The Impact of the 2021 International Studies Research Lab

Through the International Studies Research Lab (ISRL), the Center for Global Studies—in partnership with the International and Area Studies Library and collaborating centers—leverages the campus’ expertise and vast library resources to support the development of international and area studies programming in community colleges across the country, providing access to important US Department of Education Title VI resources to institutions and regions without direct access to these important grant funds. Programs like the ISRL constitute a true national resource that benefits community college students throughout the US.

A map showing that institutions in fourteen states have been impacted by the ISRL.The 2021 ISRL, which took place this past summer, marked the lab’s sixth consecutive year. Following the precedent set in 2020, the 2021 ISRL was completely virtual. It was hosted by the Center for Global Studies (CGS) in collaboration with the International and Area Studies Library; co-sponsors included the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies; the European Union Center; and the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center.

What is the ISRL? In a nutshell, it is an opportunity for community college educators to access the University Library’s vast collections—the largest of any public academic institution of higher education in the United States—and to consult with subject experts. Armed with these resources, ISRL participants join the lab with the intent to expand global studies curricula, improve their language programs, broaden the scope of their library collections, or further develop international education programs at their home institutions. The length of the ISRL has varied in the past, but this year, it lasted from May to the end of July. At the end of the lab, participants submit a final project. The projects take many forms; this year, participants submitted white papers, syllabi, teaching units, and bibliographies for library collection development.

The 2021 ISRL hosted 11 scholars from across the country in 2021—as far east as New York, as far west as Washington, and as far south as Texas. Their projects were all designed to benefit students at the scholars’ home institutions. For example, Dedric Lee created a teaching unit about the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. He plans to integrate the teaching unit into courses he teaches at Jefferson College in Missouri. Dr. Isabel Scarborough wrote a review about open-access textbooks at community colleges; she plans to use the findings to promote student success at Parkland Community College and develop an open-access Global Studies text. Stacye Fraser Thompson, drawing from her years of experience at Jefferson State Community College, composed a white paper about internationalizing curricula at community colleges. She hopes the paper will help administrators and educators around the US to prepare students for success in an increasingly globalized world.

In total, 9 finished projects were submitted for the 2021 ISRL. These are in addition to projects submitted from past labs, all of which are free to download from IDEALS, the university’s institutional repository. Through IDEALS, ISRL projects are discoverable through various search platforms, including Google Scholar and the University of Illinois’ online catalog. In total, ISRL projects have been downloaded over 18,000 times, and the number only continues to grow.

A graph showing that ISRL materials have been downloaded nearly seventeen thousand times through IDEALS.During the 2021 lab, CGS provided ISRL scholars with more opportunities to connect with each other than in the past. Some participants regularly attended a weekly “coffee hour,” and others communicated via email after meeting during the lab orientation or the final workshop. CGS hopes to optimize the lab’s structure in the future to continue encouraging these interactions. Future plans include reintroducing an in-person component while still offering opportunities for virtual-only participants.

Despite the abrupt transition to a virtual lab format in 2020 and 2021, ISRL scholars continue to voice positive feedback about their ISRL experiences. In this year’s anonymous post-lab survey, one scholar wrote, “This was a great program, and I learned a lot from the other programs and ideas that other participants presented. It was exciting to see the robust ideas circulating among community college faculty.” Another said, “The course [I] designed in the ISRL has expanded our Global Studies Program and has shown the administration that not only is there support, but desire for additional Global Studies curriculum in the faculty.”

More information about the ISRL, along with a list of 2021 ISRL fellows, is available on the CGS website. For notifications about announcements about next year’s lab, please subscribe to the ISRL mailing list. If you have any questions, please email the Global Studies Librarian, Dr. Steve Witt, at swwitt@illinois.edu.

The International Studies Research Lab is made possible through Title VI funds provided by the US Department of Education.

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Celebrate the NEA Big Read with Us!

This past weekend was the kick-off for the NEA Big Read* of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. Between the tasty samosas and snacks, the vibrant exhibit, the invigorating keynote address, and the friendly crowed comprising campus and local community members, the kick-off event provided a glimpse of what all is to come over the course of the next six weeks.

Dr. Koeli Goel gives remarks at the kick-off event at the Spurlock Museum for the NEA Big Read on Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake".

Dr. Koeli Goel gives remarks at the kick-off event at the Spurlock Museum for the NEA Big Read on Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake”. Photo credit: Dr. Koeli Goel

The International and Area Studies Library is one of collaborating institutions working to provide 35 programs through February and into March to celebrate The Namesake and themes such as South Asia, diaspora, culture, immigration, and identity. Other partnering organizations include the Spurlock Museum, the Champaign Public Library, the Urbana Free Library, the Art Theater, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and more.

While all of the programs are free and open to the public (and all are worth attending) we would like to highlight the events being planned by the International and Area Studies Library so that our devoted readers and fans can come out and support us. So mark your calendars for the following exciting events:

Thanks to the generous support of the Dean of the Libraries, John Wilkin, and Mr. Pappu Patel of Bombay Market we are able to provide free refreshments at all of the events happening in the International and Area Studies Library. Events happening at other locations will have food and drinks available for purchase.

In addition to all of these wonderful events, there will also be two ongoing exhibits in the library throughout the month of February. Check out the first exhibit in the Marshall Gallery on the first floor of the Main Library building and then come up to IASL on the third floor to check out a second exhibit.

Please note that you do not have to have read the book in order to participate in any or all of these events. If you do want your own copy of the book, the International and Area Studies Library still has a few free copies to give away. If you have any questions or feedback about the programs, please feel free to be in touch with South Asian Studies & Global Popular Culture Librarian Mara Thacker (mthacker@illinois.edu), who is organizing the programs for IASL. Finally, if you are participating or following along on social media please tag us with #CUBigRead !

Happy reading!

NEA Big Read logo*NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

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Happy Halloween! Celebrate with Horror Manga

On Wednesday, October 31st, Billy Tringali – a graduate student in the School of Information Sciences – will present a guest lecture as part of the IAS Library’s Halloween Spooktacular.

Read on for an interview with Tringali about his presentation on manga horror master Junji Ito:

comic panel

A Junji Ito panel

Can you describe what attendees can expect from your lecture?

The work of manga artist Junji Ito can most easily be defined as a hybrid between the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft and the body horror of Cronenberg’s The Fly. His work is terrifying, disgusting, and occasionally darkly comedic.

This short lecture will focus on how Ito expertly fuses together his writing and artistic style to create a deeply nihilistic world, crafting an overarching argument in his short stories about the inability for world to be change in a positive way.

It sounds very dark and upsetting – but I promise it will be fun!

comic panel

A Junji Ito panel

How did you become interested in Junji Ito?

I first found out about Ito through his wildly popular The Enigma of Amigara Fault. It’s a fantastic short story about the addictive nature of finding your place in the world, and how much we are willing to bend and twist ourselves to fit into the boxes society presents us with.

Ito, of course, interprets this literally [see following image].

comic panel

A Junji Ito panel

In starting my research into Ito I was shocked to find that there has not been much written about such a genius author, which really doubled-down my desire to analyze his work!

The Enigma of Amigara Fault is actually so popular on the internet it was referenced in the children’s show Steven Universe!

Gif from Steven Universe – https://imgur.com/gallery/ZxhhXR7

What draws you to this genre, and what are your related research interests?

I’ve been a big fan of anime and manga since I was in about 8th grade. It’s a medium that can be used to create such deep, inspiring stories, and I really don’t think it’s looked upon or elevated in scholarship the way it can be. With the growth of comics’ studies, I’m hoping anime and manga studies will begin to pick up more steam in the academe!

This interest also led me to found the The Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, an open access journal I was able to build with help from the University Library’s Scholarly Communication and Publishing department. The journal will be launched this spring!

comic panel

A Junji Ito panel

What are some interesting things that have come up in this research?

There is so much room for growth!

Anime and manga studies has been approached from so many different angles by so many different scholars, but there is still a massive amount of work that can (and should!) be done in this field.

I encourage anyone interested in studying anime and manga to simply dive in!

comic panel

A Junji Ito panel

You recently presented about this work at a conference – what is it like to be scholar of popular culture?

Every important piece of media, at one point, has been popular culture.

All of Shakespeare’s plays. Every Sherlock Holmes novel. It’s all been popular culture. Even literary classics like Dante’s Inferno could be seen as self-insert fanfictions.

The only difference is time.

Scholars of popular culture are on the front lines of public engagement, and I feel that analyzing popular culture is a great way to introduce students to theories, histories, and methodologies while also elevating the brilliant work happening all around us today.

Billy Tringali will present his lecture on Junji Ito at 3 pm Wednesday, October 31st at the International and Area Studies Library. Happy Halloween!

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Reviving a Revolution: Exploring Newspapers at the Slavic Research Lab

Zohra Saulat with her poster at BOBCATSSS 2018

By Zohra Saulat

When I decided to pursue librarianship, I did not imagine that it would take me across the world. Just a few short weeks ago I had the opportunity to present one of my projects in Riga, Latvia for the 2018 BOBCATSSS symposium. Not only was this my first ever library conference, but this was the first time I traveled to Europe. The experience itself was exciting, but I was also thrilled to share my project, which had its start on campus at the International and Area Studies Library.

The exhibit about the Russian Revolution was on display in the main library for the month of September 2017.

 

 

This past summer, I assisted with IAS’ Slavic Summer Research Laboratory (SRL). Since 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of Russia’s Revolution, one of my duties to was to help create a banner that would accompany a library exhibit commemorating the historical event. The library exhibit featured memoirs and artifacts from the library’s Slavic collection as well as from the University Archives. My specific task was to survey how historical English language newspapers around the world were reporting on the events of the Russian Revolution. I used both microfilm copies as well as digitized newspapers.

 

Screenshot of a Daily Illini article about a Russian chemist

Using the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections, I started local and looked to see if the Daily Illini was reporting on the Revolution in 1917. I was pleased to find a few articles that featured the Russian Revolution. One was of Illinois faculty member Dr. Simon Litman giving a series of lectures. Another was of a student, who was also a refugee from Russia, as well as a library worker, who also gave a talk on the events of the revolution. Another was a brief feature on a female Russian chemist who was continuing her studies on campus since all universities in Russia were closed at the time of the Revolution.

I further expanded my search to American newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune as well as international newspapers Sunday Times of London, Times of India, and the North China Herald.  It was especially interesting to see how oppressed groups were reporting on this particular Revolution. In all the newspapers I examined,I realized that there seemed to be a lot of information circulating regarding the Russian Revolution. There was indeed a lot of buzz as well as philosophical musings, but I noticed there was also a trend of rectifying supposed misinformation. Take the highlighted Daily Illini newspaper articles as examples. The events on campus were designed to refute certain information and present what the revolution was supposedly really like. This makes sense; In a time of war and political upheaval especially, not only is there information overload, but also misinformation.

Screenshot of a Daily Illini article about Dr. Simon Litman

Newspapers provide a fascinating historical insight. In 2018, whether a news article or a tweet (presidential or personal), a lot of information is found and preserved online. But 100 years ago, newspapers were the go-to for current information. If you are interested, be sure to check out the library guide on using newspapers as primary sources, also listed at the end of this post.

As someone who studied history in undergrad, I naturally enjoyed the nature of this project. But my favorite aspect was seeing its progression: that is,  the process from start to finish, and the collaboration with a variety of experts and specialized departments to put together an exhibit for public consumption. These resources –  whether digitized online or preserved as physical copies – are waiting to see the light of day once again. Libraries contain such valuable information. Often it takes the conscious efforts of a team of librarians and archivists to revive a revolution. I may be a little biased, but libraries truly are remarkable.

Zohra presenting her poster on-stage at BOBCATSSS 2018

Resources:

http://guides.library.illinois.edu/periodicalshttp://guides.library.illinois.edu/periodicals
https://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/newspapers/
http://idnc.library.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/illinois?a=cl&cl=CL2&e=——-en-20–1–txt-txIN——–
http://guides.library.illinois.edu/OrientationtoSRL
http://reeec.illinois.edu/programming-and-events/summer-research-laboratory/srl-application/
https://bobcatsss2018.lu.lv/
https://19172017.weebly.com/

Zohra Saulat
Graduate Assistant | Undergraduate Library
MSLIS Candidate | School of Information Sciences
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Conference Travel: BOBCATSSS 2018 and the Latvia National Library

Photo by Indriķis Stūrmanis, courtesy of http://bobcatsss2018.lu.lv/venues/

From Wednesday, January 24 to Friday, January 26, I attended the BOBCATSSS 2018 conference in Riga, Latvia. BOBCATSSS is an acronym that stands for the cities of the universities that initiated the first conference in 1993: Budapest, Oslo, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Tampere, Stuttgart, Szombathely and Sheffield. Since that first year, this international library and information science conference has been held in cities all over Europe.

This year’s conference theme was “The Power of Reading,” and presenters shared their research on the social, cultural, educational, and linguistic powers accessed through reading, as well as how libraries can conceptualize their relationship with reading in the 21st-century. Poster, paper, and workshop topics included usability testing, digital resources, big data, virtual reality, reader’s advisory, and more. This conference brought together information science professionals and students from a variety of countries to discuss these issues both locally and globally, and to learn from each other’s practices. UIUC MSLIS student Lisa Morrison won the best paper award for her and iSchool Associate Professor Terry L. Weech’s paper “Reading Data – The Missing Literacy from LIS Education.” This post from the iSchool lists the names and projects of the other UIUC presenters.

Photo taken by me – outside of the National Library

The first day of the conference was hosted at the National Library of Latvia, which opened its new building recently in 2014. Nicknamed the Castle of Light, the library sits on the south side of Riga’s Daugava River, and its 12 floors are visible to the rest of the city. The collection houses more than 4 million items and access to a variety of reading rooms, technologies, and exhibits.

Photo taken by me – the People’s Bookshelf

 

The focal point of the building is the People’s Bookshelf, which occupies five stories of a wall visible throughout the library. Each book on the shelf has been donated to the library with a written message or personal story on its title page. More than 5,000 books currently sit on the shelves, but the library hopes to fill it to 15,000 by the time of the library’s 100th anniversary in 2019. The library states on its website that:

“We want the library to have a special place, created by people themselves. Consequently, it is important that each book has its own story about the history of an individual – a story whose like can’t be found in an encyclopaedia or novel. About the everyday, fortune, feelings or beliefs. About what would otherwise be lost in the passage of time.”

UIUC students at the conference – photo from Zohra Saulat

In addition to providing an opportunity for professional development, attending an international conference is a chance to step outside of your local sphere and participate in global conversations. Libraries all over the world each have unique challenges and victories, but also some that are universal. As we all strive to improve our services and resources, it is invaluable to see what our peers are doing and to learn from their research and knowledge, as well as to celebrate in their institutions.

For students interested in presenting at conferences, whether local, national, or international, the University provides useful resources:

Undergraduate Conferences – the Illinois Office of Undergraduate Research compiles a list of professional conferences that accept undergraduate presentations.

Posters – the Scholarly Commons has a detailed LibGuide about how to design, print, and present research posters and a LibGuide about presentation skills.

Printing – Posters can be printed through Document Services.

Funding – Graduate students can talk to their departments to apply for travel grants through the Graduate College: http://www.grad.illinois.edu/general/travelaward

Additional References:

https://www.lnb.lv/en/about-library/peoples-bookshelf

https://bobcatsss2018.lu.lv/

http://euclid-lis.eu/events/bobcatsss/

Laura Rocco

Graduate Assistant | International and Area Studies Library

MSLIS Candidate | School of Information Sciences

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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