Colleen Theisen, MLIS
Education
Master of Science in Information, University of Michigan
Specializations
Special Collections and Archives, Teaching with primary sources, cultural heritage outreach, teaching in social media spaces including YouTube and TikTok, 19th century printing and duplication technologies, library ethics, and fan culture
Biography
Colleen Theisen (Ty*Sen) comes to the School of Library and Information Science after a career as a classroom teacher, theater director, special collections librarian, manager, and curator. She continues an active online presence as a library educator in social media spaces.
Theisen completed her Master of Science in Information specializing in Archives and Records Management at the University of Michigan in 2011 and has spent nearly a decade in outreach, teaching, and curatorial roles in Special Collections. Most recently she was Chief Curator of Exhibitions, Programs, and Education for Syracuse University’s Special Collections Research Center, where she was supervising teaching, outreach, and the conservation lab, and serving on the management team.
She holds a BA in Art History from the University of Missouri-Columbia. After graduating she joined a debut program at Clarke College to be certified to teach via online learning, completing her license for 5th-12th grade visual art education in 2002. She taught in the JET Programme in Japan for a “Super English Language High School,” directed high school theater in the U.S. and Japan, and eventually began serving as an adjunct instructor for San José State University teaching their Introduction to Special Collections class for their iSchool online.
In her past roles in Special Collections at the University of Iowa she served as creator and coordinator for a network of social media channels including the @UISpecColl Tumblr, she produced and appeared as the host for educational YouTube video series such as Staxpeditions and If Books Could Talk and created and produced the podcast Historically Yours. She has been an active voice in the field supporting cultural heritage outreach as a speaker at conferences and delivering webinars on social media outreach for Library Journal and the ALA.
Recent Projects and Presentations
Content Creator, Producer, Writer, Editor, and Host. Library News on TikTok A TikTok channel devoted to education about libraries, special collections, and current library news. (3460 followers) (7 new videos in 2023-2024).
Rare Books and Manuscripts Conference. Towards Special Collections Studies: Histories, Theories, Frameworks. Watson, Bri; Theisen, Colleen; Modrow, Sebastian; Hubbard, Melissa; Shetler, Brian. 20 minute talk. June 2023 [Recording].
Recent Publications
Theisen, Colleen (Expected August 2024). Review of The Rise of AI: Implications and Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Academic Libraries by Sandy Hervieux and Amanda Wheatley (Eds.) Chicago: ACRL, 2022.To be published in Summer 2024 by ALA/ACRL’s Rare Books Magazine (RBM).
Theisen, Colleen. “Case Study: Testing Facebook Live at the University of Iowa Special Collections.” Trends in Archives Practice Series, Module 23: Establishing Archival Connections through Online Engagement. Edited by Dina Kellams and Jennie Thomas. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2020. https://www2.archivists.org/publications/epubs/case-studiestrends-in-archives-practice
