16.30, engl.
Siobhan Stevenson (Ph.D.) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. After ten years working with an agency of the Ontario government responsible for the coordination of autonomous public library boards through the development of policies, programs and funding opportunities designed to that end, Siobhan returned to the University of Western Ontario to pursue her Ph.D. The problems that she addresses in her research revolve around issues she encountered in the field, specifically the role of class struggle in the public policy process, and the ways in which it manifests in competing visions of today's information societies. Her object of analysis is often the local public library because, among other reasons, its ubiquity combined with its seeming banality make it a compelling site for the study of the complex ways in which state institutions serve to legitimate and reproduce the status quo. Currently, she is conducting a historical study on labour relations in public libraries across Canada from the early 1950s through to today's information economy.
