The Center for Children's Books (CCB) at the iSchool is hosting its Nineteenth Annual Book Sale from February 17-19, 2020. Sale hours are 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. each day. Thousands of brand-new children's books will be available for youth ages birth through high school. The titles available represent the full spectrum of publishing in children's fiction and nonfiction: board books, picture books, easy and transitional readers, chapter books, series fiction, novels, activity books and kits, nonfiction series, mass-market paperbacks, and more.

Brett Peugh joined the iSchool on January 2 as an endpoint services specialist. He comes to the School from the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL) on campus.  In his new position, Peugh will order, install, and provide second-level tech support for the laptops and desktops in the School.

Lindsey Sharp joined the iSchool on December 18 as a senior instructional technology support specialist. Sharp comes to the School from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where she worked in various roles involving educational technology for Applied Technologies for Learning in the Arts and Sciences (ATLAS). In her most recent position at ATLAS, she managed the student support team, provided instruction design support, and was involved in the LAS online administration and steering committee.

Leep student Meredith Dominguez has received the 2019 Military Libraries Training Workshop Student Award from the Military Libraries Division of the Special Libraries Association (SLA). The award will cover her travel and registration expenses for the Military Libraries Training Workshop, which will be held on December 10-12 in Arlington, Virginia.

The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books has released the 2019 Guide Book to Gift Books. This annual publication, available as a free downloadable pdf, highlights over one hundred of the best books for giving and receiving. 

Our School is grateful for talented and dedicated staff, who contribute greatly to our teaching and research excellence. This "Get to Know" series highlights our staff, sharing their friendly faces and stories of professional success.

For its defense of the First Amendment rights of incarcerated individuals, the Education Justice Project (EJP) has earned the 2019 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. EJP is a social justice and academic community of incarcerated students, educators, formerly incarcerated individuals, family members of the incarcerated, and others. Based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, EJP offers educational programs to eligible individuals incarcerated at Danville Correctional Center (DCC), a men’s medium-security state prison 35 miles from the Urbana campus.

For the first time in the journal’s history, Library Trends has published a bilingual issue. Communities and Technologies: Realities, Challenges, and Opportunities for Librarians in Cuba was edited by Kate Williams, iSchool associate professor; Pedro Urra González, professor of information technologies at the University of Havana’s School of Library and Information Sciences; and Professor Yohannis Martí-Lahera, professor, director of information, and director of the Central Library at the University of Havana.

Moises Orozco Villicaña, director of enrollment management at the iSchool, was featured in the fall 2019 issue of Perspectives, the magazine of NAGAP, which is the Association for Graduate Enrollment Management. In the interview, "A Candid Conversation on Increasing Enrollment of Underrepresented Students in Graduate School," Orozco Villicaña described his personal motivations for pursuing higher education, his experiences working with underrepresented students, and some of the challenges associated with the recruitment and retention of students of color. He also presented on this topic at the 2019 NAGAP Annual Conference earlier this year.

The iSchool is hosting a special two-day gathering, INDABA: Why Libraries? Why Librarians?, from November 15-16. All are invited, and remote participants can join online. The event will be recorded.