Barry Brown is a professor of library science at the University of Montana's Mansfield Library in Missoula, Montana, where he has worked as the science librarian since 1990. He also holds a position as an affiliate faculty member in the university's Environmental Studies department. Prior to arriving in Montana, Brown obtained a master's degree in biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (with a research emphasis in freshwater ecology) and a master's degree in information and library studies from the University of Michigan.

Brown was an early Internet pioneer/evangelist. In 1991 he began teaching campus and statewide classes for librarians and library users on using the net for research, education and communication. As a science librarian he has provided extensive science information literacy instruction to university students and faculty. Recently he has researched, presented and published on comparisons of traditional discipline-specific databases versus newer multidisciplinary or freely available databases for various science disciplines. He has developed an outline for comprehensive science literature reviews and focuses on a handful of databases that cover most science topics well.