Laura
Clark Hunt

As an Assistant Professor at The University of Southern Mississippi School of Library and Information, Dr. Laura Clark Hunt has served in libraries for over ten years. Her experience has involved both public and academic libraries in management, programming, and collection development roles. Her dissertation focused on emergent literacy in public libraries and was celebrated as one of the most notable dissertations for 2017 by American Libraries https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2017/05/01/2017-notable-dissertations/.

 

She was a Fellow at the University of West Florida from 2017-2018, working with archaeologists at the Florida Public Archaeology Network to assess public outreach programs throughout Florida. This project focused on reaching the public with the message of cultural heritage. Program assessment has varied from children’s programming in museums to underwater preservation programs for dive masters. Her last position before coming to USM was as an academic library director at the University System of Georgia.

 

She is positioned to pursue research in libraries and cultural heritage. Collaborative research projects are of particular concern to her because they offer opportunities for interdisciplinary discovery and impact. Evaluation and assessment that focus on Needs-Based Research are at the core of her interest. Some of her research interests are cultural heritage, assessment in libraries, censorship, library users with disabilities, and library management.