Associate Professor

xzhu12@utk.edu

Website

Xiaohua “Awa” Zhu is an associate professor at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her PhD in library and information studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011. Her primary research areas include information policy, social informatics, and academic libraries.

Her work focuses on three themes at the intersection of those areas: rights related to digital intellectual properties, especially access and ownership rights; government information use and access, particularly open government data; and digital transformations. She is especially interested in how these transformations impact libraries, particularly academic libraries. Her work combines qualitative and quantitative methods and often draws on social theories and historical perspectives.

She has published research on those areas in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Government Information Quarterly, Library and Information Science Research, College and Research Libraries, and Journal of Academic Librarianship. In 2023, she co-edited a book titled The Usage and Impact of ICTs during the Covid-19 Pandemic with colleagues at Indiana University.

Zhu is an active member of professional organizations such as the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) and served on many committees. Currently, she is serving as Director of Programming on the ALISE Board of Directors. Zhu has a keen interest in serving the community, organizing research activities, and mentoring new scholars.