SL
Shari Lee
Categories:
Anthology Editor of:
Biography
Shari Lee, PhD, is associate professor at St. John’s University, Division of Library and Information Science (DLIS). She received her PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2009. Dr. Lee also holds an MLS with a concentration in Youth Services as well as an Advanced Certificate in School Library Media. Her research considers the changing notions and physical structures of the public library as place and space. She is primarily concerned with how architecture and design elements affect human behavior and how this applies to the public library setting – specifically teen spaces. This was the focus of her dissertation, Teen Space: Designed for Whom? for which she received the 2011 Eugene Garfield/ALISE Doctoral Dissertation Award. This notion of social control in the built environment was further explored for its utility in creating authentic teen spaces in a course Dr. Lee designed and currently teaches at SJU. Dr. Lee has been the Youth Services Program Advisor at DLIS since September 2010, and was the School Library Media (SLM) Program Advisor from 2011 until the program was discontinued in 2017. As Convener of department’s Youth Services Advisory Group since 2011, she is responsible for liaising with youth services practitioners, library directors, and other stakeholders, who meet twice per year semester to provide a real-world perspective on the program. She has been a member of the ALISE Youth Services SIG since 2011. In 2015, Dr. Lee won the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Writing Award for best article in The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults (JRLYA), deemed required reading in many youth services courses across the nation. In addition to this course, Dr. Lee teaches seven other courses on teens and youth services. She has also reviewed manuscripts on youth services for the Journal of Research on Libraries & Young Adults, InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education & Information Studies, and the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 3rd Ed.