After she graduates next month, master's student Jenny Bruxvoort will move to Oregon to work as a research and instruction librarian at George Fox University. The job will combine her interest in academic libraries and her desire to support students.

Four Illinois professors are creating the Innovation Illinois Community Laboratory + Interactive Exhibit with $150,000 in funding from the University of Illinois System, as part of an investment in the arts and humanities. This project will involve a yearlong course that welcomes undergraduate students from all disciplines, who will spend the year imagining, researching, and prototyping social innovation projects that will become part of a traveling exhibit.

On Saturday, April 27, local digital literacy professionals and smart city/big data practitioners will share the mic for a Day of Discovery. Organizers include the local broadband group UC2B and Associate Professor Kate Williams, aided by US Ignite. The event is free and open to all.

Day of Discovery kicks off with a presentation from Seattle, Washington, with Seattle's Digital Equity Manager David Keyes explaining their decades-long municipal campaign for a "technology healthy city." Then panels composed of digital literacy program leaders and local professionals involved in smart city work will discuss their current efforts and future directions.

Assistant Professor Elizabeth Hoiem has been named the 2019 recipient of the Judith Plotz Emerging Scholar Award, which is given annually by the Children's Literature Association (ChLA). The award recognizes an outstanding article of literary criticism by an early career scholar on the topic of children's literature within a given year.

Master's student Sharon Han has been selected as the winner of the 2019 Student Writing Award sponsored by Ex Libris Group and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) for her paper titled "Weathering the Twitter Storm: Early Uses of Social Media as a Disaster Response Tool for Public Libraries During Hurricane Sandy."