Sean Burns

Sean Burns is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky. He holds a PhD (2013) and Master of Library Science (2009) from the University of Missouri-Columbia. His research focuses on scholarly communication, information retrieval, academic libraries, and issues like peer review bias, open access, and fake news detection. He has received prestigious awards including the ALISE/Norman Horrocks Leadership Award (2016) and RUSA Reference Service Press Award (2016).

Recent work highlights include studies on open-source course design for librarianship education, geographical specificity in academic publishing, and challenges in MEDLINE search platforms. He has led funded projects such as 'How News Articles Influence Fake News Perceptions' (2020-21) and 'Planning Research Data Services in Academic Libraries' (2016-17).

His research spans topics from tacit knowledge in open science to historical analyses of library automation. He advises students in library and information science, emphasizing innovative pedagogy and digital scholarship practices.