Final projects in Government Information course result in publications

Dominique Hallett
Dominique Hallett, Adjunct Lecturer

Two students who were enrolled in the Government Information (IS 594) course this past spring are now published authors. Their papers began as their final project for the course, which acquaints students with government publications. With the students' permission, course instructor and Adjunct Lecturer Dominique Hallett submitted the papers to DttP: Documents to the People, and they were published in the journal's most recent edition (Vol. 51, No. 3).

In "Lessons Learned in Born-Digital Preservation," Miguel Beltran (MSLIS '23) discusses the importance of preserving government documents that are created in digital mediums. He gives the example of documents related to the war in Afghanistan and demonstrates how essential it is to preserve them and others of a similar nature. He emphasizes that the only way to ensure that born-digital government documents are available to future generations is to create laws that mandate their preservation—and to determine which agencies should be responsible for overseeing the process.

In her article, "The Relationship Between Government Documents and Black People Through the Coverage of the Black Panther Party," Informatics PhD student Kyra Milan Abrams argues that the coverage of the Black Panther Party in official government documents reflects how government documents cover Black people in general. According to Abrams, the "clear biases" she found in her research are not unique but demonstrate the beliefs in the U.S. about defying the status quo and about Black people.

Hallett serves as the government information and STEM librarian at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. She holds an MLIS from Louisiana State University and an MA in heritage studies and BA in political science from Arkansas State University.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Petrella defends dissertation

Doctoral candidate Julia Burns Petrella successfully defended her dissertation, "Educating Pre-Service School Librarians about Race, Racism, and Whiteness," on December 4.

Julia Burns Petrella

Guo defends dissertation

Doctoral candidate Qiuyan Guo successfully defended her dissertation, "Exploring Chinese Celebrity Fans’ Online Information Behaviors and Understandings of Their Practices," on December 6.

Qiuyan Guo

Tilley featured in comic book

Associate Professor Carol Tilley had an unexpected citation in her favorite medium—comic books! Dav Pilkey, author and illustrator of a number of bestselling and award-winning children’s books, including the popular Captain Underpants series, depicts Tilley's research on psychiatrist Fredric Wertham in his newest comic, Cat Kid Comic Club Influencers.

Dav Pilkey's comic depicting Carol Tilley

BIG projects span the globe

This fall, students in the Business Intelligence Group (BIG), the student consultancy group associated with Associate Professor Yoo-Seong Song's Applied Business Research class (IS 514), worked on projects related to supply chain management, digital health, biotechnology, and higher education for companies located at the University of Illinois Research Park and overseas in East Asia and Africa. 

Internship Spotlight: State Farm

BSIS student Evan Chen discusses his summer internship at State Farm, where he developed an interest in computer vision.

Evan Chen