Jeanie Austin

Jeanie Austin (they/them) studies the intersections of information access and incarceration, with attention to the social and political constructs that surround incarceration and reentry. Their work explores the interplay of information access and control in relation to the public, state actors, and technology companies, with a focus on library and information services.

Austin is principal investigator of the Expanding Information Access for Incarcerated People initiative, based at San Francisco Public Library. The nationwide, six-year project is funded by the Mellon Foundation and conducted in collaboration with the American Library Association. It exemplifies Austin’s goal of combining theory and practice in library and information services in order to best meet the information needs and desires of people who are negatively impacted by incarceration.

Austin’s book, “Library services and incarceration: Recognizing barriers, strengthening access” (ALA Neal-Schuman, 2022), critically positions library services and incarceration while supporting the creation of new library services. Their work has been published in Advances in Librarianship, Big Data & Society, Feminist Media Studies, First Monday, The Library Quarterly, and The Reference Librarian. Austin is a 2022 Library Journal Mover & Shaker and a recipient of the Social Justice Award from the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Ph.D., Library and Information Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign