Each fall, an interdisciplinary team of students at the University of Illinois comes together to create an escape room. The class project is the culmination of a collaboration between two courses: Designing Immersive Adventures – Escape Rooms (Theatre 402/Game Studies and Design 490) and Makerspace – Escape Rooms (Informatics 418). 

Cindy Brya has been appointed assistant dean for communications and marketing. In her new role, she will lead the iSchool’s Communications and Marketing team, provide counsel to the dean, and shape the overall communications strategy.

iSchool faculty and students will present their research at the 27th International Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) ACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2025), which will be held in Denver, Colorado, October 26–29, 2025. This conference allows researchers to present their scholarship on design, evaluation, use, and education related to computing for people with disabilities and older adults.

The iSchool at Illinois is pleased to announce the publication of Library Trends 74 (1), titled “Genres and Their Uses in Cultural Documentation: Exploring Generic Access to Creative Worlds.” Pushing back against the notion of genres as “inferior” classifications due to their ambiguity, this issue instead explores how genre classifications facilitate access to creative works in libraries and beyond.

Eleven iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Summer 2025. 

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.”

This year marks the fifth cohort of the iSchool's Postdoctoral Research Associate Program. The program prepares candidates for tenure-track assistant professor or other appointments inside and outside of academia. The iSchool welcomed five new postdocs in the 2025–2026 academic year.

The iSchool at Illinois is pleased to announce the publication of The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books 79 (1). This issue features 80 original book reviews of new children’s books that will appear in publishers' fall catalogs.

The iSchool at Illinois is pleased to announce the publication of Library Trends 73 (4), the culmination of a two-part series on artificial intelligence (AI) in libraries. In "Generative AI and Libraries: Applications and Ethics, Part II," authors apply an academic lens to AI usage and how this rapidly evolving technology is impacting everything from ethics to instructional strategies. Librarians will also find insight into how students and faculty perceive AI and its place in the classroom.

The iSchool is pleased to welcome Nick Giacchina as its new director of advancement. He will work with iSchool alumni, donors, and the University of Illinois Research Park to align their philanthropic interests with the School's programs and goals.