Carol Tilley, GSLIS assistant professor, is an invited speaker for the Colloquia Series at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia. Tilley’s presentation, “Children, Comics, Critics, and the Researcher,” is scheduled for January 30. In the mid-twentieth century, comic books were extremely popular but also a highly contested form of…

Assistant Professor Jana Diesner has received a $150,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to develop, evaluate, and apply a computational solution for measuring the impact of social justice documentaries. For the grant, “Impact Assessment of Social Justice Documentaries,” Diesner is supported by JustFilms, a division of the Ford Foundation that supports documentary filmmakers, particularly…

Nicole Cooke, GSLIS assistant professor, will receive the 2013 Norman Horrocks Leadership Award given by the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). Cooke is being honored for her leadership in a variety of professional ALISE activities including her service on multiple committees including the Doctoral Student special interests group, the Diversity Task Force, and…

Safiya Noble (MS ’09, PhD ’12), GSLIS alumna and assistant professor of African-American Studies at Illinois, has been named an affiliated faculty member of GSLIS. Noble’s research interests include the socio-cultural, economic, and ethical implications of information with a specific focus on the intersection of race, gender, and technology. Noble found her way to academia after a twelve…

GSLIS Assistant Professor Kate McDowell has been invited to serve on a committee convened by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that  is seeking nominations for a new nonfiction Summertime Reading List for children and young adults. “I see this list as a significant step in acknowledging the importance of nonfiction for children, as well as the readers who have always…

Tim Offenstein (MS ’11), GSLIS alumnus and adjunct instructor, was recently honored with a Larine Y. Cowan "Make a Difference" Award, which is given annually by the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access (OEOA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received the award for Excellence in Access and Accommodations, which recognizes either individuals or campus units whose efforts…

Professor Alistair Black has received an award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Research Board for his project "Buildings of Hope: The Design of Public Libraries in Britain in the Long 1960s." The project examines what modernist library design meant to librarians, architects, local politicians and planners, and the public. The research will contribute to recent revisions of the…

Research Associate Professor Jon Gant, director of the GSLIS Center for Digital Inclusion (CDI), has been invited to participate in an invitation-only broadband research conference on December 7 in Washington, DC. The event, sponsored by NC Broadband, a division of the North Carolina Department of Commerce, will "design a research agenda for how the country can best measure the economic impact…

Faculty and staff from GSLIS authored three out of the four articles published in the most recent issue of Information & Culture: A Journal of History (University of Texas Press, vol. 47, no. 4). The interdisciplinary journal, which broadly examines the history of information in cultural environments such as professional, academic, and societal settings, featured articles written by Professor…

Assistant Professor Bonnie Mak has been invited to lead a session of the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Teaching Book History workshop series on December 13-15, 2012. Hosted as a collaborative effort between the Folger Institute and the Folger Undergraduate Program, the three-day series will explore strategies, resources, and challenges in teaching book history to undergraduate students…

GSLIS Assistant Professor Carol Tilley recently launched a new blog featuring interviews with youth services librarians. The blog, “For the Future: What Today's Youth Services Librarians Want the Next Generation to Know,” was born out of Tilley’s desire to provide her students with more access to practicing librarians and to give librarians an opportunity to share their expertise.“I wanted…

The GSLIS International Music Information Retrieval Systems Evaluation Laboratory (IMIRSEL) is the principal organizer of the 2012 Music Information Exchange (MIREX), which took place at the 13th International Society for Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) Conference in Porto, Portugal held from October 8-12, 2012. MIREX is an evaluation campaign of music information retrieval…

GSLIS Professor and Interim Dean Allen Renear will deliver the opening keynote address at the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Forum, Tracking it Back to the Source: Managing and Citing Research Data which takes place on September 24, 2012, in Denver, Colorado. The forum will examine challenges posed by the exponential rise of data creation across nearly all scholarly…

The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced today that the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been awarded a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant in the amount of $99,168 for "Inclusive Gigabit Libraries: Learn, Discuss, and Brainstorm." With this IMLS support, GSLIS will hold a series of…

GSLIS Assistant Professor Miles Efron has been chosen by the Alumni Association Board of the School of Information and Library Science (SILS), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as their latest featured alumnus. After graduating from SILS in 2003, Efron has conducted research in information retrieval (IR) with a focus on projects related to microblogging and the digital humanities…

Terry von Thaden (PhD ’04), GSLIS assistant professor, has been elected to the Flight Safety Foundation's first Maintenance Advisory Committee which plays a key role in advancing aviation safety. The mission of the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) is to pursue the continuous improvement of global aviation safety.According to the Committee’s charge letter, the Maintenance Advisory Committee has been…

Carol Tilley, GSLIS assistant professor, has been selected to give the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Past Presidents’ Paper Presentation at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in January 2013. The award includes $1,500 to fund travel and registration costs. The YALSA Past Presidents’ Paper Presentation is an annual event at which librarians, educators, and students examine a topic…

J. Stephen Downie, professor and associate dean for research, was quoted in the article "When computers listen to music, what do they hear?" that was published in the Boston Globe on Sunday, July 8, 2012. The article covers work being done in computational musicology and music information retrieval. Downie, an expert in music information retrieval, is the principal investigator for the project…

Assistant Professor Kate McDowell has been named the 2012-2013 GSLIS Centennial Scholar in recognition and support of her accomplishments and promising scholarship in the field of library and information science. McDowell, a member of the youth services faculty at GSLIS, is an accomplished storyteller whose research focuses on the history of children as readers and of youth services…

GSLIS Assistant Professor Carol Tilley recently spoke with the U of I News Bureau about kids and summer reading. Tilley, a former school librarian and expert on comics and youth services librarianship, spoke with News Bureau news editor Dusty Rhodes. The full interview is available on the campus website.Parents tend to regard comics as the “candy” of the reading pyramid — treats to be consumed…