It was her interest in understanding how people seek and use information, particularly STEM-related information, that inspired Sharon Han to pursue her MS/LIS degree. At Illinois, she has gained experience as a graduate assistant in the Funk ACES Library and a research assistant for the Young Researchers project. 

Sharing and reusing research data is becoming increasingly common in the scientific world, allowing researchers to more easily build on the work of others as they seek new discoveries.

Liliana Giusti Serra is a visiting scholar at the iSchool, on sabbatical from her doctoral studies at São Paulo State University (UNESP) and job at Prima Informática in Brazil. Her research interests at UNESP include the semantic web and e-books, and at the iSchool, she is working with Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider to learn how linked data can help manage e-books.

MS/LIS student Michael Pritz discusses his internship with NASA.

iSchool master's students Laura Rocco and Elise Feltman are the recipients of the first Robert Howerton Graduate Student Research Award from the University Library. The award financially supports students who hold a pre-professional graduate assistantship position at the library and who are engaged in research regarding reference and technical services with plans to publish their work.

As a new master's student in library and information science, funds were tight, and Curt McKay (MS '88) hoped for an assistantship to ease his financial burden. Leigh Estabrook, dean of the School, noticed that McKay had been a teacher and offered him an assistantship in the learning resources lab. "At Illinois, not only did I start learning a new career, but I got carried away by this wonderful atmosphere," McKay recalled. Instead of completing his degree in one year as he had planned, he decided to extend it to two years, then in April of his first year, a job opened up in the School, and McKay was encouraged to apply.

Associate Professor and PhD Program Director Jana Diesner will serve as a keynote speaker at the 1st workshop on reframing research at the European Symposium Series on Societal Challenges in Computational Social Science, which will be held December 5-7 in Cologne, Germany. The theme of the 2018 symposium is “Bias and Discrimination.”

Current student Warren Lambert began his journey to the iSchool six years ago, when he first visited the Urbana campus in November 2012 to find out more about the MS in library and information science (MS/LIS) program. At the time, he was finishing up his bachelor's degree in art history at the University of Missouri St. Louis (UMSL).

Anna Oates (MS '18) won the National Records of Scotland Award for the Most Outstanding Student Work in Digital Preservation for her master's thesis work on the PDF/A standard. She received the award on November 29 at a ceremony at the Amsterdam Museum, as part of an international conference hosted by the Dutch Digital Heritage Network and the Amsterdam Museum on World Digital Preservation Day. According to the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), who sponsored the awards, this year marked the greatest number of nominations the organization has received to date, and those selected as finalists faced tough competition from entries across the world.

MS/LIS student Aileen Nolan discusses her summer internship with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Transportation Library.