Michelle Knecht, M.S.

Biography

Michelle Keba Knecht is the Senior Medical Librarian and Head of the Medical Health Sciences Collection and User Services Department for the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University. In this position, she manages the College of Medicine library resources and provides leadership for the evidence-based medicine curriculum as the co-director of the Life-Long Learning & Discovery thread.

Prior to joining FAU, she served as an Associate Librarian for Reference at Palm Beach Atlantic University where she provided library services and taught undergraduate courses in the education and leadership departments as an adjunct professor. She has also held positions as an English language arts teacher on the Texas-Mexico border through the Teach for America program and as a Distance and Instructional Services Librarian at Nova Southeastern University where she and her co-workers won the Association of College and Research Libraries Instruction Section Innovation Award for their work creating LibraryLearn, a mobile-first platform for storing and displaying instructional videos.

Ms. Knecht’s scholarly work has focused on the affective dimensions of information literacy including the role of curiosity during the research process and information literacy misconceptions. Her scholarship in these areas has been published in College & Research Libraries, Communications in Information Literacy, and the Journal of Library and Information Services in Distance Learning. She has also presented at numerous conferences including the International Leadership Association Global Conference, European Conference on Information Literacy, Medical Library Association Annual Meeting, Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience, and American Library Association Annual Conference.

Education

• 2008: B.A., Anthropology, University of Florida, Summa cum laude
• 2012: M.S., Information Studies, University of Texas at Austin
• 2020: M.S., Leadership, Palm Beach Atlantic University

Work History

• 2020 – Present: Senior Medical Librarian and Head of the Medical Health Sciences Collection, Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
• 2015 – 2020: Associate Librarian for Reference, Warren Library, Palm Beach Atlantic University, West Palm Beach, FL
• 2012 -2015: Distance and Instructional Services Librarian II, Alvin Sherman Library, Nova Southeastern University, Davie, FL

Scholarly Activity

Research Interests

• Curiosity and Lifelong Learning
• Evidence-Based Medicine
• Consumer Health Information
• Information Literacy Misconceptions

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Knecht, M., (2022). Investigating nontraditional first-year students’ epistemic curiosity during the research process: An exploratory, mixed-methods study. College & Research Libraries, 83 (6), 874-886.
• Keba, M., & Fairall, E. (2020). Not a blank slate: Information literacy misconceptions in first-year experience courses. Communications in Information Literacy, 14 (2), 255–268.
• Keba, M., Segno, J., & Schofield, M. (2015). Making it work: Creating a student-friendly repository for instructional library videos. Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning, 9 (1-2), 17-29. doi:10.1080/1533290X.2014.946335

Present/Past Editorial Boards

• Peer Reviewer, Evidence Based Library & Information Practice
• Editorial Board, Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning

Honors and Awards

• 2018: Institute for Research Design in Librarianship
• 2015: Association of College & Research Libraries Instruction Section Innovation Award
• 2014: Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute
• 2014: Distance Library Services Conference Award
• 2008: Phi Beta Kappa