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

Raji invited to join UN Working Expert Group

PhD student Mubarak Raji has been invited to join the Working Expert Group on AI Governance Interoperability. This group operates under the United Nations Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies' new AI Governance for Humanity Lab. It supports the Secretary-General's High-level Advisory Body on AI by providing evidence-based analysis for the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, which will be held in July 2026 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Mubarak Raji headshot

Faculty and staff recognized with inaugural iSchool awards

The iSchool recognized faculty and staff for their contributions to teaching and outstanding service to the School at a ceremony on May 6. Interim Dean Emily Knox presented plaques to the inaugural recipients of the Faculty Teaching Award, Adjunct Teaching Award, and Staff Excellence Award.

Paper by He's lab recognized at ICLR 2026 workshop

The iDEA-iSAIL Joint Laboratory at the University of Illinois received an Outstanding Paper Award at the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) 2026 Logical Reasoning of Large Language Models Workshop for their paper, "RAG Over Tables: Hierarchical Memory Index, Multi-State Retrieval, and Benchmarking." Paper authors include lab members Jingrui He, professor and MSIM program director; Sirui Chen, Xinrui He, and Zihao Li, computer science PhD students; Jiaru Zou, computer science MS student; Dongqi Fu, alum; as well as Jiawei Han, professor of computer science, and Yada Zhu, IBM collaborator. Chen gave an oral presentation of the research at the workshop, which was held last month in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This award was selected out of 206 accepted papers at the workshop.

Jingrui He

iSchool to shape development of cultural heritage documentation standards

The School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has formally joined the special interest group (SIG) that leads the development of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM), an ISO standard (21127:2023) for the exchange and integration of wide-ranging scientific and scholarly documentation about the past. 

Nicola Carboni

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