For Kelly Ferreira, receiving a Leep Scholarship has made "a world of difference." When she enrolled in the MS/LIS program, she was employed at the Ela Area Public Library in Lake Zurich, Illinois. However, she had to leave her position when she recently moved with her partner across the country. Now working as a library technician at Eastern Florida State College's Palm Bay campus, Ferreira appreciates the flexibility of the Leep online option as well as her scholarship.

Pamela Wisniewski, iSchool research fellow and assistant professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida, will deliver the 2019 Gryphon Lecture on Friday, March 8, at the iSchool. Sponsored annually by The Center for Children's Books (CCB), the lecture features a leading scholar in the field of youth and literature, media, and culture. It is free and open to the campus and public.

Through the Frankel Scholars internship program, students enrolled in University of Illinois Laboratory High School are able to collaborate with iSchool faculty mentors on various research projects. This year's inaugural program, managed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), includes 16 students who complete internships led by an NCSA staff member or an NCSA faculty affiliate from other units on campus, including the iSchool.

The Center for Children's Books (CCB) will host the 2019 Storytelling Festival, "Stories Like Yours," on Saturday, March 2, from 7:00-8:30 p.m. at the iSchool, Room 126. In collaboration with Associate Professor and Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Kate McDowell, the Festival will bring together the iSchool community for a celebration of student stories. 

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Nigel Bosch has joined the faculty. He also holds a joint appointment with the Department of Educational Psychology in the College of Education.

The iSchool Alumni Association (ISAA) is seeking nominations for three distinguished awards. The awards are given annually at the iSchool alumni reception held at the American Library Association conference. The deadline for nomination is April 1, 2019.

Fayrene Muhammad (MS '01) has been selected as the 2018 winner of the DEMCO/ALA Black Caucus Award for Excellence in Librarianship. The annual award is presented to the librarian who has made significant contributions to promote the status of African Americans in the library profession. These contributions may include, but are not limited to, research and scholarship, recruitment, professional development, planning or implementation of programs, or advocacy.

Professor and Executive Associate Dean Linda C. Smith (MS '72) has been named an Illinois Library Luminary by the Illinois Library Association (ILA). This distinction honors individuals whose efforts have made a significant contribution to Illinois libraries. Smith's nearly 50-year career began when she came to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Graduate School of Library Science (now the School of Information Sciences) in 1971 shortly after graduating summa cum laude in physics and mathematics from Allegheny College (PA). She received her MS from Illinois in 1972 and spent a year at Washington University School of Medicine Library in St. Louis as a trainee in computer librarianship. She then earned an MS in information and computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1975 and a PhD from Syracuse University, School of Information Studies in 1979. 

The University of Illinois is working with six other universities to streamline and improve access to books for students with disabilities who need an alternative to the print format. Part of a two-year effort funded by a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the project includes university libraries, disability resources offices and university presses, as well as the digital repositories HathiTrust, Internet Archive and Bookshare.

The lessons that Dorothy Vickers-Shelley (MS '75) imparted to students still resonate nearly a decade after her death. Vickers-Shelley was the head librarian at Yankee Ridge Elementary School in Urbana for 33 years, retiring in 2003.