As Perry Diggs pondered the next step in his academic journey, he asked some of his former professors for advice. Recognizing his love of research and archiving, they encouraged Diggs to consider a degree in library and information science. Now enrolled in the MS/LIS online (Leep) program, Diggs is grateful for their counsel as well as for the support he has received through the iSchool's George S. Bonn Scholarship. 

MS/IM student Shivani Dhavala discusses her internship with Tesla. According to Dhavala, her iSchool coursework and internship experience is preparing her for a career as a product manager, where she can "contribute to some really fascinating products that people would use."

In 2022, Illinois became the first state in the nation to mandate the teaching of Asian American community history in public elementary and secondary high schools. The Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History (TEAACH) Act ensures that every K-12 student in Illinois learns about the contributions of Asian Americans to the economic, cultural, social, and political development of the United States. To mark the implementation of this act, the Center for Children's Books (CCB) is hosting a series of events for the 2022-2023 academic year.

Imani Barberousse's interest in medical librarianship is a natural extension of her thirty years of experience as a doula and mother. She believes that collecting and disseminating birthing stories—especially those from women of color—can help inform and improve current medical techniques to reduce the current maternal and infant death rate in the United States. 

Thirteen iSchool master's students were named 2022-2023 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. This "Spectrum Scholar Spotlight" series highlights the School’s scholars. MS/LIS student Inbar Michael earned her bachelor's degree in history with a minor in humanities and law from the University of California, Irvine.

The NSF-funded FABRIC project has made steady progress establishing the groundbreaking network testbed infrastructure to reimagine the way large amounts of data are generated, stored, analyzed, and transmitted across the world. With the required hardware, software, storage, and fiber optic connections in place, the FABRIC system is available for early users to build and test novel large-scale experiments. 

A project co-led by Emily Knox is one of the twenty-five projects that recently received funding through the Chancellor's Call to Action Research Program to Address Racism and Social Injustice. The program is a $2 million annual commitment by the University of Illinois to respond to the critical need for universities across the nation to prioritize research focused on systemic racial inequities and injustices that exist not only in communities but in higher education itself. For 2022, the funded projects will focus on systemic racism and social justice, law enforcement and criminal justice reform, and disparities in health and health care.

Forty-four iSchool instructors were named in the University's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent for Spring 2022. The rankings are released every semester, and results are based on the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) questionnaire forms maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. Only those instructors who gave out ICES forms during the semester and who released their data for publication are included in the list.

A new project led by Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu and Associate Professor Jodi Schneider will assist researchers and journals in evaluating citation behavior in biomedical publications. They recently received a two-year, $300,000 grant from the Office of Research Integrity of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for their project, "Natural Language Processing to Assess and Improve Citation Integrity in Biomedical Publications."

Eugene L. Moore has joined the iSchool as assistant dean for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. In his new position, he will provide professional expertise, strategic leadership, administrative oversight, and collaborative guidance to advance the School's DEIA mission and initiatives.