Associate Professor Terry L. Weech will discuss the accreditation of library and information studies (LIS) programs at the Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS) 10th international conference, which will take place on June 16-19 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The conference aims to provide a broad forum for the exploration of ideas in the field of LIS, information studies, and related disciplines.

The iSchool is pleased to announce the appointment of new directors for its master's degree programs. Associate Professor Maria Bonn will serve as program director for the MS in library and information science (MS/LIS), and Associate Professor Catherine Blake will serve as program director for the MS in information management (MS/IM). They will begin their three-year terms on May 16.

In Associate Professor Yoo-Seong Song's Applied Business Research class (IS 540), students learn advanced techniques of business research through hands-on experience with real-world clients. This semester, a team of students has been working with entrepreneur Douglass Lee, founder of the startup OneSoftDigm (OSD) and a senior in business at the University of Illinois.

Yoo-Seong Song, faculty member and librarian at the University Library, now has a joint appointment with the iSchool. As a result, he will increase the number of courses he teaches for the School and participate more broadly in advising students who focus on information consulting and related areas.

This month doctoral candidate Jim Jones presented his digital preservation work at the Society for Cinema & Media Studies 60th Annual Conference (SCMS 2019) and participated in the PBCore Workshop for Public Media Users and Educators.

Professor and Associate Dean for Research J. Stephen Downie will be the keynote speaker for Digital Scholarship Symposium 2019, which will be held on March 19 at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). The theme of this year's symposium is "(Re-)Mining Text: From Traditional to Digital." Co-organized by the Hong Kong Literature Research Centre and CUHK Library, the event aims to explore techniques and applications of text mining in the era of digital scholarship.

The iSchool launched a new apprenticeship program this fall with The Urbana Free Library. The program, which is modeled after an internship partnership between the Dominican University School of Information Studies and Skokie Public Library, will provide students with practical experience and additional exposure to all facets of library operations.

Due to record enrollment this fall, the iSchool held new student orientation in the Illini Union Ballrooms for the very first time. According to Meg Edwards, assistant dean for student affairs, the new venue provided a welcoming experience for students and a wonderful opportunity to engage.

The iSchool is pleased to announce that Kyungwon Koh will join the faculty in August 2018. She is currently an associate professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Koh's areas of expertise include digital youth, the maker movement, learning and community engagement through libraries, human information behavior, and competencies for information professionals. 

Assistant Professor and MS/LIS Program Director Nicole A. Cooke will be a panelist at the Hampton University Forum on Minority Recruitment & Retention in the Library & Information Science Field, which will be held August 1-2 in Hampton, Virginia. The mission of the forum, which is supported by an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant, is to identify critical issues in the recruitment and retention of minority librarians and serve as a springboard for ideas to effectively address these concerns.