Cheryl Metoyer

Dr. Cheryl A. Metoyer is an Associate Professor at the UW’s Information School and became an Adjunct Professor in AIS in 2008. Dr. Metoyer received her Ph.D. in Library and Information Science from Indiana University in 1976. Before coming to UW Dr. Metoyer taught at the UCLA Graduate School of Library and Information Studies.  From 1993-1997 she held the Rupert Costo Professorship in American Indian History at the University of California, Riverside. In 2006, she was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship in the Humanities for her research on Native American Systems of Knowledge.

Dr. Metoyer’s research interests include the management, design and evaluation of information services provided to American Indians and the information seeking behavior of culturally diverse groups. Beginning as the Library Project Director at the National Indian Education Association, Dr. Metoyer has continued to assist tribes and organizations in planning and developing information services in urban and reservation communities. She has had the honor of assisting the Mashantucket Pequot, Cahuilla, Yakima, Navajo, Seneca, Mohawk and the Lakota nations in the development of their libraries, archives and museums.

Her work has been published in major research journals including College & Research Libraries, Library and Information Science Research, and American Indian Culture and Research Journal. The Association of College and Research Libraries honored her book, Gatekeepers in Ethnolinguistic Communities.