I am a Professor at the UBC iSchool and served as Director from 2015-2020. I hold a PhD from the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, an MLS degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an MA (Russian history) from Carleton University, and a BA from the University of Toronto. I teach courses on information retrieval, information services and open data.

My research is primarily focused on the human-centred aspect of information retrieval and the ways in which people interact with and make sense of digital information. I am a partner in the Designing for People research cluster at UBC and lead the Digital Information Interaction Group (DiiG) at the iSchool. I have served as the principal investigator on numerous funded research projects, and have published extensively in the areas of interactive information retrieval, open data and information access. I served as Associate Editor of Information Processing & Management (2017-2019) and was General Chair of the ASIS&T 2018 Annual Meeting and Co-Chair of ACM CHIIR 2020.

• Human information interaction and information retrieval
• Digital reading, information seeking and learning
• Contextual and task-based approaches to information access
• Digital document genres

Select Publications

(2026) Shahid, S.H. & Sinnamon, L. A meta-ethnographic synthesis of researchers’ views on scholarly misconduct in the health sciences. Library and Information Science Research, 48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2026.101399

(2024) Huvila, I. & Sinnamon, L. When data sharing is an answer and when (often) it is not: Sharing research by sharing data. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 75(13), 1515–1530 https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24957.

(2024) Dodson, S., Sinnamon, L. & Kopak, R. Mapping the relationship between genres and tasks: a study of undergraduate engineers, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 75(12), 1380–1397 https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24897. (

(2022) Li, A.W., Sinnamon, L.S. and Kopak, R. Exploring learning opportunities for students in open data portal use across data literacy levels, Information and Learning Sciences, 123:9/10, 601-620. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-01-2022-0003.

(2022) O’Brien, H., De Forest, H., McCauley, A., Sinnamon, L. & Smythe, S. Reconfiguring knowledge ecosystems: Librarians and adult literacy educators in knowledge exchange work. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 26 (2) https://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/jheoe/article/view/2471

(2021) Sinnamon, L., Tamim, L., Dodson, S. & O’Brien, H.L. Rethinking interest in studies of interactive information retrieval. Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval (CHIIR 2021).

(2020)  Barnes, L., Freund, L., Giustini, D. The information needs of Canadian midwives and their evidence informed practices. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 15(2) 3-23. Available here: https://bit.ly/2TjWAgU

(2020) Zhu, Julia & Freund, L. Exploring open data initiatives in higher education, iConference 2020, Gothenburg, Sweden, March 22-27, 2020.

(2019) Paige, B. & Freund, L. A case study of New England open data portals. JeDEM – eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government, 11(1), 59-80. Available here: https://bit.ly/2Tlhlcf