Jieun Yeon

Overview

Jieun Yeon is a Ph.D. student at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies. As a member of the Library and Information Investigative Team (LIIT), her research focuses on social justice in libraries and critical librarianship. Currently, she is studying public library boards and library governance. She applies mixed methods in data collection and analysis, including ethnography, interviews, observations, surveys, thematic analysis, and statistical tests.

Previously, she was a reference/instruction librarian at Seoul National University and a research performance management librarian at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology. She holds M.A. in Library and Information Science at Yonsei University and B.A. in Library and Information Science and Public Administration at Yonsei University.

Research

Jieun’s research focuses on public library boards, which are one of the most important partners of librarians when public libraries struggle with a disruptive circumstance. Public library boards create a strategic plan with librarians, connect libraries to their community and stakeholders, and often advocate for library funding and better support for librarians. Despite these significant roles taken by public library boards in library governance, there is a limited number of studies that provide empirical evidence of how public library boards work in the real world. To fill this gap, she studies the issues that public library boards concentrate on, their strategies, and the network and relationship among libraries, boards, government, and other organizations. Further, she applies critical lenses to the operation of public library boards to encourage them to serve their community with a social justice perspective.

As a graduate assistant, she is working on epistemicide in the information professions with Dr. Patin.

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