News From GSLIS at Illinois

Faculty News

Learn more about the HathiTrust Research Center
The HathiTrust Research Center, a collaboration between the University of Illinois and Indiana University, is developing tools and cyberinfrastructure to help scholars with research using the HathiTrust Digital Library. Watch this video produced by the Center to learn more about its aims and to hear from HTRC co-director Stephen Downie, GSLIS professor and associate dean for research.

Jana Diesner receives XSEDE allocation award, Ford Foundation grant
Jana Diesner, assistant professor, has received a start-up allocation award from the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). This award provides Diesner and her co-PI Brent Fegley, a doctoral student in the Informatics program, with time on XSEDE’s high-performance computing resources. For this project, the team uses natural language processing and machine learning techniques to develop an entity extraction technology that is particularly useful for applications in the social sciences and humanities.

Diesner is also principal investigator on a grant awarded by the Ford Foundation to develop, evaluate, and apply a computational solution for measuring the impact of social justice documentaries. Diesner was approached by Ford to help them understand the broader impact of such media productions. Diesner sees the project as a demonstration of the broad scope of research in GSLIS. “This project allows us to be part of a larger, current, real-world initiative, and to bring our advanced expertise in socio-technical data analytics to the table. I am thrilled to contribute to the Ford Foundation’s mission to ‘advance social justice worldwide’ with our scientific work, and to ‘work with visionaries on the frontlines of social change’” she said.

Alistair Black receives support for research on library design
Professor Alistair Black has received continued support from the University of Illinois 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 against the backdrop of a powerful desire for national modernization. The research will contribute to recent revisions of the thesis that the 1960s in Britain was in effect a “failed” decade.

Emily Knox on banned books, knowledge, and power
Get to know GSLIS Assistant Professor Emily Knox in a new interview where she talks about her childhood interest in banned books and the issues of knowledge and power explored by her current research on intellectual freedom.

McDowell serves on NEH committee to develop reading list
Assistant Professor Kate McDowell is serving on a committee for the National Endowment for the Humanities that seeks to create a nonfiction summer reading list to supplement the organization’s standard summer reading list. She has been working with the committee to issue a press release and call for nominations and will serve on the final evaluation committee.

Jenkins appointed to award committee
GSLIS Associate Professor Christine Jenkins has been appointed to the 2014 Committee for the Sibert Information Book Medal, awarded by the Association for Library Service to Children.

Stevenson helps to plan ALSC preconference
Center for Children’s Books Director Deborah Stevenson will be serving on the Association for Library Service to Children Preconference Planning Committee, which will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Caldecott Medal at the ALA Annual Conference.

Wickett gives presentation on scientific data at annual American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting
In December, Karen Wickett (MS ’07, PhD ’12), a postdoctoral research associate at GSLIS, presented “Representing Identity and Equivalence for Scientific Data” at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the largest worldwide conference in the geophysical sciences, which attracts more than 20,000 Earth and space scientists, educators, students, and other leaders. Wickett addressed the issues of equivalence and identity in the representation of scientific data with two conceptual models developed out of the Data Concepts Group at the Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship (CIRSS). The presentation is based on a paper coauthored with CIRSS Doctoral Student Simone Sacchi, and CIRSS affiliated faculty members David Dubin and Allen Renear.

Doctoral Student News

Leetaru attends National Academies Keck Futures Initiative, Supercomputing conference