GSLIS eUpdate
Volume 11, Number 4: January 2012
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IN THIS ISSUE
1. GSLIS Spotlight – Unsworth Accepts Vice Provost/CIO Position
2. News Summary
3. Continuing Professional Development
4. Alumni Highlights
5. Calendar of Events
6. Unsubscribe and/or contact us
Note: We enjoy receiving and sharing news about your career and life accomplishments. Please take the time to update your contact information and/or share a Class Note about your recent activities using our Alumni Update Form.
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1. GSLIS SPOTLIGHT
Unsworth Accepts Vice Provost/CIO Position at Brandeis University
John Unsworth, who joined the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) as dean in 2003, has accepted a new position as vice provost and chief information officer for library and technology services at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He will begin at Brandeis in mid-February.
As dean at GSLIS, Unsworth has worked to strengthen both the intellectual and financial foundations of the School. During his tenure, GSLIS has achieved financial stability, expanded its online program, strengthened its technological infrastructure, and increased the number and responsibility of those working for the School as a whole. In that time, the percentage of underrepresented students has grown from 5.7% to 10.8%; the tenure-system faculty has grown from 17 to 25; and external research funding has doubled. The GSLIS capital campaign, which began in 2003, recently reached its goal of $15 million.
Unsworth also has served as a leader on campus, notably as interim director of the Illinois Informatics Institute, and most recently as chair of a committee that developed a governance structure for campus-wide IT. As dean, Unsworth oversaw the expansion of GSLIS educational offerings into the campus-wide bioinformatics master’s, the campus-wide informatics Ph.D., and the campus-wide undergraduate informatics minor, as well as the renaming of the GSLIS Library Research Center as the Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship.
Speaking about his time at GSLIS, Unsworth said, “It has been a privilege to represent GSLIS on campus and in the field. This is a group of people who push themselves and their collaborators very hard to succeed. They stand up for important values. They take on difficult problems, and they find humane solutions.” The School’s professional master’s program has been at the top of national rankings since those rankings first appeared in the mid-1990s, and in recent years the GSLIS dean has played a leadership role in the iSchools consortium.
In his new position at Brandeis, Unsworth will oversee both the Brandeis University Library and the central IT organization for the campus. “I was attracted to the vice provost position at Brandeis because it combines the two core information services in a modern university,” Unsworth said. “Brandeis means to make the most of its information resources—bibliographic, technical and human—and I look forward to helping it do that.”
Following Unsworth’s departure, Professor Allen Renear will serve as interim dean. Renear recently concluded three years of service as associate dean for research, providing leadership for GSLIS’s highly successful research program, which receives funding from a wide range of government agencies, private foundations, and corporate partners. He has served as president of the Association for Computers and the Humanities, distinguished visiting fellow at the Oxford University Computing Unit, and a member of the advisory board of the Text Encoding Initiative, and first chair of the Open eBook Publication Structure Working Group (now IDPF/ePUB). He teaches courses in information modeling and digital publishing and leads research on the application of logic-based formal ontologies to problems in data curation and the foundation of information systems. Prior to joining GSLIS he was, from 1992 to 2000, director of the Brown University Scholarly Technology Group, an applied R&D and service group focusing on digital publishing and research computing, primarily in the humanities. Renear received an AB from Bowdoin College and a PhD (1988) from Brown University.
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2. GSLIS NEWS SUMMARY
Smith Receives 2012 ALISE Service Award
GSLIS Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Programs Linda C. Smith has received the 2012 Service Award from the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). Over the course of her career, she has served three three-year terms on the ALISE Board and has received two major ALISE awards: the Award for Professional Contribution to LIS Education (2008) and the Award for Teaching Excellence (1999). Smith will be recognized at the ALISE Awards Reception, which will be held on January 19, 2012, at 6:30 p.m. at the Renaissance Dallas Hotel. Read more on our website
GSLIS News Headlines
Stories recently featured on the GSLIS home page include:
- Ziglinski to accept Mora Award at ALA Midwinter
- New Illinois center to develop smarter infrastructures, smarter public
- Alumni named Emerging Leaders
- GSLIS surpasses Brilliant Futures Campaign goal
- Downs Intellectual Freedom Award given to Marianna Tax Choldin
- CI Lab receives grant for community-based digitization workshops
GSLIS Social Media
For up-to-date news and announcements, you are invited to follow the GSLIS Twitter and "like" us on Facebook: Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Illinois.
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3. CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Certified Public Library Administrator (CPLA) Courses
Organization and Personnel Management for Librarians
Dates: January 31 – March 6, 2012
Instructor: Robert H. Burger
Fundraising and Grant Writing for Your Library
Dates: March 5 – April 13, 2012
Instructor: Jason Kovac
For more information and to register, visit CPLA Programs and Courses.
Midwest Book and Manuscript Studies: Summer Special Collections Courses
The following information provides a sneak preview of summer 2012 courses; the web page will be updated soon. Community credit/non-degree students may take these courses.
ON CAMPUS:
May 21 – June 1
590RB Rare Book and Special Collections Librarianship – Sid Berger
590PO The Book as Physical Object – Sid Berger
June 4 – 8 (all day)
590SP Collection Development for Special Collections – Joel Silver
June 11 – 15 (all day)
590SR Reference Sources for Rare Books – Joel Silver
June 18 – 29
590AA Arrangement and Description for Archives and Museums – Scott Schwartz (morning)
590LP History and Techniques of Letterpress Printing – Steve Kostell (afternoon)
July 9 – 20 (half day, time TBD)
New course: LIS 590SU Suave Mechanicals: Studying Historical Bindings – Julia Miller
Course description: The course will focus on the study of historical bindings in terms of structure, materials, and style beginning with an introduction to the early codex but concentrating on the bindings on printed texts from the fifteenth through the nineteenth century. Readings, lecture, and hands-on examination of original historical bindings from the Rare Book and Manuscript collection will focus on identifying and describing binding elements. Collection materials will be supplemented with historical models, and students will create several models/samplers for their own use.
July 23 – 27 (all day)
LIS 490BA Book Arts – Bea Nettles
LEEP:
590AVL Audiovisual Materials in Libraries and Archives – Jimi Jones
590BBL Bookbinding: History, Principles, and Practice – Andrew Huot
590BCL Rare Book Cataloging – Pat Olson
Possible addition: 590BK The Picture Book: History, Art, and Visual Literacy
Please forward your ideas for continuing education topics to Marianne Steadley.
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4. ALUMNI HIGHLIGHTS
LSAA Alumni Awards
We need your help to nominate individuals for the Distinguished Alumnus Award, Leadership Award, and Distinguished Service Award. These awards will be presented at the LSAA Annual Meeting in Anaheim. For award criteria and more information, read our news release or visit our LSAA Awards web page.
Rachel Bindman (MS ’02) is chair of the LSAA Awards Committee this year. Nominations will be accepted via e-mail until April 1, 2012.
A Day in the Life of a GSLIS Alum Video Project
Calling all GSLIS alumni!
You have all had the experience of being a GSLIS student, and now we invite you to show us what it is like to be a GSLIS alum. What’s your office or workspace like? How do you spend your time at work? What’s your favorite part of being in the field? Share the details of your day with the GSLIS community by creating a video that chronicles a day in the life of a GSLIS alum.
The videos should be 3 minutes or less and will be posted on our YouTube channel. Videos must be in one of the following formats: .AVI, .MOV, .WMV, or .MPG file formats. To submit, send your video, name, degree, graduation year, job title, workplace, and title of your video to Laura Spradlin at lspradl2@illinois.edu.
Give us a tour or show us an average or not-so-average day, but most importantly, have fun and be creative! Please send questions to Laura Spradlin at lspradl2@illinois.edu.
2012 Alternative Spring Break (ASB) Update
A record 90+ applications have been received for the Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program, and most placements have been confirmed. However, we are still in need of hosts in one area: corporate/government. If you work in a corporate/government setting and would be interested in hosting a GSLIS student during ASB (March 19-23), please contact Roy Brooks, ASB Coordinator. Alumni who are interested in supporting students financially during ASB can make donations to the GSLIS Annual Fund. Please earmark gifts for ASB.
GSLIS Planned Giving
If you are interested in learning more about making a planned or estate gift to GSLIS, please contact Diana Stroud to receive information on specific language, funding opportunities, and/or legal assistance.
LEEP Cohort Challenge Quarterly Update
Thanks to the generosity of so many LEEP alumni, the LEEP Cohort Challenge to raise support for the LEEP Scholarship Fund is gaining momentum. Nearly $3,000 was raised this quarter, bringing the total raised to $15,150. Leaders for Cohorts 12, 14, and 15 are still needed. If you would like to volunteer, lease contact Sharon Johnson. The following list provides current standings by cohort:
Cohort 7 - $2,500 (Brooke Johnson, Leader)
Cohort 3 - $2,300 (Marci Cohen, Leader)
Cohort 1 - $1,350 (Kendi Kelley, Leader)
Cohort 8 - $975 (Amanda McKay/Jomichele Seidl, Co-Leaders)
Cohort 10 - $925 (Judi Bikel/Helen Linda, Co-Leaders)
Cohort 6 - $485 (James Obst, Leader)
Cohort 5 - $450 (Melissa Henderson, Leader)
Cohort 11 - $435 (Jodi Schneider, Leader)
Cohort 14 - $420 (Leader Volunteer Needed)
Cohort 2 - $400 (Connie Frankenfeld, Leader)
Cohort 12 - $300 (Leader Volunteer Needed)
Cohort 9 - $290 (Kathleen Mahoney, Leader)
Cohort 13 - $225 (Shannon Farrell, Leader)
Cohort 4 - $100 (Cyril Oberlander, Leader)
Cohort 15 - $50 (Leader Volunteer Needed)
On-Campus Alumni Support - $3,945
To boost your cohort in the rankings, please make a gift to the LEEP Scholarship Endowment.
Illinois Library Day: April 18, 2012
The Illinois Library Association (ILA) has announced that Illinois Library Day will be held on April 18, 2012. This day of advocacy, held in Springfield, Illinois, is a time for library supporters to visit with elected officials during the state legislative session. Activities also include training and special briefings the evening before the full day of visits. For more information, visit the Illinois Library Day website.
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5. CALENDAR OF EVENTS
For more information, please email lis-dev@illinois.edu.
ALA Midwinter Meeting/Downs Award Reception
January 21
5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
Magnolia Hotel, Griffin Room
1401 Commerce Street
Dallas, Texas
Event website
iConference 2012
February 7-10
Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Center Hotel
Toronto, Canada
Annual gathering of researchers and professionals from iSchools around the world
Conference website
GSLIS iConference Gathering
February 8
6:30 - 9:30 p.m.
The Duke of Somerset (gathering in the Back Corner)
655 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario M5G 2K4
Hosted by Dean Unsworth and Diana Stroud
Alumni, students, and faculty are welcome to attend
Arizona Alumni Visits
February 17-25
Assistant Dean for Advancement Diana Stroud will be visiting alumni in Arizona. Watch for GSLIS gatherings in Phoenix and Tucson. To arrange an individual visit, please email lis-dev@illinois.edu.
11th Annual Center for Children’s Books (CCB) Pre-Sale and Book Sale
February 19: Pre-Sale (1:00 - 4:00 p.m.), GSLIS East Foyer
Note: Tickets for the pre-sale cost $20. You must call (217) 244-9331 or email to reserve a ticket. Ticket reservations will be accepted Monday, January 30, through Monday, February 13.
February 20-22: Book Sale (10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.), GSLIS Room 24
Corporate Roundtable (CRT)
March 2
11:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Enterprise Works, University of Illinois Research Park, Champaign
Details available soon (event website)
The CRT will be immediately followed by the Second Annual Applied Project Poster Session, featuring lightning talks and posters highlighting selected MS/CAS student class projects that further the understanding of corporate partners and the relevance of information science in their work
Public Library Association (PLA) 2012 Conference
March 13-17
Pennsylvania Convention Center
1101 Arch Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
GSLIS will host a booth (T-7) in the Exhibit Hall on the following days:
March 14: 4:00 - 6:30 p.m.
March 15: 9:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
March 16: 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Stop by for latest news and catch up with other alumni
Event website
Attention local alumni, students and conference attendees: Please join Diana Stroud for a gathering at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 15, at Maggiano's Little Italy, 1201 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107 (telephone: 215-567-2020). Please RSVP to lis-dev@illinois.edu prior to March 9.
2012 Illinois Reading Council (IRC) Conference
March 15-16
Prairie Capital Convention Center
One Convention Center Plaza
Springfield, Illinois
GSLIS will host a booth (#230) on the following days:
March 15: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
March 16: 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Stop by and say hello!
Event website
Alternative Spring Break (ASB)
March 19-23
This noncredit career development program places interested and motivated graduate students in professional work environments during the week of Spring Break
ASB program website
GSLIS Research Showcase 2012
March 30
1:30 - 4:30 p.m.
GSLIS East Foyer and Rooms 126 and 131
Showcase website
GSLIS faculty and PhD students will present short talks and posters highlighting their scholarly work at this annual event, which is open to campus and the general public
GSLIS Convocation
May 13
1:30 p.m.
Smith Memorial Hall
For more information, visit the GSLIS Convocation website
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