Brittany Brannon
Research Support Specialist
Brittany Brannon is a Research Support Specialist with OCLC’s Library Trends and User Research group, where she works on several multi-institutional research projects studying user information behavior, including the IMLS grant-funded project Researching Students’ Information Choices: Determining Identity and Judging Credibility in Digital Spaces.
Brittany’s primary research interests are in information seeking behavior, academic research skills, and scholarly communication. She earned an MLIS at Kent State University, a Master’s in Rhetoric and Composition from the University of Kansas, and a Bachelor’s in English Literature and Philosophy from Denison University. Before joining OCLC, she taught first-year composition, consulted with graduate students on their research and writing, and worked for an educational nonprofit.
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Publications
New Model Library: Pandemic Effects and Library Directions
28 October 2021
Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ixchel M. Faniel, Brittany Brannon, Joanne Cantrell, Christopher Cyr, Brooke Doyle, Peggy Gallagher, Kem Lang, Brian Lavoie, Janet Mason, and Titia van der Werf
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted libraries of all types around the world, requiring library leaders to respond to rapidly shifting community and institutional needs. This briefing shares how leaders adapted during the pandemic and what they envision moving forward to help libraries plan strategically.
Genre Containers: Building a Theoretical Framework for Studying Formats in Information Behavior
26 October 2021
Brittany Brannon, Amy G. Buhler, Tara Tobin Cataldo, Ixchel M. Faniel, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Joyce Kasman Valenza, Christopher Cyr
Prior studies have shown high-level differences in people's perception and use of various information formats. However, the lack of a coherent and theoretically informed framework of elements of format has inhibited a nuanced understanding of the role that formats play in information behavior. This paper draws on theories from the field of rhetoric and composition to ground the study of information format in a social constructivist perspective that foregrounds action in context.
Backgrounds and behaviors: Which students successfully identify online resources in the face of container collapse
15 February 2021
Christopher Cyr, Tara Tobin, Brittany Brannon, Amy G. Buhler, Ixchel M. Faniel, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Joyce Kasman Valenza, Rachael Elrod, Samuel R. Putnam
This study of students from primary through graduate school looks at their ability to identify the containers of information resources, and how this ability is affected by their demographic traits, the resource features they attended to, and their behaviors during a task-based simulation.