Dr. Andrew Zalot (he/him) is an assistant professor at East Carolina University in the Library Science program within the College of Education.

His research explores book ban discourse at the intersection of social media and local communities. His current work examines the impact of book bans on local communities and the role of independent bookstores on book ban discourse.

His most recent publication, “The Contexts and Architecture of Book Bans in Contemporary American Libraries,” published in The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Speech and Censorship, discusses the rise of book bans in the United States in the 2020s and the rhetoric of challengers. His work has also appeared in the Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature and Culture and is forthcoming in the Handbook of Research on Diversity in Children’s and Young Adult Literature.

Andrew received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Information Sciences. His dissertation, 'Tweet of the Town:' Synthesizing Local and Social Media Discourse on Book Bans, examined a book ban in a rural community and the discourse that developed between residents and outsiders. He earned his master’s and bachelor's degrees in English from Texas A&M University.