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.

Professor Allen Renear, School of Information Sciences, will join the Provost's leadership team as special advisor for strategic initiatives. Renear will be working closely with other University academic and research units to provide analysis, guidance, and leadership with the planning, coordination, and launch of selected strategic initiatives in the University's Strategic Plan, The Next 150. Priority will be given to activities and programs in support of the digital transformation initiative; graduate, professional, and continuing education at the intersection of disciplines; and, workforce-development strategies across the public and private sectors through the Discovery Partners Institute and the Illinois Innovation Network.

Associate Professor Bonnie Mak is an invited speaker at Literature and Formats, a symposium on the materiality of texts, which will be held at the University of Copenhagen on November 15-16. Organized by the Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, the event will bring together an international slate of speakers to examine the complex relationship between text and format. Mak's paper, "Scholarship and Its Formats: Documenting the Humanities," explores the enduring features of humanistic scholarship in different technological contexts.

Assistant Professor Rachel M. Magee will present her research at the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Symposium, which will be held on November 1-3 in Memphis, Tennessee. She will discuss her IMLS-funded Young Researchers project during the preconference workshop, "Literacies You Didn't Talk About in Library School." The workshop will involve "hands-on activities and conversation focused on supporting youth library staff, and the teens they work with, in the development of literacies that lead to future academic, civic, and personal success."

As a young professional working to advance her career, Leep student Erica Halpern appreciates the flexibility and convenience of the iSchool's online MS/LIS program. She also is grateful for the George Bonn Scholarship that she received from the School, which removed a "huge financial burden" and has allowed her to focus on her studies.

Héctor Hernández (MS '78) retired in September after 40 years with the Chicago Public Library, having served the past 30 years as branch manager of CPL's Rudy Lozano Branch. Located in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, the Rudy Lozano Branch is the largest Hispanic public library in the Midwest. Hernández was drawn to the field of librarianship because he never saw any Hispanic librarians when he was growing up. Over the course of his lengthy career at CPL, he became a role model for Hispanic youth in his community.

Teaching Assistant Professor Martin Wolske will present his work at the 17th annual Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN) Conference, which will be held on November 6-8 in Prato, Italy. The theme of this year's conference is "Whose Agenda: Action, Research, & Politics." Wolske also serves on the 2019 conference committee.

This past summer MS/LIS students Kaylen Dwyer and Jasmine Wong participated in the Oxford-Illinois Digital Library Placement Program, an ongoing collaboration between Illinois and Oxford. The 2019 program partnered with the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) as part of the grant "Digging Deeper, Reaching Further: Libraries Empowering Users to Mine the HathiTrust Digital Library Resources." The students proposed their own independent projects and were advised by faculty members at Oxford e-Research Center, David de Roure and Kevin Page, and iSchool partners Professor J. Stephen Downie and Visiting Research Services Specialist Ryan Dubnicek.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Associate Professor Victoria Stodden a two-year, $300,000 grant to facilitate research on scientific reproducibility. Her project, "Reproducibility and Cyberinfrastructure for Computational and Data-Enabled Science," seeks to improve understanding of how the scientific community can adapt to the increasing use of computing and large-scale data resources. Michela Taufer, the Jack Dongarra Professor in High Performance Computing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will serve as co-principal investigator on the project, which is funded by an NSF Early-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER).

Associate Professor Yang Wang will share his work at the National Science Foundation (NSF) Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) Principal Investigators' Meeting, which will be held on October 28-29 in Washington, D.C. He will share his research from two SaTC-funded projects.