Martin Wolske, senior research scientist and lecturer, participated in the event, “Digital Skills: A Gateway to Opportunity,” on June 13 at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. The event was hosted by Chicago Public Library (CPL) and Digital Promise, a nonprofit that works to improve opportunities to learn by encouraging innovation in education. 

Jon Gant, research associate professor and director of the Center for Digital Inclusion, will speak Monday at Michigan State University’s Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law.

Center for Digital Inclusion (CDI) Project Coordinator Sharon Irish’s research on the London-based artist Stephen Willats has taken her to the UK, where she will deliver two talks during a month-long visit.

Senior Research Scientist and Lecturer Martin Wolske spoke this week at the 2016 Nonprofit Technology Conference, hosted by the Nonprofit Technology Network on March 23-25 in San Jose, California.

The Chevy Suburban towing a U-Haul trailer pulled up to the decommissioned middle school in Metropolis, Illinois, population 6,000. A special kind of 4-H camp was about to begin. The four leaders—Gabriel Ewing, Jessica Nelson, Colten Jackson, and Virginia McCreary—unloaded the equipment: almost thirty laptops with Intel i5 processors; a thirty-watt mini laser engraver; six 3-D printers; six digital embroidery sewing machines; six electronic vinyl cutters; six soldering stations; and enough small-board electronics for up to a dozen participants to make mini robots out of puff balls.

A new book by Nicole Wedemeyer Miller (MS ’89), GSLIS adjunct lecturer, will be a resource for librarians looking to develop or enhance family history and genealogy services. Coauthored with Rhonda L. Clark, Fostering Family History Services: A Guide for Librarians, Archivists, and Volunteers, will be published by Libraries Unlimited in February 2016.

GSLIS will offer a new special topics course, LIS490GH: Global Health Informatics, for the first time in Spring 2016. Developed and taught by Research Scientist Ian Brooks, the course will be the first on the Urbana campus to expose students to the changing field of health informatics in developing parts of the world.

Three representatives from GSLIS will travel to Prato, Italy, next week to participate in the Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN) Conference.

The National Science Foundation has awarded $6 million to US Ignite—an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to spur development of advanced Internet applications that enable transformative public benefit—for a project to develop “living lab” communities across the country. Participating cities will serve as testing grounds for smart gigabit applications. Announcement of the grant…

Research Associate Professor Jon Gant will lead a series of webinars this fall designed for local government officials across the state of Illinois. Webinars will focus on e-government topics, such as best practices (September 17), technology planning (October 15), and using data and analytics (November 19). 

You’ve dropped your cellphone and cracked the screen. Or your computer needs a memory upgrade, the headphone jack no longer works or the hard drive has failed. You’ve had the electronics for several years, and you could just buy the latest device with the newest features. Or you could fix the one you have. If repairing an electronic device yourself sounds prohibitively complex and you aren…

GSLIS doctoral candidates Tiffany Chao, Noah Lenstra, and Nic Weber have been honored with 2015 Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships from Beta Phi Mu, the International Library and Information Studies Honor Society. Up to six recipients are selected each year for this prestigious award, a national competition among doctoral students who are working on their dissertations. The amount…

Senior Research Scientist Martin Wolske and incoming CAS student Travis Faust (MS '15) were among more than 15,000 attendees of the International Society for Technology and Education (ISTE) annual conference. Held June 28 - July 1 in Philadelphia, ISTE 2015 drew teachers, administrators, media specialists, and other educational technology enthusiasts. Wolske and Faust, along with alumna Miriam…

With a growing international population and a penchant for cross-campus collaboration, the University of Illinois provides a wealth of opportunities for area youth to learn about cultures other than their own. The Center for Children’s Books (CCB) teamed up with the Luso-Brazilian Association and University Housing recently to host one such multicultural learning event at the Orchard Downs Family…

Illinois alumnus Nama Budhathoki recognized the need for better documentation of Nepal’s roads and resources before disaster struck there last month. The former GSLIS student and a small team of volunteers began mapping Nepal in 2013, after Budhathoki saw the importance of accurate maps following the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010. "Navigation in Kathmandu [was…

Doctoral candidate Noah Lenstra (MS ’09, CAS ’11) was recently honored with the University of Illinois Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement. One of six award recipients for the 2014-2015 academic year, Lenstra was recognized for his work in community informatics, specifically in Champaign and East St. Louis. Lenstra has worked closely with Champaign’s African-American community to…