The iSchool is co-organizing a workshop on digital scholarship with Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) Library on June 14-16 in Beijing. The workshop, Digital Scholarship Centers: Building Library Services for Data-Driven Scholarship, will instruct participants in library service models for digital scholarship and discuss concepts in digital humanities and computational social science.

Carol Tilley will be a keynote speaker for the NASIG 32nd Annual Conference, which will be held June 8-11 in Indianapolis. An independent association of librarians and academic publishing professionals, NASIG promotes communication, information, and continuing education about scholarly communications, serials, and electronic resources. 

MS student Vivian Alvarez works with tweens and teens at the Rudy Lozano Branch of the Chicago Public Library, which is located in the Mexican-American community of Pilsen. As part of her job, she develops programming for youth that nurtures learning and strengthens communities.

Master's student NaVosha Copeland is a 2017 recipient of the Harold T. Pinkett Minority Student Award given by the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The award will be presented at a ceremony during the SAA Annual Meeting in July.

Doctoral candidate Chris D'Arpa successfully defended her dissertation, "'Procure, propagate, and distribute among the people': The information service functions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1862-1888," on May 30.

Adjunct Professor Fred Schlipf and iSchool alumnus John Moorman (PhD '03) drew upon their wealth of experience working in libraries when writing The Practical Handbook of Library Architecture, which will be available this fall from ALA Editions. The authors are both retired directors of public libraries.

Elizabeth Vallen (MS '16) is the 2017 recipient of the Donald Peterson Student Travel Award given by the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The award supports attendance at the conference by a student and/or recent graduate from a graduate archival program in North America.

J. Stephen Downie, professor and associate dean for research, has been named a National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Faculty Fellowship awardee for the 2017-18 academic year. Faculty Fellows work with NCSA on specific projects aimed to help solve grand challenges facing all people, including deep learning, the internet of things, data analysis, volcano activity, and more.

As the neighborhood services librarian for the Oak Park (IL) Public Library, Sarah Yale facilitates community-focused programming and fosters engagement both inside and outside of the library with residents of all ages. From April through October, this engagement occurs through the Book Bike, a program she coordinates for the library.

Assistant Professor Jana Diesner and Professor Ted Underwood will present at Cultural Analytics 2017, a symposium devoted to new research in the fields of computational and data-intensive cultural studies, which will be held at the University of Notre Dame on May 26-27.