Over thirty Chinese academic librarians have a better understanding of American libraries after participating in a visit to the Urbana campus. The visit was hosted by Lian Ruan (MS '90, PhD '11), head librarian and director of international programs at the Illinois Fire Service Institute

Two iSchool master's students have been selected by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Committee on Diversity and Leadership to participate in the Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce (IRDW) as ARL Diversity Scholars.

The first Annual Conference of the Comics Studies Society, "Mind the Gaps! The Futures of the Field," will be held August 9-11 at the iSchool at Illinois. This inaugural conference, cosponsored by the iSchool and The Center for Children's Books, seeks to bring together scholars, artists, and other members of the international comics studies community for critical conversations about the future of the field, in all its multidisciplinary and transcultural formations.

Anita Mechler (MS '08) has been named the new executive director of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association.

Assistant Professor Peter Darch will discuss problems with reproducibility in research at the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) 2018 Conference, which will be held July 25-28 at Lancaster University in the UK. EASST brings together a variety of disciplines, with many members having qualifications in both natural science/engineering and social sciences. The theme of this year's conference is "Meetings – Making Science, Technology, and Society Together."

Associate Professor Kate McDowell will present her research on storytelling at two upcoming conferences, the Midwest Association of Colleges and Employers (ACE) Annual Conference, which will be held July 23-25 in Rosemont, Illinois, and the National Storytelling Summit, which will be held July 25-28 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Two iSchool alumni, Jennifer Bueche (MS '94) and Lucas McKeever (MS '13), have been selected to receive awards from the Illinois Library Association (ILA).

Every year, more than one in three individuals aged 65 and older will experience a fall. Falls are the most common cause of injury in older adults, and can create ongoing health problems. But treatment and awareness of falling usually happens after a fall has already occurred.

Members of the Diesner research group will present a paper and posters at the 4th Annual International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2), which will be held July 13-15 at Northwestern University. Assistant Professor Jana Diesner is a program committee co-chair for the conference.

Recent graduate Wendy Hoi Yan Wong (MS '18) has been awarded a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). The fellowship program offers scholars the chance to develop new research models, collaborate with information specialists, and explore new career opportunities. In addition to her MS/LIS degree from Illinois, Wong holds a PhD in music from CUHK.