a topic of her choosing.

“I’m very honored to have been selected and I’m really looking forward to sharing what I know about research methods and how they’re applied at OCLC,” Connaway said. “I also look forward to working with with doctoral students, learning from them and learning from other faculty. I enjoy that excitement, that inquisitiveness about learning and about solving different challenges and problems within library and information science.”

Connaway said she plans to help students explore and think about different ways of answering questions through data collection and analysis tools.

“We are hoping Dr. Connaway can help us evaluate and improve the way we teach research methods to our doctoral students,” said Dr. Don Hamerly, director of the School of Information Studies.

Connaway leads OCLC Research projects addressing library practices, policies, trends, and users. Prior to joining OCLC, Connaway was vice president of research and library systems for NetLibrary and was director of the Library and Information Services Department at the University of Denver, teaching courses in library and information science. She has also been a faculty member at the University of Missouri - Columbia, and a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

In 2014, she was a visiting scholar for the Department of Information Studies at the University of Copenhagen and in 2009 she was a visiting researcher at the University of Sheffield, collaborating with faculty on WorldCat log analysis and studies of user behavior. Additionally, she was awarded the Chair of Excellence position at the Departmento de Biblioteconomía y Documentación at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain.

Connaway is the recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Alumna Award from the Information School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the 2019 Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Watson Davis Award for Service, and the 2016 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Service Award.

The Follett Chair in the School of Library and Information Studies is a high academic honor established by Dominican University and the Follett Corporation in 2002.