Thirty minority students were recruited in the early 1970s to attend the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences (now the School of Information Sciences) at the University of Illinois. Called the Carnegie Scholars, all but one of the black and Latino students graduated, and they went on to successful careers in and out of the library profession.

A book edited by Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke and Miriam E. Sweeney (PhD '13) has been published by Litwin Books/Library Juice Press. Teaching for Justice: Implementing Social Justice in the LIS Classroom is the first in the publisher’s series on critical race studies and multiculturalism in library and information science.

Master's students Jessica Colbert and Daniel Mills will be presenting workshops on behalf of the iSchool Queer Library Alliance at the 2017 Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Trans, and Ally College Conference (MBLGTACC 2017), which will be held February 17-19 at Navy Pier in Chicago.

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke is the recipient of the 2017 American Library Association (ALA) Achievement in Library Diversity Research Award. This award recognizes her contributions to the profession and her promotion of diversity within it, defining achievement as a "body of work or a groundbreaking piece whose dissemination advances our understanding of or sparks new research in the areas of diversity."

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke's book, Information Services to Diverse Populations: Developing Culturally Competent Library Professionals, is now available from Libraries Unlimited.

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke is the 2016 recipient of the Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award for Teaching and Mentoring in Diversity, given annually by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The award honors Dr. Larine Y. Cowan, past director of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Access. 

Being a key-holding member of Makerspace Urbana—one of the few who have twenty-four hour access to the maker lab—comes with more responsibility than just locking up when you leave. Emily Knox, iSchool assistant professor and Makerspace Urbana keyholder, spoke recently with Illinois Public Media’s The 21st Show about the group’s efforts to create a diverse and inclusive space.

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke is a founding member of the advisory board for Our Voices, a new ALA initiative that seeks to increase diversity in the production and distribution of children’s books. Sponsored by ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom and Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services, Our Voices offers interested libraries a template to promote the growth of diverse, quality content in library collections.

Two iSchool master's students have been selected by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Committee on Diversity and Leadership to participate in the Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce (IRDW) as ARL diversity scholars: Siobhan McKissic and Nisha Mody.

Kristyn Caragher (MS '14) successfully completed her Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS) on July 12 with the presentation of her project, "Anti-Oppression Workshop Series at the University Library."

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke will speak at the 2016 LACUNY Institute on May 20 at Brooklyn College. She will copresent a talk titled, “Interrogating Racism and Exploring Identity in LIS Classrooms: Collaborative Autoethnography in Social Justice Education,” with Robin Kurz, assistant professor in the School of Library and Information Management at Emporia State University.

Assistant Professor Jana Diesner has been selected to join the first cohort of senior fellows of the Dori J. Maynard Senior Research Fellows program, a collaboration of The Center for Investigative Reporting and The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke is sharing her research on topics related to digital literacy, including pedagogical approaches to using social media in the classroom and identifying and confronting misleading information, with two conference presentations this month.

Two chapters written by members of the GSLIS community are featured in the latest volume of the Advances in Librarianship book series titled, Perspectives on Libraries as Institutions of Human Rights and Social Justice (Volume 41).

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke is the 2016 recipient of the American Library Association (ALA) Equality Award. The annual award is given to an individual or group for outstanding contributions toward promoting equality in the library profession.

Library Journal’s annual “Movers & Shakers” list recognizes professionals who are shaping the future of libraries in a variety of ways. GSLIS alumna Amita Lonial (MS ’09) is among the 2016 class of Movers & Shakers in the “Advocates” category. Lonial is the learning experiences manager at Skokie (IL) Public Library.

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke is one of three winners of the 2016 Kenneth and Sylvia Marantz Fellowship for Picturebook Research, which encourages scholars from the United States and abroad to make use of resources available at the Marantz Picturebook Collection for the Study of Picturebook Art in their research.

GSLIS master’s students Jessica Colbert and Annabella Irvine will participate in the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference (MBLGTACC) this week, where they will lead a workshop on locating LGBT materials in libraries and will represent the GSLIS student group, Queer Library Alliance (QLA). Held annually, the interdisciplinary conference is organized by students and is…

Assistant Professor Nicole A. Cooke will be the featured speaker at the inaugural event of the newly-formed Midwest Chapter of REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking. The event, which is open to the public, will be held on February 5 from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in room 1-470 of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Richard J. Daley Library.  

Associate Professor Terry Weech and more than a dozen GSLIS students will travel to Lyon, France, next week to participate in the BOBCATSSS 2016 symposium, held January 27-29.