School of Information Sciences

Adams-Clark and Deutsch receive 2022-2023 Outstanding Graduate Student Award

The Library Awards and Recognition Committee is pleased to announce that MSLIS students Savannah Adams-Clark and Annika Deutsch have been selected as recipients of the 2022-2023 Outstanding Graduate Student Award. This award recognizes graduate student workers for exceptional accomplishments and service to the University Library.

Savannah Adams-Clark
Savannah Adams-Clark

Adams-Clark has had several roles in the Conservation unit, beginning a few years ago as a volunteer repairing materials from the Center for Children's Books. Since becoming a graduate student, she performs binding repairs, adhesive reduction and encapsulation, among other treatments. She also has added a significant research component to her work, including learning and successfully applying one of the most chemically complex treatments in conservation, Calcium Phytate treatment, to stabilize historic documents.

Adams-Clark was nominated by Quinn Ferris, senior conservator for special collections, along with Jody Waitzman, Kara Hagen, and Marco Valladares. Ferris commented, "Savannah holds herself to a high standard in everything she does, including carefully researching and experimenting before executing a complex conservation treatment. She stands out for her drive to understand each new task or procedure in the context of the greater picture—whether that is historical bookbinding or the role of preservation and conservation in an academic library. She is actively engaged in the Society for American Archivists, the Midwest Regional Conservation Guild, as well as our monthly reading group. Every time she learns something new outside the lab, Savannah shares her knowledge, from circulating useful resources to training staff on the use of new equipment. Savannah frequently takes things well beyond what is expected of her, including authoring procedural documents, improving our used photo-documentation, and updating social media workflows—these are integral to our ongoing growth and success of our unit. Savannah has also been indispensable in many of the bigger watershed projects that Conservation has taken on in recent years, such as the Council of Administration records and the Woodward Advertising collection, and recently dedicated many days of analysis and experimentation to perfect a conservation technique that stabilizes Iron Gall ink. This study will have a great impact for our important manuscript collections, for example, the Isaac Newton manuscript."

Annika Deutsch
Annika Deutsch

Deutsch is the lead graduate assistant at Grainger Engineering Library Information Center (GELIC) and coordinates the schedules and training of the other nine graduate students on the staff of the Physical Science and Engineering Libraries division. She works in consultation with the unit head to suggest policy for the graduate assistants, write documentation, and coordinate shifts to ensure coverage for the reference desks, among other duties.

Deutsch was nominated by Megan Sapp-Nelson, head of GELIC, along with Alex Cabada, emerging technologies and immersive services librarian. Sapp-Nelson shared, 'Annika has been key to the success of our graduate assistantships through her skillful schedule coordination and advocacy for the needs of GAs while balancing the priorities of the library as a whole. Annika also led multiple large projects to support student employee training, improved workflows, and internal documentation. She created resources that didn't previously exist, including a Teams site that centralizes communication for GELIC GAs. Annika's many contributions were instrumental to Grainger transitioning back to a 24/5 schedule this year. In addition, she contributed to faculty research projects as diverse as Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe's Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project and Bill Mischo's bibliometrics data gathering. Finally, Annika leveraged her stellar communication skills to teach a Savvy Researcher workshop on professional interpersonal communication and currently serves as editor of the Grainger IDEA Lab Newsletter, where she has worked with campus faculty, staff, and students to promote the ecosystem around emerging technologies and entrepreneurship and how it aligns with the library digital scholarship space and services."

The following MSLIS students were also nominated for the award: Jenna Courtade, Digitization Services; Amanda Crego-Emley, Music & Performing Arts Library; Margot Cuddihy, Music & Performing Arts Library; Sam Ehlinger, GELIC; Hannah Jones, Teaching, Learning, and Academic Support; Mary Lawrence, Literatures and Languages Library; Faith McConnon, University Archives; Elizabeth Schwartz, Scholarly Communication and Publishing; and Ethan Walter, Slavic Reference Service.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Get to know Jade Carthans, BSIS student

Jade Carthans is interested in how human-centered design, machine learning, and data analytics can come together to solve critical problems that impact organizations and individuals. She gained firsthand experience in these areas through internships with Microsoft and State Farm.

Jade Carthans

iSchool faculty and staff present at AISLE annual conference

Join the iSchool for the Association of Illinois School Library Educators (AISLE) annual conference, held October 5–7 at the I Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign, Illinois. The theme for the conference is “Libraries Build Connections.”

AISLE awards to be presented to alumni, adjunct lecturer

Carolyn Kinsella (MSLIS '03), Beverly Frett (MSLIS '04), and Adjunct Lecturer Karen Egan have been selected to receive awards from the Association of Illinois School Library Educators (AISLE). They will be honored at an awards banquet during the AISLE Annual Conference, which will be held from October 5–7 in Champaign, Illinois.

Ravury selected to serve on Homecoming Court

BSIS student Lauren Ravury has a new item to add to her resume: member of the 2025 Homecoming Court at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Ravury's resume is already impressive. She serves as president of the Student Alumni Ambassadors (SAA), an organization dedicated to fostering school spirit at the U. of I. Last year, she served as president of the Asian Pre-Law Association, a stint that led to her receiving the Outstanding Asian & Asian American Undergraduate Student Leader Award from the Asian American Cultural Center and the association being named the 2025 Outstanding Asian & Asian American Student Organization.

Lauren Ravury

School of Information Sciences

501 E. Daniel St.

MC-493

Champaign, IL

61820-6211

Voice: (217) 333-3280

Fax: (217) 244-3302

Email: ischool@illinois.edu

Back to top