[1] She previously served as Director and Professor at the Library, Archival and Information Studies, School of SLAIS, at The iSchool at The University of British Columbia (UBC).

After spending 14 years as a faculty member at the UIUC Graduate School of Library and Information Science,[4] Haythornthwaite was Director and Professor at University of British Columbia School of Library, Archival and Information Studies[5] a position she held beginning in 2010.

Haythornthwaite has authored and co-authored a variety of publications ranging from books to academic lectures, including the following material:[6] Between December 2009 and May 2010 Haythornthwaite gave a series of public lectures for the Leverhulme Trust at the London Knowledge Lab.

Haythornthwaite is interested in how the Internet and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can support learning, work and the social interaction between people.

The year at the Institute of Education entailed research, writing and public presentations on the topic of Learning Networks.

[13] A second edition of mainly new chapters was published in 2016, co-edited with Richard Andrews, Jude Fransman and Eric Meyers.

This allowed learners from across the US and the world to take part in an Internet-based program which enabled them to earn a master's degree.

Writing about Haythornthwaite and Wellman's popular 2002 edited volume, The Internet in Everyday Life, Mary Chayko of the College of Saint Elizabeth stated that the arguments in the book relied too heavily on quantitative research data, the nature of which would result in the contributors' findings soon becoming obsolete.

[17] Robert E. Wood supported this in his review of the book as well, as seeing a need for more contextual research, stating that "The studies make important statements at this level — based mainly on large-scale surveys and quantitative analyses — but collectively also point toward the need for more fine-grained and context-specific studies".

[18] Kris Cohen of the University of Surrey and Chicago took this notion a step further during his review of the book, telling of a narrative that has appeared in similar literature and is present in 'The Internet in Everyday Life'.

[19] Cohen states that a 'study of [Internet] users in Pittsburgh, which suggested that heavy internet use might lead to depression and isolation, received national attention from the media' by Kraut et al. (1998) is a reference to thirteen out of twenty (65%) of essays referenced in the book, and eighteen out of twenty essays (90%) respond explicitly to the moralistic question set forth by Kraut et al., "thereby accepting its terms and conditions".

[19] In her mainly positive review of Haythornthwaite's & Kazmer's edited collection, Learning, Culture and Community in Online Education: Research and Practice' Nora Wright of the University of California found one problem with the paper, in that it appears less approachable to students and researchers than the content would suggest.