The iSchool has surpassed its $20 million goal for the "With Illinois" campaign, the Urbana campus' most ambitious fundraising effort to date. Gifts toward "With Illinois" will continue until June 30, 2022. The School's priorities for the campaign are to offer an accessible education, enrich the student experience, and provide faculty support.

The iSchool is pleased to announce that five of the eighteen students selected to participate in the 2021-2023 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Kaleidoscope Diversity Scholars Program are from the University of Illinois. With the goal of attracting MS/LIS students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups to careers in research libraries and archives, the Kaleidoscope Program offers financial support to scholars as well as leadership development through the ARL Annual Leadership Symposium, a formal mentoring program, career placement assistance, and a site visit to an ARL member library.

Denzel Goodloe has joined the iSchool as assistant director for MS/IM and MS/BIO advising. In this role, he provides academic advising for students enrolled in the MS in information management (MS/IM) and MS in bioinformatics programs.

The iSchool's Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship (CIRSS) will highlight responsible data science and artificial intelligence (AI) in a special speaker series this fall. Topics to be addressed in the new series include explainability, reproducibility, biases, data curation and governance, and privacy. 

Melissa Madsen joined the iSchool on August 2 as director of human resources. She comes to the School from the College of Fine and Applied Arts, where she served as the associate director of human resources.

Deborah Stevenson, editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, will retire from the University of Illinois on July 31. Stevenson has been with The Bulletin, one of the nation's leading children's book review journals for school and public librarians, since 1989 and has held the position of editor since 2001. From 2010-2019, she also served as director of the iSchool's Center for Children's Books (CCB).

MT Campbell recently earned her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute. This certification required 35 hours of professional training, an application process, and passing a test. She looks forward to implementing what she learned "to provide first-rate support to research faculty in managing their grant projects."

The Community Data Clinic, a mixed methods data studies and interdisciplinary community research lab led by Associate Professor Anita Say Chan, has received a $50,000 grant to address gaps in household access to computing devices, hotspot connectivity, and digital literacy skills in East Central Illinois. The grant is part of the state's Broadband Regional Engagement for Adoption and Digital Equity (READY) program, which is operated through the governor's office and Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The Community Data Clinic at the University of Illinois is one of only four sites that are partnering with the state on this effort.

Eight iSchool master's students have been named 2021-2022 Spectrum Scholars by the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services. Since 1997, the Spectrum Scholarship Program has promoted diversity among graduate-level students pursuing degrees in library and information studies through ALA-accredited programs.

In celebration of its 75th anniversary, the Center for Children's Books (CCB) has published a digital exhibit highlighting defining moments from its past.

"The history of the Center for Children's Books provides an excellent window into the history and evaluation of U.S. children's books more broadly—and for a period when both the quality and quantity of youth literature published increased tremendously," said CCB Director and Professor Sara L. Schwebel, who worked with a team of graduate assistants to design and publish the multimedia site.