Martin is a PhD candidate in Library and Information Science in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at Western University. His research considers how documents influence individuals as they position themselves in the world as moral selves. Documents bridge the space and time between individuals in the absence of face-to-face interactions, and Martin is interested in the implications—good and bad—of this phenomenon. In his dissertation, Martin explores a case study of documents produced by the United Church of Canada in the context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada’s Calls to Action and its recognition of a government policy of cultural genocide. Individual experiences of the church documents concerning this fraught situation shed light on how documents are and are not able to bridge the distance between people.
His other research interests coalesce around a concern for the self as part of communities that, in turn, are integrated into the information—or document—society. Martin has published and presented in three main areas: the ethics, meaning, and nature of documents as used in social relationships; the relationship between documents and genocide; and information literacy as a dynamic phenomenon in the interaction between individuals and social contexts in contexts like citizenship, emancipation, and agency. His future research will build on the foundation developed in his current publications and dissertation. He believes that recognizing the community aspect of “being” in the world opens new doors to investigate the ways in which documents and information more generally are integrated into our ways of knowing, understanding, and ultimately, living with each other. We are told we live in a highly interconnected world, but those connections are often defined more by the technologies that enable them than by human experience. in the future, Martin plans further explorations of the relationship between experience and memory on the one hand—as key elements of what root us in communities—and documents on the other.
Martin holds an honors BA in History and Interdisciplinary studies from Concordia University River Forest. In addition he holds an MA in Public History from Loyola University Chicago, an MLIS from Dominican University, and a Certificate in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management from Loyola University Chicago. Martin has presented his research in Canada, the United States, France, Slovenia, and Poland at meetings of the Michigan Library Association, the Great Lakes History Conference, the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians, the Document Academy, the Canadian Centre for Scholarship and the Christian Faith, the 10th International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, and the Memory Studies Association.
As an educator, Martin challenges his students to make connections between the questions raised in the classroom and the problems they encounter in the world. He believes that learning cannot be forced but that opportunities to grow in understanding should be introduced and nurtured by the teacher.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Nord, Martin I. "Thinking Like a Bricoleur: New Forms of Rigor in Research on Information Experience." Library and Information Science Research (LISR) Special Issue: Research Methods in Information Behavior Research, Vol. 44, Issue 4 (2022): Article 101197. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2022.101197
Nord, Martin I. "Understanding Critical Information Literacy Through Social Epistemology." Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship Vol. 5 (2019): 1-22. DOI: 10.33137/cjal-rcbu.v5.28630
Book Chapters
Nord, Martin I. "I-Thou Ideals in Documents and Loving Relationships: The United Church of Canada's Reconciliation Efforts." In Indigenous People and the Christian Faith: A New Way Forward, edited by William H. U. Anderson and Charles Muskego, 215-228. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2020.
Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings
Nord, Martin I. "Ishi, Briet's Antelope, and the Documentality of Human Documents." Proceedings from the Document Academy, 7 , no. 1 (2020): Article 8. DOI: 10.35492/docam/7/1/8
Nord, Martin I. "The Ethics of Documents in Relationships: The United Church of Canada and Its Reconciliation Documents." Information Research: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, Ljubljana, Slovenia, June 16-19, 2019 24, no. 4 (2020): Paper colis1948. http://InformationR.net/ir/24-4/colis/colis1948.html
Nord, Martin I. "Metaphors for Meaningful Documents." Proceedings from the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Document Academy 6, no. 1 (2020): Article 3. DOI: 10.35492/docam/6/1/3
Nord, Martin I., and Grant Campbell. "The Materiality of Documents and the Genocidal Continuum." Proceedings from the 14th Annual Meeting of the Document Academy 4, no. 2 (2017): Article 2. DOI: 10.35492/docam/4/2/2
Conference Proceedings
Nord, Martin I. "Information Literacy as Utopia? A Critical Evaluation of Information Literacy's Emancipatory Potential." Academic Librarianship & Critical Practice: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians (CAPAL) (2015). https://capalibrarians.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/4A_Nord_paper.pdf.
LIS 9001
Perspectives on Library and Information Science
2020 Fall
LIS 9368
Special Topic: Collective Memory Through Documents
2021 Summer
