Speakers

Maria Bonn is an associate professor and the MSLIS program director in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She teaches courses on academic librarianship and the role of libraries in scholarly communication and publishing. Prior to her teaching appointment, Bonn served as the associate university librarian for publishing at the University of Michigan Library, with responsibility for publishing and scholarly communications initiatives, including Michigan Publishing. Bonn has also been an assistant professor of English at institutions both in the United States and abroad. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester, master’s and doctoral degrees in American literature from SUNY Buffalo, and a master’s in information and library science from the University of Michigan.

Inkyung Choi is a lecturer in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Choi earned her PhD in library and information science from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her MLIS from Syracuse University. Her research interests stem from her intellectual curiosity about social and cultural pluralistic perspectives, which influence ways of organizing knowledge. At the undergraduate level, Choi has taught courses in information science and technology as well as organization of knowledge. At the graduate level, she has taught a course in organization of information.

Clara M. Chu began her role as Director and Mortenson Distinguished Professor on June 1, 2015. She brings more than two decades of professional knowledge and experiences to advance the mission of the Mortenson Center in this dual role. In addition to having published in leading international journals, presented at conferences, trained and taught around the world in English and Spanish, Dr. Chu has held successive leadership positions in ethnic, regional, national, and international professional library and information associations. She is President-Elect of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), Co-Chair of the IFLA Building Strong LIS Education Working Group, and ALA representative on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. She is serving on the editorial boards of Libri, Library Trends, and International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, and co-edits the International Insights Column of College & Research Libraries News. She has been honored for her research, teaching and professional contributions locally and nationally; most recently, she was awarded the 2018 American Library Association’s Beta Phi Mu Award for distinguished service to education for librarianship. Dr. Chu earned her bachelor’s degree (a major in Spanish language and literature and a minor in psychology and French) from the University of British Columbia and her master’s and doctoral degree in library science from the University of Western Ontario. She comes to Illinois from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) where she was a professor and past chair of the Department of Library and Information Studies. She joined UNCG in 2009 after approximately 20 years as a faculty member at the Department of Information Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. Dr. Chu specializes in the social construction of library and information use, practices,and systems that impact access and collective memory in multicultural communities. Her transnational, ethnic minority, and multilingual background provides her a distinctive and critical lens in the social study of information issues to transform professional practice and education internationally.

J. Stephen Downie is associate dean for research and a professor at the School of Information Sciences, and the Illinois codirector of the HathiTrust Research Center. He has been an active participant in the digital libraries and digital humanities research domains. He is best known for helping to establish an vibrant music information retrieval research community. Since 2005, he has directed the annual Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange (MIREX). He also was a founder of the International Society Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) and its first president.

Essie Harris, lifelong resident of Champaign, became the Manager of the Douglass Branch of the Champaign Public Library in 2003. During her tenure, she spearheaded the renovation of the branch in 2011 by securing funding from the Live and Learn Construction Grant through the Illinois State Library. The renovation doubled the size of the branch computer lab and gave it a much-needed face-lift. In 2018, Essie received the Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award from the Illinois Library Association in honor of her lasting impact on library services in Champaign. In 2019, the Champaign City Council recognized Essie‘s 50 years of service to the library and community with an honorary street dedication and reception on Essie Harris Day, October 9.

Carol Inskeep is a librarian at The Urbana Free Library who organizes library programs for all ages. She is especially interested in how the library can build community, support the local art and music scene, and build understanding and opportunity for marginalized communities.

Emily Knox is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her book, Book Banning in 21st Century America (Rowman & Littlefield) is the first monograph in the Beta Phi Mu Scholars’ Series. She also recently edited Trigger Warnings: History, Theory Context (Rowman & Littlefield) and co-edited Foundations of Information Ethics (ALA). Her articles have been published in the Library Quarterly, Library and Information Science Research, and the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy. Emily serves on the boards of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Beta Phi Mu, the Freedom to Read Foundation and the National Coalition Against Censorship. Her research interests include information access, intellectual freedom and censorship, information ethics, information policy, and the intersection of print culture and reading practices. She is also a member of the Mapping Information Access research team. She was the Associate Director and Reference Librarian at St. Mark’s (now Keller) Library of the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church for five years. Emily received her Ph.D. from the doctoral program at the Rutgers University School of Communication & Information. Her master’s in library and information science is from the iSchool at Illinois. She also holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Smith College and an A.M. in the same field from The University of Chicago Divinity School.

Joyce Latham (PhD, Illinois) is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee School of Information Studies. Latham comes to LIS education after an extended career in libraries. With a background in cataloging and technical services, she became entwined with retrospective conversion and automation projects for public libraries. She was the head of Automated Services for the Southern Maryland Regional Library and worked on the development of the statewide Sailor Project. From there she went to Chicago Public Library as the head of Information Technology. After three years at the University of Illinois studying the social influences on the development of intellectual freedom in public libraries, she went to upstate New York as a library / public library system director. With the completion of her dissertation she came to the School of Information Studies, where she specializes in public libraries, intellectual freedom and library history. Latham’s alternative perspective on the history of libraries allows her research to focus on the activist role of librarians in the development and distribution of cultures influencing American society.

Lacy Spraggins McDonald (GSLIS MS 2011) manages the Genealogy & Local History Library branch of The Hayner Public Library District in Alton, Illinois. She has been with Hayner since February 2012. Lacy holds a master’s degree in Library and Information Science and a Graduate Certificate in Rare Book and Special Collections Librarianship from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She grew up in Arkansas and has since lived in Iowa, Minnesota (where she received a BA in psychology from Carleton College), Florida, and several cities in Illinois. Lacy currently lives in Godfrey, Illinois with her husband Jeff and their two children. She serves on the board of the Madison County (Illinois) Historical Society and the Vintage Voices Alton Cemetery tour committee. Lacy has also consulted on television shows for PBS and Investigation Discovery, as well as researched period costumes for a Hollywood movie production.

In January 2019, Bharat Mehra (PhD, Illinois) joined the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama as Professor and EBSCO Endowed Chair in Social Justice. From January 2005 – December 2018 he was a faculty member in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee. His research focuses on diversity and social justice in library and information science (LIS) and community informatics or the use of information and communication technologies to empower minority and underserved populations to make meaningful changes in their everyday lives. Mehra has applied action research to further engaged scholarship and community engagement while collaborating with racial/ethnic groups, international diaspora, sexual minorities, rural communities, low-income families, small businesses, and others, to represent their experiences and perspectives in the design of community-based information systems and services. He primarily teaches courses on public library management, collection development, resources and services for adults, diversity services in organizations, and grant development for information professionals. In the position of the EBSCO Endowed Chair in Social Justice Mehra is very excited to have the opportunity to shape the LIS area of the college-wide doctoral program through a concentration in social justice research. It resonates deeply with his lifelong commitment to further diversity, fairness, and justice working with underserved communities on the margins of society. Further, in this unique progressive collaborative initiative Mehra looks forward to playing a leadership role in mobilizing the LIS and communication professions in engaged scholarship to help expand their traditional definition, scope, extent, representation, and relevance in the 21st century.

Jaya Raju is a Professor and Head of the Department of Knowledge and Information Stewardship (Humanities Faculty) at the University of Cape Town. She has a PhD in Information Studies.  She has researched and written extensively in the area of LIS education and its implications for the LIS services work environment. Jaya Raju served as Editor-in-Chief of the South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science from 2013 to 2018. She also serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Southern African Journal of Communication & Information Science; African Journal of Libraries, Archives and Information Science; International Journal of Information, Diversity & Inclusion; Libri: The International Journal of Libraries and Information Studies, and De Gruyter’s Open Information Science.  She is co-editor of the ALISE Book Series on LIS education and research. She has published in peer-reviewed national and international journals and presented papers at local, national and international conferences. She is currently Co-Chair of IFLA’s Building Strong LIS Education (BSLISE), an active global network of LIS educators and researchers. In 2018, Jaya Raju became Subject Chair for Library and Information Science on the Scopus Content Selection & Advisory Board.

Reggie Raju is the Director (Research & Learning) at the University of Cape Town Libraries. He has been in academic libraries for more than 35 years. He holds a PhD in Information Studies. He is the author of several publications in peer-reviewed national and international journals, chapters in books and a book publication. His research focus is on research librarianship with an emphasis on open access and library publishing. He is currently a member of the Academic and Research Libraries Standing Committee of IFLA as well as being the convenor of its Special Interest Group: Library Publishing. Reggie is currently the Chair of SPARC Africa and is driving the social justice agenda of open access for Africa. He serves on the editorial board of Journal of librarianship and scholarly communication.

Lian J. Ruan, Head Librarian at the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI) and Director of the IFSI International Programs has research interest on use and users of information and international librarianship. She has served on multiple capacities, including President of the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) and CALA Executive Director. She serves on IFLA Information Literacy Standing Committee. She received numerous awards, including the University of Illinois Chancellor’s Academic Professional Excellence award, the SLA Diversity Leadership Development Program award, CALA Distinguished Services Award and Illinois Academic Librarian of the Year Award. Her library was named the Finalist for the 2015-2017 IMLS National Medal for Museum and Library Service (The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries for service to the community). She has organized the Chinese Librarians Scholarly Exchange Program from 2005-2019 and trained over 423 librarians from 142 organizations all over China. She was named as one of 150 for 150 (celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that is part of the U. of I.’s sesquicentennial celebration, https://gec150.web.illinois.edu/1990s/). She received the JCLC Advocacy Award at the 2018 3rd National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color in Albuquerque, New Mexico in recognition of her significant efforts to improve and promote library services to culturally diverse communities. She was honored and recognized by the Illinois Firefighter’s Association Inc. for her accomplishments and contributions to Illinois fire service.

Fred Schlipf has been hanging out in library buildings since the early 1940s and has been working for libraries and teaching about libraries and consulting on library buildings since he was 17. He has been a library school faculty member for over 50 years, and he spent nearly 33 years as director of The Urbana Free Library. He has done formal building consulting for between 150 and 200 libraries and quick consulting for many more, and he visits library buildings everywhere he goes.

Jodi Schneider is an assistant professor at the School of Information Sciences. She studies the science of science through the lens of arguments, evidence, and persuasion. She is developing Linked Data (ontologies, metadata, Semantic Web) approaches to manage scientific evidence. Schneider holds degrees in informatics (Ph.D., National University of Ireland, Galway), library & information science (M.S., UIUC), mathematics (M.A., UT Austin), and liberal arts (B.A., Great Books, St. John’s College). She has worked as an actuarial analyst for a Fortune 500 insurance company, as the gift buyer for a small independent bookstore, and in academic science and web libraries. She has held research positions across the U.S. as well as in Ireland, England, France, and Chile.

Yoo-Seong Song is an associate professor at the School of Information Sciences and also holds an appointment at the University Library. He received his MBA from the University of Iowa and MSI from the University of Michigan. Prior to coming to the University of Illinois, he was a senior associate at Ernst & Young, specializing in e-commerce, high-tech, and telecommunications. He also worked at Accenture as a consultant and a market intelligence analyst at Tellabs. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded two information service firms in Korea—Logit International and Heavenly Seeds Media. He is currently working with domestic and international corporations to provide real-world projects via his experiential learning classes.

Scott Walter is University Librarian Professor, University Copyright Officer, and Co-Interim Chief Technology Officer at Illinois Wesleyan University. He previously served as University Librarian at DePaul University and in various leadership roles for libraries at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Washington State University, The Ohio State University and the University of Missouri–Kansas City. He received a Ph.D. in higher education administration at Washington State University, both a master of library science and a master’s degree in the history and philosophy of education at Indiana University, plus master’s degrees at American University and at Georgetown University, where he also earned his bachelor’s degree in Russian and linguistics.

Robert Wedgeworth was the founding President and CEO of ProLireracy in 2000 serving until his retirement in 2007. In 2010 President Barack Obama appointed him the board of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) where he continues to serve. Wedgeworth received an A.B. from Wabash College, an M.S. from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. from Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey. During his long career as a librarian, library association executive and educator he worked as acquisitions librarian at Brown University 1966-69 and taught at Rutgers 1969-72. From 1972-1985 he led the transformation of the American Library Association (ALA), expanding its membership, adding new revenue sources and developing new facilities. He served as the last Dean of the School of Library Service, Columbia University from 1985 until its closing in 1992. He was University Librarian and Professor of Library Administration at the University of Illinois 1992-1999. From 1991 to 1997 Wedgeworth served as president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), developing the first global electronic network of libraries of all types and adding new programs on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) and Copyright and Other Legal Matters (CLM). Wedgeworth has received many honors and awards including the Lippincott Award and Melvil Dewey Medal from the ALA, the McGovern medal from the Medical Library Association and the medal of achievement of the International Council of Archives. He has also been awarded six honorary degrees most recently from Syracuse University, 2008. Wedgeworth resides in Chicago with his wife, Chung-Kyun, also a retired librarian. They have one daughter, a journalist and web manager.

Dr. Terry L. Weech is a member of the faculty at the University of Illinois iSchool. Dr. Weech has taught at Mississippi University for Women, the University of Iowa, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and at Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas. He has served as Chair of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Division of Education and Research, the Chair of the IFLA Education and Training Section and the Chair of IFLA Library Theory and Research Section. He has been active in the American Library Association, participating in numerous ALA accreditation External Review Panels and from 2014-2018 a member of the American Library Association Committee on Accreditation (Chair 2017-18). His research interests include collection development, library cooperation and networks, library administration, economics of information, government information resources, and library education with a special focus on international issues in LIS education. Internationally he has lectured in more than twenty countries. He currently teaches courses dealing with International Librarianship, the Economics of Information and Librarianship and Society. In 2017, he received the Scroll of Appreciation from the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) for distinguished contributions to IFLA and the Library Profession, especially in the internationalization of Library and Information Science Education. His full vita is linked from http://cpanel.ischool.illinois.edu/%7Eweech/CV/TW-Vita.htm

John Wilkin assumed the position of Dean of Libraries and University Librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013. In addition, he served as Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost Designate at Illinois from February 2017 through January 2018. Previously, Wilkin served as Executive Director, HathiTrust and in a variety of administrative roles (including interim library director) at the University of Michigan. Under Wilkin’s leadership, Michigan’s Digital Library Production Service pioneered a number of large-scale digital library efforts, including Making of America, the Humanities Text Initiative, PEAK (a system delivering Elsevier’s journals), and putting the Middle English Dictionary online.

Kate Williams (PhD, Michigan) is an associate professor at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and I also teach on occasion in China. My research asks this: Is community possible in the digital age? I follow in the footsteps of the early urban sociologists, who debated whether community was possible in the industrial age. Part of this question is: What is the role of the public library in this process? And how do ordinary people get and give tech help? These helpseeking “informatics moments,” as I call them, are the building block of humanity’s move into digital society. I find that people are more ingenious and resourceful than they get credit for. Professional librarians who understand this make for better and freer libraries. I’m currenting looking at this process in a breakthrough 1980s Chicago branch library, a modern-day senior housing complex, and (in collaboration with more than a dozen other scholars) in the US, China, Norway, Philippines, India, Czech Republic, Pakistan, and elsewhere.