Naresh Agarwal
Professor and Director of Information Science & Tech Concentration
Naresh Agarwal, who joined the faculty in Fall 2009, earned his PhD from the National University of Singapore (NUS)'s Department of Information Systems, School of Computing. His teaching areas are technology and web development, theories of information science, knowledge management, and evaluation of information services. Agarwal's research area is information behavior and knowledge management — the way people look for information and the contextual factors that impact their choice of information sources. He seeks to reconcile multiple perspectives — the user (context, seeking, sense-making, serendipity, avoiding) versus systems/technology, theoretical and empirical studies, and a variety of contexts. His publications span these areas. His first book Exploring Context in Information Behavior: Seeker, Situation, Surroundings, and Shared Identities was published by Morgan & Claypool in 2018. His second book was published in 2021 as Engineering to Ikigai: 25 Journeys Towards Purpose in South Asia and You Know the Glory, Not the Story: 25 Journeys Towards Ikigai internationally. Agarwal also studies serendipitous information encountering, and non-response behaviors by people using smartphones. He has been a keynote/invited speaker at workshops and conferences in Bangladesh, France, India, Iran, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa, and the US. Naresh is the President of the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T). At ASIS&T, he has held various leadership positions, including co-chairing its Annual Meeting in 2017, Chairs SIGs and Committees, and founding the South Asia Chapter. In 2012, he was awarded the ASIS&T James M. Cretsos Leadership Award. Prior to entering the doctoral program at NUS, Agarwal worked for six years in technology roles in the voice-over-IP, bioinformatics, and digital cinema industries. Among other things, he has been a debater and public speaker and likes to paint in watercolor and oil. In 2018, he started an initiative to gather human stories through interviews to inspire other human stories. You can learn more about him at his website. He can also be found on X (@nareshag) and Instagram (@nareshag.paintings | @nareshag.photography).
Courses
- LIS 488 Technology for Information Professionals
- LIS 484 Theories of Information Science
- LIS 465 Knowledge Management
- LIS 467 Web Development & Information Architecture
- LIS 403 Evaluation of Information Services
- SIM 301 Simmons Excel
Research/Creative Activities
Naresh Agarwal continues to design and conduct studies in his research space of information behavior and knowledge management. Along with his published articles in journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters, he has a series of working papers in various stages. Please see the Research page on his website for ongoing projects. Do please let him know if you’re interested in working with him.
Areas of Interest
Information behavior and Knowledge Management
Serendipitous Finding of Information
Serendipitous or accidental discovery of information has often been neglected in information behavior models, which tend to focus on information seeking, a more goal-directed behavior. In a paper in Information Research, Professor Agarwal defines terms relevant to serendipity. By building on existing literature and conceptual frameworks, he attempts to include serendipity in information behavior models.
Naresh Agarwal in the News
SLIS Professor to Receive Information Science and Technology Service Award
The Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) recently announced that Simmons Library and Information Science Professor Naresh Agarwal is the recipient of the 2024 Watson Davis Award for Service. This award “recognizes an individual member of the Association who...
Choosing Happiness: Uncovering the Journey to Happiness
An interview with Professor Naresh Agarwal from the School of Library and Information Science.
"Choosing Happiness" An Interview with Naresh Agarwal
This is a conversation between Naresh Agarwal, Associate Professor in the School of Library and Information Sciences and Director of Information Science and Tech Concentration at Simmons University, and Taylor Eubanks, graduate student in the Gender and Cultural Studies program...
Three Faculty Elected Leaders of Professional Library and Information Science Organizations
Naresh Agarwal, Sanda Erdelez, and Rong Tang have been elected to lead prestigious international organizations. As Erdelez notes, all three are immigrants whose hard work in US academia provided opportunities for a high level of achievement and recognition.
Shout-outs from Students and Alums
Joy Rodowicz ’14MS Discusses her Role at the National Fire Protection Association
My title is Digital Assets and Records Manager at the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which is a fire and life safety organization that has been around for 125 years.