Robert D. Montoya
ILS Doctoral Program Director
Assistant Professor of Information and Library Science
Contact Information
montoya@indiana.edu
(812) 856-2369
Luddy Hall (700 N. Woodlawn Ave) 2128
Website
Office hours: Thursday, 11am-12pm, and by appt.
Education
- Ph.D. in Information Studies at UCLA, 2017
Biography
Robert D. Montoya is an Assistant Professor of Information and Library Science (ILS) and Ph.D. Program Director for Information Science in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering (SICE). He is also Director of the Comparative Classification Lab based in ILS, which focuses on the importance of knowledge organization (KO) structures (classifications, taxonomies, metadata, ontologies, standards, etc.) to the production and articulation of knowledge in multiple disciplines.
His research broadly examines how communities represent, organize, and share information and how the knowledge organizing infrastructures that support this exchange are affected by underlying values about knowledge. He brings together several domains of scholarly activity in his work including, classification theory, philosophy of information, documentation studies, biodiversity informatics, systematics, Science and Technology Studies (STS), infrastructure studies, and data studies. Other fields of scholarly interest include, history of the book and print culture, library studies/management, special collections, and digital scholarship.
His research has been funded by UCLA, the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Litwin Books, as well Beta Phi Mu, the International Library and Information Studies Honor Society.
He has held professional positions in special collections and archives since 2007. Most recently, he was the Head of Public Services for Library Special Collections (LSC) at UCLA—ranked among the top ten academic research libraries in North America—where he led LSC’s reference, reader services, instruction, outreach, duplication services, and scholarly communication and publishing.
Research Areas
- Biodiversity Informatics
- Data curation and digital preservation
- Digital Libraries and Digital Humanities
- Knowledge Organization, Cultural Informatics, and Natural Informatics
- Theory and history of documentation and library and information science
- Information Policy
- Infrastructure Studies
- Intellectual Freedom and information/data ethics
- International Information Issues
- Library Studies