Associate Professor and BS/IS Program Director Emily Knox was recently appointed president of the Board of Trustees of the Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF), a nonprofit legal and educational organization affiliated with the American Library Association, and elected vice president/president-elect of Beta Phi Mu, the international honor society for library and information studies.

Provost Andreas C. Cangellaris has announced the appointment of Dr. Eunice E. Santos as dean of the School of Information Sciences, effective August 16, 2019, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Santos currently serves as the Ron Hochsprung Endowed Chair and Professor, and department chair of computer science, at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

Associate Professor and MS/LIS Program Director Maria Bonn and colleagues in North Carolina and Kansas have received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (MS LG-36-19-0021-19) to fund their project, Scholarly Communications Notebook (SCN). Co-principal investigators on the project include Will Cross, director of the Copyright & Digital Scholarship Center at North Carolina State University Libraries, and Josh Bolick, scholarly communications librarian at the University of Kansas Libraries.

iSchool Career Services Coordinator Rebecca Hodson (MS '13) has coauthored a chapter in The Future Academic Librarian’s Toolkit: Finding Success on the Job Hunt and in Your First Job, a newly published book edited by Megan Hodge. According to the publisher (ACRL), this handbook will help readers add important skills to their professional toolkit, including advocating for themselves and their ideas, writing for publication, teaching effectively, connecting with faculty and students, and building their professional brand.

Professor Emerita Linda C. Smith was the first person that Richard Pearce-Moses (MS ’01) contacted after discovering that Illinois offered an ALA-accredited library and information science program online. He was interested in pursuing his MS/LIS degree through the School’s Leep program but had missed the application deadline by a few days.

The iSchool at Illinois seeks nominations for the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. The deadline for nominations is October 5, 2019. Given annually, the award acknowledges individuals or groups who have furthered the cause of intellectual freedom, particularly as it impacts libraries and information centers and the dissemination of ideas. 

Leep student Ben Chiewphasa recently received a 2019 W. David Rozkuszka Scholarship from the Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) of the American Library Association. The scholarship provides financial assistance to individuals enrolled in an MS/LIS degree program who are currently working with government documents in a library. Chiewphasa works as an adjunct government information librarian and cataloging specialist at the University of Montana and will transition to a tenure-track faculty government information librarian position at the University when he graduates in August.

Associate Professor Anita Say Chan has been selected as a 2019-2020 Data & Society Faculty Fellow. Data & Society is a research institute focused on the social and cultural issues arising from automation and data-centric technology. Its programs draw together researchers and a broad network of practitioners to bring new perspectives and intellectual breadth to the institute's work.

Five master's students have been named 2019-2020 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. Established in 1997, the Spectrum Scholarship Program promotes diversity among graduate-level students pursuing degrees in library and information studies through ALA-accredited programs.

Assistant Professor Elizabeth Hoiem presented her research at the Children's Literature Association conference (ChLA 2019), which was held June 13-15 in Indianapolis. With the theme "Activism and Empathy," this year's conference