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The research behaviors and library use of dance scholars are widely unknown, particularly in regard to issues of access to historical materials and new technology preferences. In the past thirty years, college and university dance departments in the United States have developed into independent, research-based programs. Despite the lack of current research examining the information needs of dance scholars, academic librarians must support the performance, research, and pedagogy of these programs. Interviews with dance faculty from three diverse institutions of higher education provide exploratory data about these scholars' research needs. This qualitative study provides context for dance faculty experiences as both artists and teachers.

In a politically charged social climate, many disciplines are inwardly grappling with historic ideologies and systems of oppression. In information science, critical librarianship seeks to disrupt normative approaches to library work by confronting these ideologies and systems, empowering both library workers and users to understand how these structures affect access and dissemination of information. In industrial design, critical design challenges the status quo by posing troublesome design problems that encourage reflection and discourse. Design works that fall under this category are reactions against consumerism, systemic biases, and heedless scientific and technological development. In librarianship, critical design may be employed to help us explore current paradigms and approaches to library spaces, services, and technologies, as well as to uncover assumptions about what a library is and what a librarian does. Prototypes and narratives derived from critical design can make visible the normative constructions and problems heartedly debated in librarianship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]