Elementary school librarian DaNae Leu is the recipient of the 2013 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award given by the faculty of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Leu is being honored for her efforts to defend the picture book In Our Mothers’ House by Patricia Polacco against her school administration’s…

[image1-right]An assistantship with The Center for Children's Books (CCB) during her time at GSLIS provided Ayanna Coleman with the knowledge and skills she needs to navigate the publishing world, and now she is launching her own literary agency, Quill Shift Literary Agency.Where do you work and what is your role?I'm the associate manager of events and programs as well as the librarian at the…

Assistant Professor Carol Tilley has been elected director of external relations for the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). She will officially begin her work after the ALISE annual meeting in January, 2014.

Five GSLIS master's students have been chosen by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) as 2014 Career Enhancement Program (CEP) fellows: Alonso Avila, Raquel Flores-Clemons, Sophie Hou, Bradley Kuykendall, and Jerrod Moore. Each year, ARL member libraries select a group of library and information science master's students to participate in this competitive program, which provides avenues…

[image1-right]To help accomplish her goal of becoming a law librarian, LEEP student Lindsey Carpino, JD, balances teaching law courses to paralegal students, working as a reference associate at a law school, and taking GSLIS courses.Why did you decide to pursue an LIS degree?I wanted to pursue an LIS degree because I developed an interest in becoming a law librarian while I worked as a reference…

A first career in journalism led Melinda Miller to explore information architecture, and her experience at GSLIS helped prepare her for a recent promotion. [image1-right]Where do you work and what is your role? I work at Pixo as the director of user experience and research. Pixo, located in Urbana, is a software company that designs and develops websites, mobile apps, and custom…

GSLIS Assistant Professor Jana Diesner will deliver a keynote speech at the Daegu Gyeongbuk International Social Network Conference (DISC) 2013, which will be held in South Korea from December 12-14. The theme of the conference is "Knowledge Network Analysis in the Emerging Big Data Research." Diesner’s keynote, "Words and Networks: Relevance of methodological choices for practical…

CIRSS researchers will make a strong showing as they share their expertise in scientific data curation at this week’s 46th annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The meeting, scheduled for December 9-13 in San Francisco, California, is the largest worldwide conference in the geophysical sciences, gathering more than 24,000 earth and space scientists, educators,…

Library Journal recently interviewed GSLIS Associate Professor Jerome McDonough in an article about the preservation of video games. McDonough is the principal investigator on the Preserving Virtual Worlds II project, which aims to build upon the findings of the original PVW project and create a set of best practices for digital preservation.

GSLIS Professor Alistair Black is the recipient of the Library History Essay Award for 2013. The prize is awarded annually by the Library and Information History Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) to the best essay on library history relating to, or published in, the British Isles in the previous calendar year. Black’s essay is titled, “…