UIC Library Faculty Profile: Carl Lehnen, Liaison for Literatures, Cultural Studies, and Linguistics: Home

Before coming to work at UIC in May 2016, I worked in a variety of library settings, including a large research university, a community college, and a small liberal arts college. 

I got interested in librarianship while completing a dissertation on national identity, sexuality, and art in Victorian travel narratives about Italy. I have over ten years of academic teaching experience as a librarian, writing consultant, and instructor, including responsibility for credit-bearing courses on information literacy, rhetoric & composition, and literature. 

I am a Reference & Liaison Librarian in the Research Services & Resources Department of the library. As a liaison librarian, I support the learning and research needs of students and faculty in the School of Literatures, Cultural Studies, and Linguistics through course-integrated instruction, research consultations, and acquiring and maintaining relevant library resources.

If you are a student, you can talk to me about:

• Developing a research topic
• Finding quality information on that topic
• Citing that information

If you are a faculty member in LCSL or a related department, you can talk to me about:

• Designing targeted instruction to help your students gain a richer perspective on the published research in your disciplines
• Purchasing library materials that support your teaching and research
• Creating online resource guides for students and integrating library resources into Blackboard
• Understanding your options about where to publish, your rights as an author, and making your published research more accessible

My research is premised on the idea that sociocultural and disciplinary contexts affect how people seek out and make sense of information, and that a rich understanding of the interaction between context and information behavior can help libraries to improve services and connect with students and faculty, with an emphasis on literature, language, and humanities disciplines. In particular, I have looked at how social interactions mediate information seeking behavior, what learning about faculty research practices can tell us about information literacy pedagogy for graduate students and upper-level undergraduates, and how librarians address disciplinary audiences through online instruction.