School of Information Sciences

Join us at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress

iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in the upcoming International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress in Columbus, Ohio, on August 13-19. This annual conference brings together LIS professionals and students from more than one hundred and twenty countries and provides opportunities for networking and professional development. Among the presenters will be the iSchool faculty and students listed below. Attendees are invited to meet with faculty and staff at Booth #C-111 and attend a social gathering on Monday, August 15.

iSchool presentations:

Associate Professor Terry Weech and affiliated faculty member Clara Chu organized the August 10 satellite meeting, "International Quality Assessment of LIS Education Programs," a joint meeting of the Section on Education and Training and Section on Library Theory and Research.

Senior Lecturer Maria Bonn will moderate a session during the satellite meeting, Libraries as Publishers: Building a Global Community, sponsored by the IFLA Section on Acquisition and Collection Development, and co-sponsored by Serials and Other Continuing Resources. The meeting will be held on August 10-12 at the University of Michigan.

During the Libraries as Publishers session, doctoral candidate Katrina Fenlon will present her paper, "Understanding the needs of scholars in a contemporary publishing environment." Coauthors include Bonn, CIRSS Senior Project Coordinator Megan Senseney (MS '08), and affiliated faculty member Harriett Green.

Chu will discuss her co-edited book, Educating the Profession: 40 years of the IFLA Section on Education and Training, during the session, "IFLA Presentation on Published Titles 2016," on August 15.

Weech will present his paper, "IFLA efforts to provide standards for international library and information studies education: The role of the IFLA Section of Education and Training – A case study," on August 16 during the session, "IFLA standards—making a difference?"

Associate Professor Jerome McDonough will give an invited talk titled, “New worlds to explore: The National Library in the digital age,” at the National Library-Ex Libris Annual Meeting held in conjunction with IFLA on August 17.

iSchool posters:

"Libraries promoting peace: An international resource and call for action"
Authors include faculty member Clara Chu, Rebecca McGuire (MS '15), and Susan Schnuer (MS '92)

"Talking back to the public library: Measuring and conceptualizing the little free library movement"
Authors include Associate Professor Kate Williams, doctoral student Noah Olafuwemi Samuel, and master's student Elizabeth Hartman

"Re-visioning library and information science education within an international context"
Authors include Professor Linda C. Smith

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

New multi-institutional project to use AI to represent past historical periods

A new project led by a team of researchers from four universities aims to create and evaluate language models that represent past historical periods. The project, "Artificial Intelligence for Cultural and Historical Reasoning," was recently selected for a 2025 Humanities and AI Virtual Institute (HAVI) award from Schmidt Sciences. The $800,000 grant will be split among four institutions: Cornell University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, The University of British Columbia, and McGill University. Professor Ted Underwood will serve as the principal investigator for the portion of the project at Illinois.

Ted Underwood

Wang group to present at WSDM26

Professor and Associate Dean for Research Dong Wang and PhD student Ruohan Zong will present their research at the 19th ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM 26), which will be held from February 22–26 in Boise, Idaho. WSDM is a premier international conference in web search, data mining, and AI, known for its highly selective acceptance rates. This year, the acceptance rate for the main track of the conference was only 16 percent. 

Dong Wang

New NSF award supports innovative role-playing game approach to strengthening research security in academia

A new National Science Foundation (NSF) award will support an innovative effort in the School of Information Sciences to strengthen research security by using structured role-playing games (RPG) to model the threats facing academic research environments. The project, titled "REDTEAM: Research Environment Defense Through Expert Attack Modeling," addresses a growing challenge: balancing the open, collaborative nature of academic research with increasing national security risks and sophisticated adversarial threats. 

Reynolds prepares for a career in global tech

Growing up on the south side of Chicago, BSIS student Devon Reynolds always saw his future in technology. He discovered the information sciences program during his senior year of high school and was drawn to its balance of challenging coursework. Choosing the iSchool at Illinois felt like a natural next step. 

Devon Reynolds

Spectrum Scholar Spotlight: Mariana Guerrero

Eight iSchool master's students have been named 2025–2026 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association. This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School's scholars. MSLIS student Mariana Guerrero earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish language and literature from Rockford University.

Mariana Guerrero

School of Information Sciences

501 E. Daniel St.

MC-493

Champaign, IL

61820-6211

Voice: (217) 333-3280

Email: ischool@illinois.edu

Back to top