As User Experience听Librarian, Courtney McDonald听provides library-wide leadership for management of the Libraries' website,听conducts and coordinates user experience research and consultations, and facilitates听the Libraries' User Experience Community of Practice.听
Courtney's research interests are focused on the intersection of emerging technologies and library public services, and on implementing user-centered design methods and philosophies in libraries. She presents and writes on a variety of topics including web content strategy, user experience design and听the selection and implementation of library search & discovery systems. Her forthcoming article, "Library Terms that Users (Don鈥檛) Understand: A Review of the Literature, 2012-2021鈥澨齣s now and will appear in College & Research Libraries in November 2024. Recent publications include听the co-authored articles "" (2022), "" (2021) and听"" (2019).听
Courtney has an active record of professional service. Her long history of involvement in the culminated in 2019 with her election to a three-year term in the executive role for that organization; she served as President in 2020-21. She is also a member of the Association for College and Research Libraries, where she chaired the 听from 2019 - 2022. Courtney was a founding member of the editorial board听for the open-access, peer-reviewed publication听听and served as chair of that body from 2013-2018. Her service within the University Libraries has included the Tenure Committee's Teaching Sub-Committee, the Tenure Criteria Task Force听and a term as chair of the Tenure Committee (2021-22). She currently serves as the elected Unit Representative for the Libraries to the Boulder Faculty Assembly.
Previous to joining the library faculty as a tenured Associate Professor in 2018, Courtney held positions at Indiana University Bloomington, DePaul University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. She earned her听Bachelor of Arts in English and Journalism and Master of Library听Science degrees at Indiana University, and holds a Master of Science in Human Computer Interaction from DePaul University.听