Kiersten F. Latham, Ph.D., associate professor in ’s School of Information (iSchool), has received a Fulbright Scholar Award to teach at the University of Zadar in Croatia for the Fall 2017 Semester. She will teach a course she created, Current Issues in Document/ation Studies, guest lecture in other courses, participate in several conferences and advise students. She also will have the opportunity to lecture at the University of Zagreb and collaborate on a project around Ivo Maroević, a Croatian museologist who has been very influential on her own work.
Latham created the Kent State iSchool’s museum studies specialization and is the co-author of Foundations of Museum Studies: Evolving Systems of Knowledge (2014) and Objects of Experience: Transforming Visitor-Object Encounters in Museums (2013), which was named the Best Museum Education Book of 2014 by the Museum Education Monitor. Among her other significant publications are “Numinous Experiences with Museum Objects” (Visitor Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2013, pp.3-20) and “Experiencing Documents” (Journal of Documentation, Vol. 70, No. 4, 2014, pp.544-561).
She also is part of a University of Northern Norway research group that recently received a $1.75 million three-year grant from the Norwegian KULMEDIA, (2014-2018) to investigate the impact of digitization on the role and function of archives, libraries and museums as public sphere institutions.
For more information about her publications and other scholarly activities, visit .
In addition to her research and academic work, Latham is director of the iSchool’s — a place for thinking, doing and learning about museal things — an experimental space for pushing the museum studies envelope. She has worked in and on museums in various capacities for more than 25 years, serving as a director, educator, researcher, collections manager, curator, volunteer and consultant.
Latham holds a bachelor’s in anthropology from the University of Michigan, a master’s in historical administration and museum studies from the University of Kansas and a doctorate in library and information management from Emporia State University, Kansas. She is on the board of ICTOP-ICOM, International Council for the Training of Museum Professionals and a member of the International Council of Museums, American Association of Museums, Association of Academic Museums and Galleries and Association for Information Science and Technology. She is co-editor (co-founder) of the Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Document Academy (DOCAM) and she has been a manuscript reviewer for Museum Management & Curatorship, Museologica Brunesia and Journal of Documentation, among others, and a conference proposal reviewer for the annual meetings of the iConference, Visitor Studies Association, Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) and Document Academy, among others.