Melissa Johnston

Melissa Johnston
  • Associate Professor, School Library Media Track Coordinator
  • Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
  • Email: mpjohnston@uri.edu

Biography

Dr. Melissa P. Johnston is an Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, where she serves as the School Library Media Coordinator. Her areas of expertise include school libraries, school librarian leadership, research methods, theory building, and technology integration. Before obtaining her PhD at Florida State University, Dr. Johnston worked as a school librarian for 13 years in Georgia. She has served as School Library Media Coordinator at the University of Kentucky and the University of Alabama, and as a senior faculty member in the School Library Media Program at the University of West Georgia. 

Dr. Johnston was Co-PI for the REALISD Project, an IMLS funded grant, to provide professional development for rural school librarians to support STEM education efforts in their schools and Co-PI on the IMLS Research Grant: Online Ready: Designing Culturally Competent and Impactful K-12 Online Learning. She currently serves as the Treasurer for the International Association of School Librarians and as the Co-Editor of School Libraries Worldwide.

Research

School librarian leadership, role of the school librarians in technology integration, school librarian leadership theory, global school librarianship, research methods in LIS

Education

Ph.D., Florida State University – Library and Information Studies, 2011
Graduate Specialist Certificate – Library Leadership, Florida State University, 2009
M.Ed., University of Georgia – Instructional Technology, SLM concentration, 1996
B.A., University of Georgia – English, Political Science minor, 1993

Selected Publications

Johnston, M. P. (2025). Investigating the theory of school librarian leadership in practice. School Libraries Worldwide, 30(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.29173/slw8784

Johnston, M. P., & Green, L. S. (2024). School librarians needs assessment on culturally responsive and impactful K-12 online learning. Journal of Online Learning Research, 10(3). https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/223922/

Albertson, D., & Johnston, M. P. (2023). Content, tools, and surrogates: Assessing teachers’ criteria for interactively searching for digital video. Digital Library Perspectives, 39(1), 62-73. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-05-2022-0040

Green, L. S., & Johnston, M. P. (2021). A contextualization of editorial misconduct in the library & information science academic information ecosystem. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 73(7), 913-928. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24593

Mandel, L. H., & Johnston, M. P. (2019). Evaluating library signage: A systematic method for conducting a library signage inventory. Journal of Librarianship & Information Science, 51(1), 150 – 161. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000616681837

Johnston, M. P. (2018). Supporting STEM education: Needs assessment of southeastern rural teacher librarians. School Libraries Worldwide, 24(2), 62-79. https://doi.org/10.29173/slw8229

Johnston, M. P., & Green, L. S. (2018). Still polishing the diamond: School library research over the last decade. School Library Research, 21. https://www.ala.org/aasl/pubs/slr/vol21

See Dr. Johnston’s Google Scholar Profile for other works.