Denise Agosto
Professor of Library and Information Science
Faculty
Biography
Denise Agosto studies young people’s use of information and information technologies, the role of social context in shaping youths’ information practices, and public library services. She uses qualitative research methods with young people in public libraries and other informal and formal educational settings to learn about their information behaviors and preferences.
Core values of her work include a youth-centered approach that posits young people as the experts of their own behaviors and preferences; the perspective of researcher as interpreter, learning from research participants about their information behaviors and preferences, and reframing what they learn for key stakeholder audiences (librarians, teachers, parents, and policy makers); and finally, the belief that power and privilege underlie all human information practices and the information systems that humans design to support them.
She is a distinguished member of the Association of Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) from 2023-2028 and was the recipient of the ASIS&T SIG-USE Outstanding Contributions to Information Behavior Research Award from the Information Needs, Seeking, and Use Special Interest Group (SIG USE) in 2018.
Education
Ph.D., Library and Information Science, Rutgers University
M.L.I.S., Library and Information Science, The University of Texas at Austin
B.S., Linguistics and Portuguese, Georgetown University