Class Notes

Sarah Appedu (MSLIS '22) has been accepted into the 2024 ALISE (Association for Library and Information Science Education) Leadership Development Internship Program.

Emily Benton (MSLIS '20) will start her new position as the Prairie Research Institute (PRI) librarian and clinical assistant professor at the University of Illinois on September 3, 2024.

Jessica Yi-Yun Cheng (PhD '22), assistant professor in the Rutgers School of Communication and Information, has been awarded an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant for her project, "Storytelling Across Time: Building a Community Around Provenance (B-CAP)."

Kaitlin Fink (MSLIS '22) has accepted a job as LRC coordinator for JB Nelson School in Batavia, Illinois. She is excited to move from a classroom to a library setting.

Rebecca Greenlee (MSLIS '21) has been promoted to law librarian II and continues to manage her assigned law library as a solo librarian. She has also been appointed to the Connecticut Statewide Access to Justice Commission, where she will put her ideas about equitable access to justice to work.

Cordiah Hayes (MSLIS '22) has been selected as the recipient of the 2024 Beta Phi Mu Distinguished Member Award.

In March, Gene Kannenberg, Jr. (MSLIS '22) published Here Comes Charlie Brown! A Peanuts Pop-Up (Abrams ComicArts). He created the book using paper-engineering techniques he learned in Bookbinding: History, Principles, Practice (IS 590) with Adjunct Lecturer Andrew Huot.

Olivia Palid (MSLIS '21) was recently promoted to senior coordinator, Chicago programs, at the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois.

Mary Pedraza (MSLIS '21) began a new role at the University of Illinois Chicago Daley Library Special Collections on September 30. She is excited to return to Chicago and serve Illinois students once again, and she invites fellow alumni to "come on down for some research!"

Erika Ternes (MSLIS '24) continues to serve her "tiny but mighty" rural library in youth services. She enjoys the variety of small library work, from conducting story time and editing MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloging) records to redesigning cash handling procedures and hula hooping on the library lawn.

Mary Baker (MSLIS '16) has been accepted to the 2024 Clean Energy Leadership Institute (CELI) Fellowship Program. CELI partners with experts from universities, companies, and organizations to offer energy education and leadership development opportunities.

Stephanie Dietrich (MSLIS '18) started a new position as educational programs manager for the Cancer Center at Illinois.

Chris Houchens (MSLIS '16) has been elected as a director-at-large of the 2024 Illinois Library Association (ILA) Executive Board.

Mallory Jallas (MSLIS '12) started a new position as the head of information literacy and academic outreach and clinical associate professor at the University of Illinois Springfield in August 2024.

Kristin Lansdown (MSLIS '19) has received the 2024 Core Career LIFT Award, sponsored by OCLC and Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures, a division of the American Library Association (ALA).

Courtney Moore (MSLIS '14) received the 2024 Young Adult Library Professional of the Year Award from the Illinois Library Association. 

A paper by Teresa Moreno (MSLIS '19) was named the winner of the 2024 Annual Library Juice Paper Contest. "Interrupting the Criminalization of Information in the Academic Library Classroom," which was published in the Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship, was determined by the award jury to be the most excellent paper out of seventeen submissions. 

Joshua Newport (MSLIS '13) has been elected as vice president/president-elect of the 2024 Illinois Association of College and Research Libraries (IACRL) Executive Board.

Julia Pollack (MSLIS '12), creative program manager for the University of Illinois Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, was featured in The News-Gazette for the poison dart frog artwork she created for the Dixon Graphics window in Champaign.

Jordan Ruud (MSLIS '12) has been appointed as the director of library services at Boreham Library at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.

Laura A. Sheets (MSLIS '12) has been selected to guest-edit a special issue of Advances in Online Education: A Peer-Reviewed Journal. The special issue, which will be published in fall 2024, will focus on librarian collaboration with faculty in the development and delivery of online education.

Lydia Tang (MSLIS '15) delivered a keynote on the intersection of archives and accessibility for the COSA SERI STEER Unconference and Society of Ohio Archivists Annual Meeting. She was also promoted to senior outreach and engagement coordinator, a position in which she continues to provide leadership for hosted ArchivesSpace and advance accessibility at Lyrasis.

Anna Trammell (MSLIS '15) recently started a new position as Community Archiving Program Manager at Internet Archive.

Katherine Villa (MSLIS '18) started her new position as arts, humanities, and social sciences librarian for Researcher Services at the University of California-Davis Library on March 1, 2024, and graduated with a PhD in philosophy from the University of Miami on August 2, 2024.

Jennifer Asimakopoulos (MSLIS '07) received the 2024 Reader's Advisory Service Award from the Illinois Library Association.

Lora Del Rio (MSLIS '08) was featured in the Illinois Association of College & Research Libraries Forum (IACRL) Member Spotlight on September 26, 2024.

Wendy Edwards (MSLIS '09) placed in the top ten of an international contest sponsored by Target and Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) and won a scholarship to the WiCyS 2024 Annual Conference in Nashville.

Joshua Finnell (MSLIS '07) was recently appointed as the Associate University Librarian and Director of Research & Scholarly Initiatives at Case Library and Geyer Center for Information Technology at Colgate University.

Elizabeth Fox (MSLIS '08) earned her Doctor of Health Sciences degree in 2022. In 2024, she published a book chapter, "The Role of the Hospital Librarian in Supporting Health Literacy," in Health Literacy and Libraries, edited by E. Vardell and D. Charbonneau.

Leah Gregory (MSLIS '04) is the co-host of a new podcast called "Can't Shelve This!," which aims to entertain and educate everyone on the importance of school libraries.

Daniel Kraus (MSLIS '06) was interviewed by I Love Libraries, an initiative of the American Library Association, for episode 11 of their podcast "How I Library."

Norma Linton (MSLIS '97, PhD '09) passed away on October 6, 2024.

Mary VanSwol (MSLIS '05) has been named the new director of the Park Forest (IL) Library. 

Karen (Kay) Bronshteyn (MSLIS '96) recently started a new position as director of the Preus Library at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

Jeffrey Carrico (MSLIS '97) passed away on May 13, 2024.

Michelle Glatt (MSLIS '93) has been elected as a director-at-large of the 2024 Illinois Library Association (ILA) Executive Board.

Chad Kahl (MSLIS '98) moved into the Data and Social Sciences position at Illinois State University's Milner Library on July 1. He has worked at Milner Library since 2003.

Frances Drone-Silvers (MSLIS '84) is the recipient of the Starfish Thrower Award from the Health Sciences Librarians of Illinois (HSLI). This award recognizes an HSLI member who has made a difference in the organization.

Molly Horio (MSLIS '89) is the recipient of the 2024 President’s Award from the Health Sciences Librarians of Illinois. The award recognizes an HSLI member who has made a lasting impact on the organization.

Ruth Riley (MSLIS '85), librarian emerita, is the 2024 recipient of the Career Achievement Award from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

Ruth Riley (MSLIS '85) retired from her position as assistant dean for executive affairs and director of library services for the Charles S. and Donna H. Bryan School of Medicine Library at the University of South Carolina.

Ruth A. Riley (MSLIS '85) retired on June 3, 2024 and relocated to Concordia, Kansas.

Margaret Chandler (MSLIS '71) passed away on October 16, 2024.

Sue Ann Hamiter (Frizzell) (MSLS '72) passed away on August 14, 2024, in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Ann Marlow (MSLIS '73) passed away on October 24, 2024.

Patricia Fravel Vander Meer (MSLIS '77) coauthored Artificially Yours: A Tale of Uncanny Animals, a book of fiction based in part on her work as an academic librarian.