As the calls for banning books in schools and libraries have increased exponentially in recent years, so have the requests for scholarly responses from Associate Professor Emily Knox, who has focused her career on studying intellectual freedom, information access and ethics, and book banning.

Librarians need to be able to communicate about social justice issues, and teaching social justice storytelling to library school students will help them develop the skills to do so, two researchers say. Associate Professor Kate McDowell and Nicole Cooke, a former Illinois information sciences professor who now teaches at the University of South Carolina, analyzed how to teach those skills through a storytelling assignment with their students.

PhD student Jamillah Gabriel and iSchool alumna Katrina Spencer (MS/LIS ’16) gave the keynote address at the Society of American Archives Annual Conference, which was held on August 25-27 virtually and in Boston, Massachusetts.

A new project led by Associate Professor Kate McDowell and Assistant Professor Matthew Turk will help libraries tell data stories that connect with their audiences. Their project, "Data Storytelling Toolkit for Librarians," has received a two-year, $99,330 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS grant RE-250094-OLS-21), under the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, which supports innovative research by untenured, tenure-track faculty.

Library makerspaces offer community members the opportunity to tinker, design, experiment, and create with a range of technology in an informal learning space. However, because current makerspaces and maker tools are highly vision oriented, blind and visually impaired (BVI) people have limited access to these learning opportunities. A new project led by Assistant Professor JooYoung Seo and Associate Professor Kyungwon Koh, director of the CU Community Fab Lab, seeks to address this problem by creating accessible maker programs for BVI learners and developing training materials for librarians and maker professionals on accessible making. The researchers were recently awarded a three-year, $498,638 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS grant LG-252360-OLS-22) for their project, "Promoting Computational Thinking Skills for Blind and Visually Impaired Teens Through Accessible Library Makerspaces."

Assistant Professor Yun Huang has been awarded a three-year, $399,996 Early Career Development grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS grant RE-252329-OLS-22), under the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, which supports innovative research by untenured, tenure-track faculty.

A research paper co-authored by Associate Professor Kyungwon Koh; Xun Ge, professor of learning sciences at the University of Oklahoma; and iSchool doctoral candidate Julia Burns Petrella has received a 2022 American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Research Grant by the Educators of School Librarians Section of AASL. Sponsored by ABC-CLIO, these grants recognize "excellence in manuscripts addressing a persistent and recurring challenge in the field of school librarianship." The awarded paper, "Librarian-Teacher Co-Teaching and the Role of School Librarians in Facilitating Inquiry and Maker Learning," was recently published in School Library Research. Recipients will present their papers in October at the 2023 AASL National Conference in Tampa, Florida.

Research Affiliate Lian Ruan (MS/LIS '90, PhD '11) has been selected as the recipient of the 2021-2022 Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) Outstanding Library Leadership Award in memory of Dr. Margaret Chang Fung. She was recognized at the CALA awards ceremony and board meeting on June 17.

PhD student Julia Burns Petrella has been selected as the 2022 recipient of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE)/University of Washington Information School Youth Services Graduate Student Travel Award, which will support her participation in the ALISE Annual Conference.

Assistant Professor Jodi Schneider has been awarded a three-year, $416,760 Early Career Development grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS grant RE-250162-OLS-21), under the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, which supports innovative research by untenured, tenure-track faculty.

With the recent publication of three studies on early-twentieth century Carnegie public library design, Professor Emeritus Alistair Black has completed his work for Cardiff University's Shelf-Life project. Directed by Professor Oriel Prizeman at the University's Welsh School of Architecture and funded by the United Kingdom's Arts and Humanities Research Council, Shelf-Life asks if the procurement of over 2,600 public library buildings across Britain and America a century ago, through the philanthropy of the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, could benefit from “systematic thinking regarding their revitalization” in light of today’s climate change and need for sustainability and recycling in construction.

MS/LIS student Anthony Martínez presented his research at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Division IV webinar, Projects in the Libraries - Ideas, Innovations, Initiatives, which was held on May 26. The goal of the webinar series is to provide a place for LIS students to share their projects, research, and ideas about different topics related to libraries.

PhD student Jamillah R. Gabriel will present her research at the Association of College & Research Libraries Conference (ACRL 2021), which will be held virtually from April 13-16. The theme of this year's conference is "Ascending into an Open Future."

Adjunct Assistant Professor Ellen Knutson (MS '02, PhD '08) and Quanetta Batts, director of outreach and engagement at The Ohio State University Libraries, have coauthored a chapter in the new book, Ask, Listen, Empower: Grounding Your Library Work in Community Engagement (ALA Editions, 2020). Edited by Mary Davis Fournier and Sarah Ostman, the book features contributions by leaders active in library-led community engagement and serves as both an educational resource for LIS students and a "go-to handbook" for current programming, adult services, and outreach library staff.

Doctoral candidate K.R. Roberto successfully defended their dissertation, "Description Is a Drag (and Vice Versa): Classifying Trans Identities," on December 11. Their committee included Associate Professor Kathryn La Barre (chair and research director), Associate Professor Carol Tilley; Toby Beauchamp, Gender and Womens Studies, University of Illinois; and Melissa Adler, Faculty of Information & Media Studies, University of Western Ontario.

Professor Emeritus Alistair Black discussed his research at the UK's Library and Information Group Work-in-Progress Conference, which was held virtually on November 27. At the conference, he presented an analysis of the 1962 feature film Only Two Can Play as a tool for learning about the history of the post-war public library in the UK.

Associate Professor and MS/LIS Program Director Maria Bonn will present her research at OE (Open Education) Global 2020, which will be held virtually from November 16-20.  The conference attracts researchers, practitioners, policy makers, educators, and students to discuss and explore how Open Education advances educational practices around the world.

Janice M. Del Negro (PhD '07) has been named an Illinois Library Luminary by the Illinois Library Association (ILA). This distinction honors individuals whose efforts have made a significant contribution to Illinois libraries.

iSchool Affiliate Professor Clara M. Chu, director of the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs and Mortenson Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois, along with collaborators from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and the University of Texas at Austin, have received a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The $208,142 grant will fund the IDEA (Innovation, Disruption, Enquiry, Access) Institute on Artificial intelligence (AI).

PhD student Clair Irwin will participate in the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s 2020 Virtual Seminar, New Directions in Scholarly Publishing: Community, Collaboration, and Crisis, which will be held September 30-October 1. The seminar will explore new ways for publishers and industry leaders to support peer-reviewed research and academic publishing, especially during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.