Visiting Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek has received the 2017 Elfreda A. Chatman Research Award for her research proposal, "An Exploration of Everyday Information Behavior." The award is presented by the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Special Interest Group (SIG), Information Needs Seeking and Use (USE).

Several iSchool faculty and students will participate in the 2017 Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting, which will be held October 27-November 1 in Washington, D.C. The meeting, now in its 80th year, is the premier international conference dedicated to the study of information, people, and technology in contemporary society. This year's theme is "Diversity of Engagement."

Daniel S. Katz, iSchool affiliated faculty member and assistant director for scientific software and applications at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), was the keynote speaker for the International Workshop on Science Gateways – Australia (ISGW-A) during the 11th eResearch Australasia Conference, and was the closing plenary speaker for the conference, which was held from October 16-20 in Brisbane, Australia.

According to Associate Professor Kate McDowell, storytelling is one of the few ways you can help people quickly understand cause, effect, and what they can do. For that reason, storytelling is a valuable tool for nonprofits wishing to educate the public about their mission and attract more volunteers and donations.

Master's student Tura Dover served as an intern for the Illinois Library Association (ILA) during its annual conference on October 10-12. Dover worked at the registration desk and said the best part about her experience was "meeting people from different arms of the library system and LIS programs" as well as getting a better understanding of the ILA.

Karla Lucht, graduate studies advisor and coordinator of continuing education, and Ann Ohms, K-12 program coordinator, will present at the 30th annual Illinois School Library Media Association (ISLMA) Conference in Springfield. The theme of the conference, which will be held October 19-21, is "30 Years and Shining Bright."

Senior Lecturer Maria Bonn and colleagues in Kansas and North Carolina have received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS LG-72-17-0132-17) to fund their project exploring the need for and components of an open educational resource (OER) for teaching library students and professionals about scholarly communication.

Assistant Professor and MS/LIS Program Director Nicole A. Cooke presented her research on October 3 as part of the Digital Dialogues series at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH). The series is the signature events program of MITH, a digital humanities center that is jointly supported by the University of Maryland (UMD) College of Arts and Humanities and UMD Libraries.

Assistant Professors Rachel M. Magee and Deborah Stevenson will present research on youth and technology at the Digital Media & Learning Conference 2017 from October 4-6 at the University of California, Irvine. The conference is an annual event supported by the MacArthur Foundation and organized by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub located at the UC Humanities Research Institute at UC Irvine.

Jana Diesner, assistant professor and PhD program director at the iSchool, is co-principal investigator on a multi-institutional initiative funded by the Army Research Lab to enable new predictive battlefield analytics and services. Diesner will collaborate on the project with researchers from Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering.