Alea Perez is passionate about reading and librarianship, especially when it comes to teen services. On top of completing her master's studies this August, she manages her own YA lit website and recently started a new job as the head of youth services at the Westmont (IL) Public Library. Why did you decide to pursue an LIS degree? As a child, I was constantly surrounded by books thanks to…

Research Associate Professor David Dubin and doctoral candidate Cheryl A. Thompson will participate in the sixth Research Data Alliance (RDA) Plenary Meeting in Paris, France, on September 23-25. Dubin will cochair a meeting of the Research Data Provenance interest group, and represent that group in a joint meeting with the Metadata, Data in Context, and Metadata Standards Catalog…

Ian Brooks, GSLIS research scientist and founding director of the Health Sciences Group at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), is the principal investigator of a new project to develop a secure, longitudinal platform for health data collection. Collaborating on this effort is James A. Solomon, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the…

Susan Kumar (MS ’05) and husband Parameswaran Kumar have made a gift of $25,000 to establish the Taylor Willingham Lecture in Change Management.

You’ve dropped your cellphone and cracked the screen. Or your computer needs a memory upgrade, the headphone jack no longer works or the hard drive has failed. You’ve had the electronics for several years, and you could just buy the latest device with the newest features. Or you could fix the one you have. If repairing an electronic device yourself sounds prohibitively complex and you aren…

Colin Rhinesmith (PhD '14) has been named the new Benton Faculty Research Fellow by the Benton Foundation, a private foundation working to ensure that media and telecommunications serve the public interest and enhance democracy. In this role, Rhinesmith will conduct original research as well as advise the foundation on new research opportunities. In his first project for Benton, Rhinesmith is…

GSLIS alumna Gail Bush (MS ’77) has been named an Illinois Library Luminary by the Illinois Library Association. Bush’s passionate career in Illinois libraries spans five decades of service in academic, corporate, and school librarianship, as well as public library trusteeship. After earning a doctorate in educational psychology, Bush’s tenure as a library practitioner was followed by moving…

Thanks to a generous pledge from Lionelle Elsesser (AB '66, MS '67) and husband James Elsesser (BS '66, MS '67), GSLIS is one step closer to realizing its first faculty chair, the Endowed Chair in the History of Libraries and the Information Professions. Gifts of any size will be matched on a one-to-one basis up to a total contribution of $225,000 by the Elsessers, and the resulting $450,000…

Associate Professor Christine Jenkins, who has been a member of the GSLIS faculty since 1994, retired on May 31.

At GSLIS, Jenkins taught courses on literature and resources for young adults; youth services librarianship; literacy, reading, and readers; the history of children’s literature; and gendered perspectives in LIS. In addition to her GSLIS appointment, Jenkins was also a faculty member in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies.

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has selected four master’s students to participate in the 2015–2017 ARL/Music Library Association (MLA) Diversity and Inclusion Initiative (DII), including one from GSLIS. The fellows are: Opetoritse Agbejuleoritse Adefolalu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Avery Boddie, University of Maryland, College Park Morgan Davis, University…