Dr. Karen Fisher from the University of Washington Information School will be the featured presenter at November's NAPCU meeting. Dr. Fisher specializes in people's information seeking behaviors and has done extensive research in qualitative methods for outcomes assessment, such as interviews and observational studies. She is co-author of the books Theories of Information Behavior: A Researcher's Guide published in 2003 , How Libraries and Librarians Help: Why Librarians Need to Focus on Outcomes and How To Go About It . published in 2002 , as well as numerous other books and articles . She is part of the team that developed the “Outcome Toolkit v. 2.0.”

Her work focuses on discovering “information grounds” – the everyday places where people go for a particular reason but end up naturally sharing information because they find an atmosphere that fosters “ spontaneous and serendipitous sharing of information.”

On Thursday morning, November 4, Dr. Fisher will speak on the topic of Outcome Evaluation. She will present the techniques in the Outcome Toolkit and include some audience participation.

In the afternoon, the topic is “information grounds”. Dr. Fisher will be applying her research techniques this fall in a field study to discover the information grounds of students at the University of Washington . Where do students go to get information and how can an awareness of students' information grounds impact libraries?

Learn more about Dr. Fisher at her web site http://www.ischool.washington.edu/fisher and the IBEC (Information Behavior in Everyday Contexts) site http://ibec.ischool.washington.edu/default1024.aspx .