Zimmerman joins SLIS faculty

Jan. 20, 2023 — DENTON — In Fall 2022, Assistant Professor Tara Zimmerman, PhD, joined the faculty in the School of Library & Information Studies. 

“I am excited to join the TWU faculty and I look forward to helping train future school librarians,” Zimmerman said. 

Most recently before coming to TWU, Zimmerman was a Computing Innovation Fellow funded by the National Science Foundation at the University of Texas in Austin.

Zimmerman earned her PhD in Information Science at the University of North Texas where her research focused on the qualitative study of social media information behavior. In her research, she coined the term “Social Noise” to describe how observation by other people in social networks influence an individual’s behavior. 

Using this research, Zimmerman studies how misleading information spreads online and aims to develop a scaffolded K-12 curriculum for school librarians to utilize in teaching students to detect and avoid misinformation. 

Zimmerman earned a bachelor’s in journalism at the University of Arkansas. After working in marketing, she pursued her master’s in library and information studies at the University of Oklahoma. 

As a school librarian with an Oklahoma Library Media Specialist teaching certification, Zimmerman worked with students in Pre-K through 12th grade, also serving as the Chair of the Oklahoma School Librarians and on the Oklahoma Library Association Executive Board.

Page last updated 11:25 AM, January 20, 2023