Here is a list of the CityLIS masters dissertations that I have supervised at City, University of London. I am pleased to have had the chance to work with all of the authors – our students’ research makes a significant contribution to the discipline and practice of LIS.
This listing serves as an historical record of LIS research interests over the years, and also gives current students who are about to embark on the dissertation module, (with CityLIS or elsewhere), some ideas about previous titles and topics. Useful for spotting an area for follow-up perhaps.
CityLIS full-time students submit their dissertation in September, results being confirmed at the November exam board. Part-time students do not submit until January the following year, so I usually update this list after the final exam board, which takes place around the end of March. The next update to this list will be for those studying with CityLIS during 2021-2022, in March 2023.
David Bawden also keeps a list of CityLIS dissertations which he has supervised, on his blog.
In March 2017, we set up an open access, repository collection for CityLIS on Humanities Commons. The aim is to disseminate our collective works as widely as possible, including MA/MSc dissertations, PhD theses, key publications and significant blog posts. We encourage all CityLIS members (past, present and future) to contribute to, and to explore works available from our collection.
You do not have to be a member of Humanities Commons to search for and download publications. Additionally, there are many collections and works of interest to the LIS community, beyond those created by members or CityLIS.
To share your CityLIS dissertation or thesis as part of our group, (we suggest you have a mark of 60% or above for the dissertation), you just need to register with Humanities Commons, and then upload your work, usually as a PDF file. The CORE repository accepts files of many kinds, including books, book chapters, journal articles. blog posts, data sets, presentations, images, visualisations, videos. Remember to add the tag CityLIS to the group field in the metadata. Please note that no grading, or assessment related comments should be included in the disseminated versions of your work. Once you have received grading comments, you are welcome to incorporate the feedback into your research before sharing publically as a PDF file. When uploading your file, please state Dissertation (masters) or Thesis (PhD) for the document type.
We strongly encourage all CityLIS students to share their dissertation via Humanities Commons. Remember also to join our CityLIS group!
See this brief blog post for further background to our collection.
2020-2021
Mary Blomley
The art of preparation. What is the online information behaviour of visual artists during the preliminary stages?
Hillary Jordan
How does the operation of copyright affect YouTubers?
David Buckley
Trapped at the Agora: how the public spaces of the internet influence our offline selves
Luke Buckley
Is that a librarian? A study of libraries and librarians in popular culture and how it relates to reality
Nina Byrom
Examining analogue film’s viability as a preservation method for film archives
Charlotte Day
The lines between streamed and live theatre: documenting performances, what could be lost?
Miles Milton-Jefferies
Exploring the change and growth of monastic libraries in Anglo-Saxon England
Melissa Ramos
‘Ni de aqui, ni de alla’: investigating the impact of documentation on Chicanx youth subcultures
Jessica Sutton
‘You literally can’t put a stand-up performance itself into an archive’: the present and future of documenting British stand-up comedy
Emily Swan
Investigating the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the legal library and information science community
Daniel Whittaker
A study of information behaviour in the Fantasy Premier League community
2019-2020
Anne Aschim
Circulating libraries and the rise of women readers and writers in 19th century Norway
Jennifer Samura
Information Overload: how outrage porn feeds our information addictions
Nicola Swann
The role of international library partnerships in cultural heritage protection: three libraries’ experience
Sophie White
Ideology in the stacks: the effect of communism, fascism and democratic capitalism on public libraries in the twentieth century
Heqing Zhang
Exploring the impacts of artificial intelligence on digital reading in the context of library services
2018-2019
Farah Ali
Picture Book Librarians
Kalliopi Anyfantaki
Information behaviour in Serious Leisure: building understanding from hobbyist book collectors
Alexander Bell
A Pigment of the Imagination: in what ways is colour information?
Sarah Crompton
Cataloguing Songs at the Marx Memorial Library: creating an identity for items of musical works within a non-musical special collection
Lauren Cummings
Free Access to UK Case Law: a comparative study of the jurisdications of Scotland and England and Wales
Rachel Cummings
Documenting Fashion: The documentation and preservation of fashion pieces
Anna Gialdini
Cataloguing the Hammersmith and Fulham Early Children’s Book Collection (University of Roehampton): exploring the challenges and potential of “modern special collections”.
Akina Maeda
The Trend Towards Diversification of Services offered by Public Libraries: comparison between Japan and England
Bethany Sherwood
A Document-centred Investigation into the Physical, Social and Cognitive Aspects of Digital Bible Apps.
Susan Trokhymenko
Something Old, Someting New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue: a marriage of the Toile de Jouy and document theory.
WanTing Wang
Information Literacy to Smart City: whether we need a new understanding of information literacy in the context of the smart city?
Eleanora Winger
Luces Aeternae or Lucidae Siderae? How do the repective physical properties of the Barberini and the Lindisfarne Gospel manuscripts impact upon the procedures for digitization?
2017-2018
Dana Christensen
Preparing our youth to vote: civic information behaviour of MDUSD graduates
Emma Manktelow
Contemporaneous censorship of children’s literature in the UK: a conceptual analysis of the form censorship takes against the backdrop of a post-digital revolution era
James Ryan
Volunteer libraries: A mixed method exploratory report investigating voluntary libraries and the impact they have on society
Chris Stroud
A comparative study of the information behaviour of higher education applicants in different London boroughs
2016-2017
Lucia Lopez Garcia
Social Media in Art Galleries
Sarah Hanson
A Cross-Section of Music Libraries in England
George Mackenzie-Lowe
Too Much Information? Have we reached the point of information overload? A comparative case study from an LIS perspective
Marianna Ou
The Public Libraries of London Collection: oral history in the digital age
Adelaide Robinson
Digital Shoe Boxes: the history and future of personal performance archiving
2015-2016
Pablo Calvo
Library makerspaces: evaluating the value of digital marketing in a UK public library setting
Matthew Hau
Giving Gaming a 1-Up: An Investigation into Video Game Archiving and its Associated Culture
Rachel Jordan
Fear and loaning in North Carolina: the availability and use of LGBTQ materials in North Carolina public high school libraries
Judith Kay
Misinformation online: how is it addressed by the library?
Hannah Kollef
Classifying materials libraries in the UK: an exploratory study
David Phillips
Robots in the Library: gauging attitudes towards developments in robotics and AI, and the potential implications for library services
Tom Pink
Has the Internet changed the way we think? The effect of the network on user behaviour
Scott Richmond
A battle for identity: public libraries in England and Wales 1850-1943
Nicole Rogers
Discovering digital art: examining digital art as a new form of document
Chris Scobie
Information and the creation of new music: to what extent is here a role for information services?
Nyap Tan
Impossible mission: in search of a viable platform for the access of Chinese theological materials in China among the theological educators, theological students and practicing pastors of the Protestant tradition
Irene Tortorella
Information behaviour of Korean Studies researchers in the UK
2014-2015
Caitlin Moore
The Monty Hyams archive: a new resource in information science history
Alison Pope
Inform to perform: using domain analysis to explore amateur athlete information resources and behaviour
Sarah Rudd
City University London students’ preferences for printed or electronic reading material when reading for academic purpose
Fengchun Shen
A comparative analysis of library and information science postgraduate education in China and UK
Kathryn Woody
Crowdsourcing at the National Army Museum: a case study
Julie Stephenson
Immersive and interactive e-book applications: collection review and opportunities for use
Dominic Allington-Smith
Anticipating the Internet: how the predictions of Paul Otlet, H.G. Wells and Vannevar Bush shaped the digital information age
Lisa Baatsvik-Miller
An investigation of information architectures on UK university library websites
Yee Chai
The Online Afterlife: Inheritance and preservation of digital information after death
Steve Mishkin
How can law librarians most effectively provide legal research training?
2013-2014
Tim Arscott
A Politically Controlled Vocabulary: Bias in the Library of Congress Subject Headings.
James Coffey
The House of Life: an exploration of library and information society in Ancient Egypt.
Courtney Dicke
Tweet at the Museum: What Twitter Strategies are Museums Using?
Alana Farrell
“Read all about it – Newspaper reporting of library cuts in England after the implementation of post-2010 government austerity programmes”
Nick Galvin
The information seeking behaviour of photography students.
Laura Hurley
“An Leabharlann Phoibli” (The public library): An investigation into the factors affecting the slow development of a public library service in Ireland.
Perdita Jones
An Investigation into the outreach activities provided by public libraries in the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney, 1900-1965.
Nick Mardakis
An Investigation into possible futures for public libraries in Greece: new challenges, roles and projects.
Chloe Menown
Does the popularity of an academic course affect the growth of literature?
An analysis of the relationship between student numbers and literature counts.
Rosemary Munroe
To what extent has the integration of the GLAM sector affected the working practices of archivists?
Vicky Petrakos
Nursing Students’ e-book survey: a mixed methods approach.
Megan Waples
… and the crowd goes ‘Shhh’: a study of the possible effects crowdfunding platforms have on public libraries and self-publishing.
Willis, Elizabeth
Gender and Library and Information Science: What is the balance of published academic work within Library and Information Science?
Simon Younger
The role of earned income in archive funding.
2012-2013
Verity Allison
Buildings as ‘documents’? Cities as ‘information visualisation’? Reconceptualising urbanism as an instantiation of the information chain.
Marco Aurelio
Aztec past, contemporary continuities: the role of context in understanding the information behaviour of contemporary indigenous communities in Mexico.
Morgan Bailas
Barely Scratching the Surface: Vinyl records, their history and evaluating the value of re-including them within UK Public libraries.
Samantha Bunte
Digitising Middle Temple Library’s William Harvey collection.
Marie Dewerpe
Using mind mapping in libraries and information services.
Laura Doggett
Art in the library: do the arts have a role to play in defining the public library of the future?
Liudmilla Estienne
Authority, rhetoric and social transformation: the self-representation of printer-publishers in early modern literary prefaces.
Alina Hart
Maintaining privacy: the Patriot Act, its possible effect on US libraries.
Natasha Ristic
Psychology journal literature: a domain analytical approach.
Alexandra Santos
Reading through wartime: Bethnal Green tube shelter library.
Gillian Sochor
Bibliographic control through national bibliography and its impact on academic research.
Alison Thorpe
Exploitation of information and knowledge in the law domain.
2011-2012
Boryana Bojkova
History, classification and documentation: a domain analysis of dance.
Jennifer Danilchuk
Historical perspective on the changing role of librarian as gatekeeper of knowledge.
Brittany Dolezal-Herwig
How are terminologies produced within a social context?
Erkin Gozutok
Guidebook culture: a history of modern guidebooks and the challenges they are facing.
Caroline Grambo
Domain Analysis of Genealogy.
Josanne Hackshaw
An assessment of the current archiving processes relating to Carnival within Trinidad and Tobago: the use, its value, how it has evolved and what changes are necessary.
Liam Herbert
An information audit of a running club.
Iveta Kreinberga
Securing the future of knowledge: digital preservation in Latvia and the UK.
Christine Labarbera
Marketing successes and failures within various public libraries.
Amanda Lindahl
Wisconcin public libraries: the challenges, significance and future of small town libraries.
Ana Cristina de Lion
Epistemology of cool: information behaviour in fashion forecast.
Jennifer May
Web 2.0 vs the OPAC: how can the public library catalogue engage the twenty-first century reader.
Ludovica Price
The Sims as resource: a virtual ethnography evaluating the concept of information culture in the gaming world.
Jisscyinta Rivas
Classification of fashion information for designers.
Eliot Sadler
Origins of Libraries.
Vitalija Zogalaite
Information communication in Christianity: from oral tradition to mass media.
2010-2011
Nicola Beer
Social media in UK academic libraries: a study of social media use compared with social media wants
Kate Byrnes
e-books in schools: how educators can effectively use technology to boost student achievement
Elfrida Cable
The information landscape of developmental biology: a domain analytical approach
Anna Casey
Image digitisation: an examination of four London archives and their individual approaches to the process of image collection digitisation
Christopher Crawford-Franklin
Radio in the United States: a study of the use of information resources in 1920s America
Lucy Flanders
The use of e-books in UK law firm libraries
Namutenya Hamwaalwa
Networking and the future of ministerial libraries: the case of Namibia’s ministerial libraries
Tyson Henrie
Promoting the library’s Facebook page: an analysis of academic library websites and Facebook profiles
Victoria Kuhr
Why we go: a domain analysis of travel
Ke Ma
The information seeking behaviour of animation artists in the arts and media enterprises in the digital age
Olumuyiwa Ogunleye
Building an organisational taxonomy using bibliographic tools: a case study of a further education college library
Daniel Parker
The classification of religions: a domain-analytic examination of the history and epistemology of the classification of religions within the Religious Studies discipline
Monika Pietras
Three views of the ‘musical work’: a study of conceptualisations in philosophical, bibliographical and editorial contexts within the domain of music
Stewart Spear
What social roles do minority community archives have? Examining the importance of black and LGBT minority archives
Helen Timpson
The loss of heritage: an investigation into the impact of orphan works and potential solutions
Francesca Woolley
Approaches to electronic resource management in libraries: professional practices versus academic libraries
2009-2010
Aquiles Alencar Brayner
Web archiving initiatives in the UK and US – a comparative analysis
Philip Bower
Professionalism and identity in librarianship/information
Oliver Bridle
Contrasting the role of bioinformatics and bioinformatics librarians in libraries in the UK and the USA
Megan Cooper
A domain analysis of botanical information using an historical analysis approach
Sarah Corns
How much subject knowledge is needed in special librarianship?
Conor Donegan
How have new ICTs affected the handling of artists’ books in art libraries?
Julia Flood
A subject gateway for Mesoamerican studies
Maureen Garvey
The future role of libraries in civil society
Lorretta Marcel
How are ‘memory organizations”, libraries, museums and archives integrating access to folklore collections: a comparative study of Greece and the British Isles
Cheryl Mulholland
From pen and paper to the internet – a study of the communication chain and information management over 30 years, as a healthcare professional
Nadezda Onuchina
Modern information management for businesses (through the world wide web)
Emma Osland
The school library: “to be or not to be?” – a literature review of CILIP’s Library and Information Manifesto 2010, to make school libraries statutory
Sophie Pattison
Investigating the occupational therapy journal literature and its usage by British occupational therapists: a bibliometric study and questionnaire survey approach
Meredith Ship
What’s on at Tower Hamlets and Westminster libraries: a study of the Idea Store service model vs the traditional public library service model
Sonja Siegenthaler
Web archiving – what should be saved?
Penelope Swan
Information literacy in primary schools
David Watson
Disposable media? An investigation into the archiving of videogames
Paraskevi Zigras
What effect has the move from tape-based storage to file-based technology had on the information life cycle in video libraries?
2008 – 2009
Ana Moreno Antoranz
Handling information for unlicensed and newly licensed drugs.
Sarina Barron
UK Politicians and Web 2.0 Technologies: a best practice proposal on the use of these technologies for the communication and exchange of information.
Stephanie Bunyan
The information needs of a medical research group, based at the Royal Marsden Hospital.
Tim Coupe
Clinical Knowledge Management in the new NHS – a crisis of control?
Clare Davies
Public library services for looked-after children in England and Wales.
Beatrice Gilpin (Shared the R T Bottle Prize)
The disabled child and the library: a case study in Sierra Leone.
Helen Mason (Shared the R T Bottle Prize)
The information behaviour of emerging artists.
- Mason H and Robinson L (2010). The information-related behaviour of emerging artists and designers: inspiration and guidance for new practitioners. Journal of Documentation (in press).
Philip Segall
How can libraries successfully design effective spaces for face-to-face support and advice services?
Joanna Tidswell
A domain analysis of the fine art information-communication chain.
Robert Williams
The use of Web 2.0 in academic libraries.
Benjamin Wynne
Innovation in UK university libraries: the case of library web services.
2007 – 2008
Joanna Ashe
The impact of the National Library for Health’s new Search 2.0 on the staff and users of an NHS hospital library.
Shem Baldeosingh
The second coming of the Web: Do public libraries have to adapt?
Susan Charman
Is the school library effective: does the school library impact on pupil’s learning and development? A survey of the opinions of students, the users of the school library.
Niamh Doran
RFID in public libraries.
William Higgs
The Books on Prescription Scheme: a qualitative evaluation and assessment of its implementation and use in Hertfordshire public libraries.
Joanne Johnstone
Society’s perception of information communication technologies.
Meghan Jones
Social bookmarking and online subcultures.
Michael Maguire (Shared the Catherine Hamilton Prize)
Philosophical concepts and their relationship and influence on Information Science and Knowledge Management.
- Robinson L and Maguire M (2010). The rhizome and the tree; changing metaphors for information organisation. Journal of Documentation (in press).
Ruth Nott
Open access through self-archiving
Clare O’Connor
Can Libraries reach excluded communities and How? An examination of Islington Libraries Community project ” New Horizons”.
Tim Reeves
The United Kingdom Research Reserve (UKRR) project and its effects on research libraries.
Hannah West
Investigation into setting up an intranet-based information resource for an out-of hours GP service.
2006 – 2007
Louisa Bentley
Information literacy at Imperial College London.
Margarita Garcia
Liaison between librarians and lectures regarding information literacy: a case study of some academic libraries.
Owen Grey
Informal co-operation between libraries, their staff and other organisations.
Rebecca Howard
Marketing of specialist libraries.
Tamar Moselle
Prison service librarians: Changing roles … changing information needs?
Stephen Penton
A domain analysis of the music discipline: an examination of history and epistemology of the discipline, and its journal production and use.
Stephanie Pluess
Clinical librarianship from three perspectives.
Regitze Glahn Ren
Data sharing in R&D: a pharmaceutical data warehouse model.
Vibeke Walton
The future of the book in the digital world: a study of awareness of and attitudes to the e-book.
2005 – 2006
Janet Chow
Meeting Diverse User Groups’ Library Needs: the case of a mental health library.
Melissa Harden
Information needs of paediatricians for the practice of evidence-based child health.
Caroline Goetzee
The issues, promises and functionality of library management systems in school libraries: an assessment and usability focused evaluation.
Katrina Malone
Transforming the personal into the public. Information issues raised by the acquisition and digitisation of personal papers: a case study focusing on the Francis Crick Papers at the Wellcome Library.
Ella Mitchell
The People’s Network – boom or bust?
Elizabeth Pinel
Palliative medicine: its knowledge base and impact.
2004 – 2005
David Allen
A Comparative Information Needs Analysis of Health Workers in the Field of HIV/AIDS in London and Philadelphia.
Helen Bainbridge
Evidence-based practice in Primary Care: a study of UK general practitioners’ attitudes, awareness and use of evidence-based medicine.
Chucksi Ibe
How well do GP trade magazines meet the needs of GP’s? Content analysis of GP trade magazines.
Ioannis Papageorgiou
Toxicology Information Resources.
Salman Shahid
The role of health related information web resources on health care practice in the U.K and Sub-continent(Pakistan- India).
Dr Lyn Robinson 