Spring 2025 Intersections

Intersections PEOPLE

INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION SCIENCES

SPRING 2025

Contents

The iSchool at Illinois educates leaders in the information sciences who impact our communities, nation, and world.

Knox named interim dean

2

Cordell family has iSchool connection

10

Couple’s journey began with a PhD

13

Janoffs make charitable bequest

16

SPRING 2025 School of Information Sciences University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Published by iSchool Communications and Marketing. For more information or to submit story ideas, please contact brya@illinois.edu.

Interim Dean: Emily Knox Editor: Cindy Brya Contributing Writers: Cindy Brya, Natasha Sims Photography: Cindy Brya, Pamela Cathe, Michelle Hassel, Amanda Nguyen, ThompsonMcClellan Photography Design: Pat Mayer 501 East Daniel Street Champaign, Illinois 61820 ischool.illinois.edu Phone: (217) 333-3280 Email: ischool@illinois.edu

People use information for analysis, inquiry, collaboration, and play—and in so doing, change the world. The iSchool at Illinois is dedicated to shaping the future of information through research, education, and engagement, both public and professional. Intersections highlights our current work in these areas as well as achievements of our students, alumni, faculty, and staff.

On the cover: BS in Information Sciences (BSIS) students Francis Angara, Rosie Xu, and Diya Chaturvedula stand outside the iSchool building.

NEWS 2

Knox appointed interim dean

2

iSchool at Illinois ranked #1

3

Letter from the interim dean

4

New faces—Spring 2025

5

CCB contributes to Lyddie Books to Parks site

5

Hoiem receives Schiller Prize for Education of Things

5

Student team wins Chicago round of NASA hackathon

RESEARCH 6

New books cover predatory data collection, misinformation, and LIS topics

7

SafeRBot to assist community, police in crime reporting

7

Enhancing the understanding of complementary medicine approaches

7

Improving the monitoring of Earth’s ecosystem

8

Bell receives Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for dissertation fieldwork in Brazil

8

Researchers examine teens’ use of generative AI, safety concerns

9

Faculty receive support for AI-related projects from new pilot program

9

iSchool doctoral research

FEATURES 10

All in the family: Meet the Cordells and their connection to the iSchool

11

Pettigrew finds balance as a student-athlete

11

Beaty’s digital collection sheds light on queer nightlife in Champaign County

ALUMNI 12

Johnson enjoys rewarding, lifelong career as librarian

13

A journey of love and academia: 28-year partnership began at the iSchool

14-15

Class notes

15

Donald Davis passes away

GIVING 16

Janoffs make charitable bequest to iSchool

17

Scholarship alleviates financial burden for returning student

Knox appointed interim dean

P

rofessor Emily Knox has been appointed to serve as interim dean of the School of Information Sciences. The appointment began April 1, 2025.

“The School is going through a time of incredible growth and change, but our students, faculty, and staff are well positioned to meet the moment,” said Knox. “I’m excited to lead the School into our next phase.”

Knox earned her master’s in library and information science from the University of Illinois in 2003 and joined the iSchool faculty in 2012. She has served the School in various roles, including director of graduate studies, interim associate dean for academic affairs, director of the BS in Information Sciences degree program, and as an elected member of the Executive Committee for multiple terms.

“Professor Knox is both passionate and dedicated to the success of the iSchool community, and I am confident she will provide stability and leadership during this transition period,” said Provost John Coleman.

Knox’s scholarly work focuses on information access, intellectual freedom and censorship, information ethics and policy, and print culture and reading practices. She has been interviewed by media outlets such as NPR and The New York Times and has testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on book banning. She has received several national grants and is a prolific scholar with more than 100 publications, invited presentations, and panels.

Her honors include the 2024 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Excellence in Teaching Award, 2024 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Campus Excellence in Public Engagement Emerging Award, and 2023 American Library Association/Beta Phi Mu Award. In 2023, Knox was named an Illinois Library Luminary by the Illinois Library Association. Knox’s book, Foundations of Intellectual Freedom (ALA Neal-Schuman), won the 2023 Eli M. Oboler Prize for best published work in the area of intellectual freedom.

Knox serves on the National Coalition Against Censorship Board of Directors and is editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy. She received her PhD from Rutgers University School of Communication and Information.

2 I INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025

iSchool at Illinois ranked #1

T

he iSchool has retained its top spot in U.S. News & World Report’s 2025 ranking of graduate schools offering a master’s degree in library and information studies. The iSchool has held the #1 ranking for nearly three decades.

“We are honored to have the MS degree in library and information science [MSLIS] recognized for its excellence once again,” said Interim Dean and Professor Emily Knox.

“The program continues to innovate to meet the needs of information institutions in a rapidly changing world.”

The MSLIS degree program, which is offered both online and on campus, provides an exceptional education that prepares graduates to be leaders in LIS. With only two required courses, our flexible curriculum can be customized by students based on their career interests. Graduates hold positions in a variety of information settings, including public, academic, and school libraries as well as health care, business, and science.

“The MSLIS program is committed to the education of outstanding information professionals,” said Maria Bonn, associate professor and MSLIS program director. “It’s always gratifying to see the excellence and hard work of our faculty and staff garnering this national recognition.”

In addition to retaining the top position overall, the iSchool also ranked in the top ten in five areas of specialization: • #1 in Services for Children and Youth • #2 in School Library Media • #2 in Digital Librarianship • #4 in Information Systems • #7 in Archives and Preservation U.S. News & World Report rankings are based on the results of a peer assessment survey sent in fall 2024 and early 2025 to deans, directors, and senior faculty in 56 programs accredited by the American Library Association. The previous ranking for graduate programs in library and information studies occurred in 2021.

Letter from the Interim Dean

T

“

During my tenure as interim dean, my plan is to reimagine our iSchool

”

for the 21st century.

he only constant is change, and while change is coming to our School, our values and our foundation built over a century ago has stayed the same. I am proud to hold a master’s in library and information science from the iSchool at Illinois (Class of 2003). Teaching is in my blood, and I was honored to “come home” when I was hired as a member of the iSchool faculty more than a decade ago. In addition to my research, teaching, and public engagement activities, I have served as director of the graduate and undergraduate programs and as an elected member of the Executive Committee. It is for all these reasons that I’m excited to fill this leadership role.

During my tenure as interim dean, my plan is to reimagine our iSchool for the 21st century.

One of the ways we will accomplish this is to refocus our energy on our strategic plan. Our five-year strategic plan runs through 2027, and I am prepared to lead our School toward accomplishing those goals in the next two years. In the upcoming months, I will work with faculty and staff to break our strategic plan into objectives and tactics—being realistic about what is feasible and what is not, given the resources available and the current climate in higher education.

Our strategic goals are as follows: • Advance information sciences research that transforms our communities and the world.

• Lead the world in education in the information sciences.

• Nurture and grow a culture of inclusion both locally and globally.

These goals emphasize our place as a global leader in research and education and ensure that the iSchool nurtures a culture of inclusion. I am excited to see the direction our School will take in achieving these goals. Today, more than ever, it is of vital importance to communicate the value of our work at the iSchool. Our faculty and students are doing research that has real-world impact, some of which you can read more about in this issue. We remain committed to ensuring student success in all our programs, addressing barriers to accessible education, and producing graduates who are leaders in the information professions.

Spring is a season of growth and renewal not only in nature but also in the iSchool. Three new faculty joined us this semester—Nicola Carboni, Colin Rhinesmith, and Haileleol Tibebu. We will be hiring tenure stream and specialized faculty this year, so stay tuned for more new faces in the fall! And finally, our alumni community grew larger and more vibrant after the spring convocation, with the addition of more than 650 new graduates.

For almost thirty years, the iSchool at Illinois has been ranked as the #1 library and information science program in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. This consistent recognition of our excellence is a testament to the dedication of our faculty and staff as well as the success of our students and alumni.

I look forward to meeting fellow alumni in my new role as interim dean, and if you are on campus, please drop by to say hello.

Sincerely,

Emily Knox Interim Dean

INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025 I 3

News

New faces—Spring 2025 Nicola Carboni Assistant Professor

Colin Rhinesmith Associate Professor

Focuses on knowledge representation, data curation, digital humanities, linked data, data analysis, cultural heritage, data infrastructure, and cultural analytics.

Focuses on community informatics, critical information studies, digital equity, engaged scholarship, infrastructure studies, participatory research, and information policy.

Michelle Ellis Associate Director of Career Services

Haileleol Tibebu Teaching Assistant Professor

Provides career support to undergraduate and graduate students through individual and group coaching.

Focuses on responsible AI frameworks, AI policy and governance, algorithmic fairness, and the intersection of technology and society.

Matt Fabian Office Support Specialist

Angelica Townsend Office Administrator

Serves as the first point of contact for all visitors to the iSchool building.

Provides administrative support to the interim executive associate dean and the assistant dean for DEIA.

Charlei Grissom Office Support Specialist Provides administrative support to the admissions and records team.

4 I INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025

CCB contributes to Lyddie Books to Parks site

T

he Center for Children’s Books (CCB) collaborated with the National Park Service (NPS) to launch a new Books to Parks website on Lyddie, a 1991 novel by Katherine Paterson that highlights the experiences of young women working in textile mills in nineteenth-century Lowell, Massachusetts. Lyddie is the third in the NPS Books to Parks series, an initiative that links award-winning children’s fiction to the real geographic and historical settings in which they take place.

The site includes a reading guide for each chapter of the book with archival images and fact check sections that connect the story to history and introduce primary sources for students to use in answering questions about the book. It also includes “Voices from the Field,” a section with short, child-friendly essays by academic experts on themes present in the novel.

“Lyddie helps tell the story of the Industrial Revolution and its many impacts on everyday life: work, of course, but also roads, food, clothing, literacy, education, and understandings of what it means to be free. It explores big issues,” said CCB Director Sara L. Schwebel.

Recent MSLIS graduates Emma Hartman and Melina Hegelheimer worked on the project as CCB graduate assistants.

“We worked through the book chapter by chapter, identifying key concepts we wanted to target with our questions or ideas,” said Hartman. “Because a lot of the concepts connect throughout the book, we frequently returned to earlier sections to make sure ideas were presented in an order that would make the most sense to students and help them see the connections.”

“We often think of history as static and objective, but the truth is that ‘history’ as we know it constantly changes, grows, and evolves based on our modern understandings. Only through constant and continual assessment of the historical ideas we take for granted can we gain a fuller appreciation for the deeply human complexities that give us our cultural identity and shape our world. My hope is that this dynamic understanding of history encourages students to approach the world around them with curiosity, empathy, and a willingness to question and grow,” added Hegelheimer.

Neither graduate assistant had read the book before starting the project, but after completing their work, they look forward to making a trip to Lowell National Historical Park.

“I hope that the site brings Lyddie’s story to life for students by showing them images and sources, but I also hope students learn to engage critically with the books they read on a broader level,” said Hartman.

Hoiem receives Schiller Prize for Education of Things

A

ssociate Professor Elizabeth Hoiem has won the 2025 Justin G. Schiller Prize from The Bibliographical Society of America for her book, The Education of Things: Mechanical Literacy in British Children’s Literature, 1762-1860 (University of Massachusetts Press).

The prize, which recognizes the best bibliographical work on pre1951 children’s literature, includes a cash award of $3,000 and a year’s membership in the Society. In her book, Hoiem examines the rising popularity during Britain’s industrial revolution of children’s moveable books and toys, which parents and teachers used to integrate observation and tinkering into lessons on reading and writing.

The Schiller Prize committee noted, “The Education of Things breaks new ground in our understanding of the relationships between academic scientific theory, practical technological knowledge, class, and gender in the rising British Empire. Its publication comes at a time of heated debate over the appropriate role of technological education in current school curriculums.”

Student team wins Chicago round of NASA hackathon

T

eam Cuberts, a team that included MSIM students Kritika Singh and Jainam Rajput, won the Chicago hackathon of the NASA Space Apps Challenge, which was held in over 450 locations worldwide. At the annual hackathon, teams use their problem-solving skills to tackle challenges in STEM, such as astrophysics, software development, technology, and space exploration. The team’s challenge was “Leveraging Earth Observation Data for Informed Agricultural Decision-Making.”

Team Cuberts’ Canopy project is a farmer-centric website that addresses water-related challenges faced by farmers, such as unpredictable weather, droughts, floods, and inconsistent water availability. The team developed a website that leverages NASA Earth observation data, including groundwater runoff, temperature, and water levels over the past ten years, to provide farmers with actionable insights.

INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025 I 5

Research

New books cover predatory data collection, misinformation, and LIS topics

Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future

Reference and Information Services: An Introduction, Seventh Edition

Governing Misinformation in Everyday Knowledge Commons

The Routledge Companion to Libraries, Archives, and the Digital Humanities

University of California Press, 2024

Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited, 2024

Cambridge University Press, 2025

Routledge, 2024

Authored by Associate Professor Anita Say Chan

Co-edited by Adjunct Lecturer Melissa A. Wong (MSLIS ’94) and Laura Saunders (Simmons University)

Co-edited by Assistant Professor Melissa Ocepek and Assistant Professor Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo

Provides a comprehensive update to the previous edition, also co-edited by Wong and Saunders, and serves as an essential resource for LIS students and practitioners alike.

Explores the socio-technical realities of misinformation in a variety of online and offline everyday environments.

Chapter authors include Associate Professor Kate McDowell, Lecturer Elizabeth Wickes, and BSIS student Smita Nair.

Identifies how the eugenics movement foreshadows the predatory data tactics used in today’s tech industry.

6 I INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025

Co-edited by Glen LayneWorthey, associate director for research support services for the HathiTrust Research Center, and Isabel Galina Russell (National University of Mexico) Covers a range of issues encountered in libraries and archives worldwide as they incorporate digital humanities into their research, service, and teaching.

Enhancing the understanding of complementary medicine approaches SafeRBot to assist community, police in crime reporting

N

ationwide, 911 dispatch centers are facing a worker shortage, leading to overworked and stressed dispatchers and communities with few options for reporting non-urgent complaints. Associate Professor Yun Huang, Informatics PhD student Yiren Liu, and BSIS student Tony An designed and developed SafeRBot, a new chatbot, to improve the reporting process for non-emergency situations for both community members and dispatch centers.

SafeRBot is a large language model that provides an online method for residents to report complaints by answering a series of consistent questions, both informational and empathetic. Huang, principal investigator on the project, said SafeRBot turns these chats into a structured form, supports English and non-English speakers, and automatically asks follow-up questions to improve the quality of the report.

“SafeRBot aims to provide immediate responses for users who prefer not to or cannot engage with human dispatchers, or when human dispatchers are unavailable,” she said. “By automatically asking relevant questions, SafeRBot reduces the time required to collect incident details and improves the quality of the information gathered. It also helps reduce dispatcher workload, potentially preventing burnout.”

A community member creates an online report by answering a chatbot’s questions. Police agencies can then access, process, and download data from the SafeRBot’s dashboard and easily integrate the information into their own systems. “The information collected from our system is encrypted and stored on Amazon Cloud, which offers multiple layers of security,” added Liu. The researchers found that community members are more responsive to answering follow-up questions when empathetic support is provided.

“SafeRBot complements human dispatchers by asking similar questions, optimized with emotional support through empathy and compassion,” said Huang.

The Urbana Police Department and the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois have been active in testing and providing feedback.

C

omplementary medicine, such as natural products, acupuncture, and meditation, are increasingly used by the public and accepted by the medical community. However, knowledge of the safety, effectiveness, and impact on health is limited in comparison to conventional medical treatment.

Associate Professor Halil Kilicoglu is leading a new project that seeks to develop resources and scientific literature mining tools to consolidate evidence on complementary medicine approaches and their effect on humans. The project also will integrate machine-readable tools and resources for conventional medicine.

The project, COMBINI (connecting Complementary Medicine and Biological kNowledge to support Integrative Health), is being funded through a five-year, $3,261,972 grant through the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and National Institutes of Health Office of the Director. Collaborators include the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota, and Mayo Clinic in Florida. Illinois will be the primary site for the project, and Kilicoglu who serves as a faculty affiliate at the NCSA, will be the principal investigator.

Improving the monitoring of Earth’s ecosystem

A

new project led by Professor Jingrui He aims to help scientists monitor ecosystem disruptions, such as climate change. She recently received support for her work through an Amazon Research Award, which includes $60,000 in cash and an additional $40,000 in Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits.

For her project, “Foundation Model Enabled Earth’s Ecosystem Monitoring,” she plans to leverage the neural representations from multiple climate and weather foundation models to significantly improve monitoring capabilities. According to He, not only will this research provide deeper insights regarding the adverse consequences of climate change and potentially inform future practices in ecosystem restoration, but it will also advance AI research via a suite of novel techniques. These techniques include generative missing value imputation, regularized recurrent neural networks with continuous recurrent units, spatial correlation guided foundation model fusion, and domain-specific dynamics models with neural representations.

INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025 I 7

Research

Bell receives FulbrightHays Fellowship for dissertation fieldwork in Brazil

L

ittle did PhD candidate Kainen Bell know in 2013 when he was an undergraduate studying abroad in Brazil that the country would play a major role in his future dissertation research. Bell has returned to Brazil to spend ten months conducting research as a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship.

The Fulbright-Hays DDRA program provides opportunities for PhD candidates to engage in full-time dissertation research abroad for up to one year. Applicants must be U.S. citizens, nationals, or permanent residents who are proficient in the foreign language(s) to be used to conduct their research. Bell, who is fluent in Portuguese, will travel to Rio de Janeiro and Salvador to continue the fieldwork he has been doing in Brazil. Of the eighty-four awards given nationwide, Bell was one just of five Brazil-based projects selected and the only recipient from the University of Illinois.

For his dissertation, “Resisting Digital Surveillance in Brazil: Facial Recognition Technologies and Grassroots Activism from Afro Brazilian Leaders,” he is investigating initiatives such as public awareness campaigns, data activism protests, and collective actions by grassroots organizations. His goal is to understand how community stakeholders—nonprofit organizations, research institutes, policy makers, and community members— collaborate to prevent the use of surveillance technologies in their communities.

Bell developed an interest in digital surveillance the summer before he began his PhD, when he had to use facial recognition at the airport to board his flight in Brazil.

“After my face was scanned, all my personal details and seat information were presented. I began to wonder what other places were using facial recognition in Brazil, and for the next few years, I conducted literature reviews and small studies investigating this topic. While completing a FLAS [Foreign Language & Area Studies] fellowship in Recife, I learned about major facial recognition projects in the city and how activists are raising awareness around the potential harms and risks and advocating to ban such projects,” he said.

8 I INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025

Researchers examine teens’ use of generative AI, safety concerns

A

research paper by Professor Yang Wang, the co-director of the Social Computing Systems Lab, and doctoral student Yaman Yu is one of the first published sources of data on the uses and risks of generative AI (GAI) for children. Wang and Yu presented their findings in May at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, the flagship computer security conference.

The researchers analyzed Reddit content relevant to teenagers’ use of GAI. They also interviewed teenagers and parents to understand their perceptions of safety and how parents attempted to mitigate risk. Researchers found that teenagers use chatbots for emotional support and to cope with social challenges. Teens incorporate GAI into group chats, use them to learn social skills, and sometimes treat them as romantic partners. They use GAI for academic purposes such as essay writing, rephrasing text, and generating ideas. Teens also posted requests for sexual or violent content.

Wang and Yu reported that parents and children had significant misconceptions about GAI. Parents viewed AI as a tool for homework and a search engine, while children primarily used it for personal and social reasons.

Teenagers reported concerns of dependency or addiction to chatbots, unauthorized use of their personal information, and the creation and spread of harmful content.

Parents believed AI platforms collect data but did not understand the breadth of their children’s disclosure, “including details of personal traumas, medical records, and private aspects of their social and sexual lives,” the researchers wrote.

The researchers said it is critical that the platforms provide explanations of their security and privacy risks and recommended content filters that can be tailored. Wang and Yu also suggest a support chatbot that could explain potential risks, enhance resilience, and offer coping strategies to teenagers.

“Exploring Parent-Child Perceptions on Safety in Generative AI: Concerns, Mitigation Strategies, and Design Implications” is available online. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2406.10461 – Adapted from a University of Illinois News Bureau release

Faculty receive support for AIrelated projects from new pilot program

A

ssociate Professor Yun Huang, Assistant Professor Jiaqi Ma, and Assistant Professor Haohan Wang received computing resources from the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource, a two-year pilot program led by the National Science Foundation.

Huang received $15,000 in computing resources for her project, “Harnessing Large Language Models for Ethical Research and Innovation.” The project’s goal is to introduce new systems and methods using natural language generation models to augment a learner’s discovery process.

Ma received 4,000 node hours for TACC Vista (NVIDIA GH100 Grace Hopper Superchip) for his project, “Principled Quantification of Training Data Influence on Generative AI Models.” This research aims to quantify the influence of individual training data points on generative AI models, which will help address AI safety issues concerning privacy, copyright, and hallucination.

Wang received $90,000 in computing resources for his project, “Toward Virtual Bioinformaticians: Empowering Scientific Discovery in Genomics with LLM-Based Agents.” His project seeks to automate routine tasks so bioinformaticians can focus on more complex and innovative research.

iSchool doctoral research The following students and recent graduates successfully defended their PhD dissertations from May 2024–April 2025.

Si Chen, “Designing Ethical Emotion AI-Based Learning Experience among Ability-Diverse Users” Chair: Associate Professor Yun Huang Smit Desai, “Designing Metaphor-Fluid Voice User Interfaces” Chair: Professor Michael Twidale Michael Gryk, “Explorations in Provenance in the Information Sciences” Chair: Professor Bertram Ludäscher Yingjun Guan, “Disambiguating Academic Institution Names: A Comprehensive Study of Authority Files, Linguistic Variations, and Computational Evaluation in PubMed Affiliations” Chair: Associate Professor Vetle Torvik Kanyao Han, “Natural Language Processing for Supporting Impact Assessment of Funded Projects” Chair: Affiliate Associate Professor Jana Diesner Paul Hur, “Metacognitive Effects of Confusion during Learning: Continuous, Real-Time Self-Report Methods and Insights” Chair: Professor Michael Twidale Sullam Jeoung, “Examining Large Language Models for Safety and Robustness through the Lens of Social Science” Chair: Affiliate Associate Professor Jana Diesner

Zachary Kilhoffer, “Human Factors in the Standardization of AI Governance: Improving the Design of Risk Management Standards for Ethical AI” Co-Chairs: Professor Yang Wang and Assistant Professor Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo Jenna Kim, “Evaluating Pre-Trained Language Modeling Approaches for Author Name Disambiguation” Chair: Affiliate Associate Professor Jana Diesner Jaihyun Park, “A Computational Approach toward Understanding Political Language of Ideologically Opposing Groups—From Historical Newspapers to Social Media” Chair: Associate Professor Ryan Cordell Lanyu Shang, “A Human-Centric Artificial Intelligence Approach towards Equality, Well-Being, and Responsibility in Sustainable Communities” Chair: Associate Professor Dong Wang Wenyi Shang, “Moving between Scales: Computationally Modeling Social Dynamics in the Elite Society of Premodern China” Chair: Professor Ted Underwood Qingxiao Zheng, “Shifting Paradigms in the UX Evaluation of Human-AI Interaction: From Dyadic to Monadic Designs” Chair: Associate Professor Yun Huang Kyrie Zhixuan Zhou, “A Pragmatic and Human-Centered Approach to Promoting Software Accessibility: Design, Education, Governance” Chair: Assistant Professor Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025 I 9

Features

All in the family: Meet the Cordells and their connection to the iSchool

O

f the seven Cordells, you’ll find three of them on campus with connections to the iSchool: Ryan is a faculty member; Evie, an iSchool alum, University of Illinois librarian, and faculty member; and Cadence, an MSLIS student.

Evie and Ryan, married for 25 years, have five children— Cadence, 24; Emerson Lynn, 21; Rorik and Saige, 17; and Jude, 13. Rounding out their family are Millie, a twelve-year-old rescue pup who was featured in a children’s book by the couple, and three-year-old corgi Margo. The family enjoys playing board games, hiking, and traveling together.

Why did you choose to go into LIS? Ryan: First off, Evie always insists I am #notalibrarian. I started my career in an English department, but my research intersects the humanities and information sciences. I try to help students draw connections between historical and contemporary technologies—letterpress printing, for instance—to better understand information history, and how print culture still shapes digital texts and computational interfaces. A rich, interdisciplinary community like the iSchool is the perfect place to bridge both periods and methodologies.

Evie: I went to college a little later in life. Cadence was in grade school while I was an undergrad in religious studies at the University of Virginia (Ryan was working on his PhD program at the same time).

Because I enjoyed spending time in the library and doing research, I knew that I wanted to pursue LIS. After wrapping up a few adventures moving around the US and to Germany, I applied and was accepted into the iSchool’s Leep [MSLIS online] program.

10 I INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025

Evie, Cadence, and Ryan Cordell

What do you remember about your parents’ LIS conversations when you were growing up?

Cadence: My mom went through the Leep program while I was in high school, so a lot of my memories of their LIS conversations were from that time.

The one that sticks with me the most is of them jokingly arguing over which citation manager I should use: Zotero or Mendeley.

(I ended up being a Zotero user—sorry, Mom). They also had a running joke about whose career path I’d end up following: a digital humanities professor (Dad) or a librarian (Mom). So, I split the difference and ended up doing both!

How did your childhood experiences influence your decision to attend U. of I.?

Your graduate pathway?

Cadence: My undergraduate experience working at the Mount Holyoke College library led me to consider graduate school, but it was my mom’s experience that pushed me to apply to the iSchool. Even then, I don’t think we expected to all end up here at the same time!

Have you taken any classes with your dad as a professor?

Cadence: Nope! That would get complicated, especially when it comes to grading and fairness. I’ve stopped by his printing press a few times, and we’ll chat about what he’s teaching in class when I visit on the weekends though.

How do you feel about Cadence pursing a degree in the same field as you and as a U. of I. student?

Ryan: We joke that Cadence has been an academic since she was a toddler, but it was clear early on that she had the curiosity and focus to follow that path. The only real debate was whether she would get her MSLIS or a PhD in a humanities field. What we couldn’t have predicted was that just before she started applying to graduate school, we would both land jobs at the U. of I. (and I would switch fields), so that when she did apply, she’d be applying to MY academic unit! I’m pretty proud that she’ll graduate from the #1 LIS program in the country!

Evie: I am so excited and proud of her.

I like to think that I won the ‘bet’ when she chose librarianship over becoming a professor. Having her at the U. of I. has been a wonderful experience. I don’t think many parents get to witness their children grow into adulthood and truly mature as individuals in this way. It’s been amazing to watch her grow as a person and a scholar.

What are your hopes for your daughter in this field?

Ryan: Cadence has found library work rewarding. I hope that she will get to do work that supports communities that are important to her, and that she’ll continue to find problems and projects that challenge her intellectually while making an impact in the world.

Evie: Echoing what Ryan said, I hope that she will have the opportunity to engage in work that supports the communities important to her, such as her current efforts to make library resources more accessible.

I’m so excited to see where she goes next. I know that the library that hires her will be incredibly fortunate.

Pettigrew finds balance as a student-athlete

I

siah Pettigrew started wrestling in his junior year of high school in Palatine, Illinois. He advanced quickly, placing fourth in his weight class at the state wrestling tournament in his senior year. He signed on with the Illini Wrestling team in 2020 as a freshman and wrestled throughout his academic career, which includes earning a bachelor’s degree and beginning a master’s degree at the iSchool.

For the past four years, his typical day included lifting and conditioning at 7:00 a.m., undergraduate classes, followed by more afternoon wrestling practices. During the season, this schedule was paired with cutting down to his weight class.

Cutting calories affected his energy levels and his ability to stay focused on lessons—and made practicing and working out difficult.

“I managed to balance athletics and academics by telling myself to keep showing up. I developed a thought process for myself that no matter what, I have to keep showing up to class, lectures, Zoom— no matter how sore or beat up I was,” he said.

Pettigrew pursued a degree in information sciences because of his interest in data science and data analytics. As he neared the completion of his BSIS degree, Pettigrew decided to further develop his skills and dive deeper into topics such as AI and machine learning. Since starting the MSIM program, Pettigrew medically retired from wrestling due to multiple knee surgeries and injuries.

“It has been a great experience,” said Pettigrew of his time as a student-athlete. “I would be lying if there weren’t a lot of ups and downs, but in taking a path that has hardships and challenges, progress is never linear.”

Beaty’s digital collection sheds light on queer nightlife in Champaign County

A

dam Beaty decided to pursue an MSLIS degree to combine his love of history, the arts, and community-centered spaces. This combination of interests culminated in a digital collection called Queer Nightlife in Champaign-Urbana, IL: 1973 – 2000 that he created as part of his independent study with Assistant Professor Travis L. Wagner.

The 244-item collection—completed across hundreds of hours of research over ten months—showcases digitized materials depicting nearly thirty years of queer nightlife in Champaign County. Beaty built the collection through archival research and interviews with Champaign community member and DJ, Doug Barnes, who provided access to thousands of images and memorabilia that he collected from gay bars.

“Champaign-Urbana was a huge hub for the gay community, specifically in the late 1970s and 1980s. People from around the Midwest came to gay bars here to socialize, do drag, and be around members of their community,” Beaty said.

Wagner said that Beaty’s research is vital to the transgender digital archives movement and presents new viewpoints to transgender history.

“His project offers two unique additions to the still evolving work of queer history,” said Wagner. “First, it challenges the false narrative that important queer culture and activism only occurred in metropolitan cityscapes. Second, it offers clear evidence of the central role queer communities and individuals ought to play in that work to ensure that these complex histories are ethically represented and accessed.”

Beaty’s idea for the collection was sparked by his disappointment at the dearth of archival materials detailing the activities and experiences of LGBTQ+ people in Champaign County.

His independent study allowed him to address this archival gap. “[This project] presented me with an opportunity to directly connect with community members, learn about their materials as connected to their lived experience, and then describe and preserve the materials in a way that honors their queer identities and experiences,” said Beaty, who has an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

In addition to extensive research, his archival work included digital reformatting, collection building, implementing queer-centered metadata, and website formatting.

After he graduates in May, Beaty plans to enter the archival field, specifically in the realm of digital archives, digital reformatting, and preservation.

Visit the digital collection: urbanafree.omeka.net/collections/show/22 INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025 I 11

Alumni

Johnson enjoys rewarding, lifelong career as librarian

M

ost of Jeannette C. Pearson Johnson’s ninety-five years have been spent in a library. Over the course of her lifetime, Johnson has served as an elementary school librarian, a public librarian, and a church librarian, as well as a library volunteer until as recently as last year.

It was her mother, a former first-grade teacher, who instilled in her a love of reading. Throughout her library career, Johnson was able to do the same for countless students and community members. She recalls how much she enjoyed “getting the right book for the right person” by assessing a library patron’s reading level and interests and providing reading recommendations.

Born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois, Johnson was twelve years old when she realized that she would like to become a librarian. She volunteered in her junior high and high school libraries and took a course on using the library when she was in high school. Johnson attended her high school librarian’s alma mater, Augustana College, Rock Island, and worked at the college library’s circulation desk. Her father died unexpectedly when she was in junior high, so money was tight, but her mother encouraged her to reach her goal of becoming a librarian and provided financial support for college.

After graduating from Augustana College in 1951 with a bachelor’s degree in English, Johnson enrolled in the University of Illinois. Upon earning her master’s degree in library science in 1952, she discovered that the quality and even existence of elementary school libraries across the United States was diverse. For two years, Johnson worked as an elementary school librarian for the Galesburg Public Schools, traveling to a different school library every day—three days a week to a city school and two days a week to a rural school. “It is fresh in my mind how I chose fifth graders who were good students and taught them

12 I INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025

“

It is fresh in my mind how I chose fifth graders who were good students and taught them how to help in the library on the days I was at

”

other schools.

how to help in the library on the days I was at other schools,” Johnson said.

In 1954, she married a fellow Augustana alum, Harland Johnson, and moved to Tacoma, Washington, where her husband was stationed at Fort Lewis during the Korean War. Johnson was hired as the first salaried elementary school librarian in the Tacoma Public Schools, where she traveled to different schools every day to encourage that rooms be designated as libraries and to teach students how to use libraries.

After Harland was discharged from the army in 1955, the couple moved to his hometown, Sioux City, Iowa, where he joined his father in business, and she took a job as a reference librarian at the Sioux City Public Library. When Johnson was approached at the library by an elementary school principal looking for someone to

start the first library at his school, she took him up on the offer.

The library at Bryant Elementary School was the size of a large closet with children waiting in line to come in, Johnson recalled. Word of her work at the school library spread, and she was soon recruited by another school for the princely sum of thirty-five cents an hour. At her new school, Whittier Elementary, Johnson organized volunteers from the parent-teacher association, teaching them how to type book cards and pockets, glue them into books, and make book covers, while she cataloged the books.

Over the years, her family grew to include three daughters and one son. When her oldest daughter started kindergarten at Joy Elementary School, Johnson volunteered to organize the school’s first library, using the same methods she had previously employed.

Johnson also worked as a volunteer in the small library at her church for over a decade; when her family joined a new church, she started a library there. Over the years, she was active in the Lutheran Church Library Association (LCLA), serving as president of the national organization from 2001-2002. She also organized the Siouxland (Iowa) Chapter of the LCLA, which included twelve churches in and near Sioux City.

She and her husband were married over sixty-five years until his death in 2019. Education was highly valued in their household, and their children include a pastor, teacher, chemist, and musician. In addition, there are nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren in the family.

For more than eighty years, Johnson worked or volunteered in libraries, finally stepping down as an active volunteer in July 2024, when her health began to keep her at home. The most rewarding part of her long career in librarianship? Helping people. “I have enjoyed being a librarian. It was an excellent job!”

A journey of love and academia: 28-year partnership began at the iSchool Above: John Marty, Michelle Kazmer, Paul Marty, and Evan Marty; Left: Michael Twidale, Paul Marty, Michelle Kazmer, and Caroline Haythornthwaite at the School’s 2003 convocation

P

aul Marty and Michelle Kazmer met on the first day of class in the first semester of their PhD program.

Marty was well acquainted with the University of Illinois, having earned a BA and MA in history and BS in computer science from there. Kazmer, who had previously worked at the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center, was returning to the Urbana campus from southeast Michigan.

She entered the PhD program with a BS in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh. Their first class was a doctoral seminar on “The Information Society,” taught

by Michael Twidale, who was, appropriately, in his first semester on the faculty.

Little did Marty and Kazmer know that not only their graduate studies, but also their personal and professional lives, would move in tandem for the next twenty-eight years.

“At some point a few years into our doctoral work, we realized that we had really learned to be academics together, and that we were more attached to each other outside of school and work than maybe we had realized,” the couple said.

In 2002, Marty and Kazmer married, accepted tenure-track faculty positions as assistant professors at Florida State University, and earned their PhD degrees.

The couple proceeded through their professional paths at FSU in tandem—tenure and promotion to associate professors in 2008 and promotion to professors in 2014.

Kazmer now serves as dean of FSU’s College of Communication and Information, and Marty is FSU’s associate vice provost for academic innovation.

Twidale served as PhD advisor to Marty, whose research interests include museum informatics, technology, innovation, and culture, user experience design, and life in the information society. Marty has worked with museums, and in the field of museum

informatics, since the mid-1990s, studying the sociotechnical interactions that take place between people, information, and technology in museums.

Marty discovered the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (now iSchool) in 1996, when he was working at the World Heritage Museum at the University of Illinois. At the time, he was modernizing the museum’s computer system and building databases to inventory its collections before the museum moved to its new location on campus.

“I met with Leigh Estabrook, who was dean at that time, and discovered that there was an entire discipline that had dedicated literal centuries to studying all the questions that I was muddling my way through in this museum,” he said.

“They had the answers to all my questions about information organization, access, and management in museums. And that’s what started me on the path that led me to where I am today, not just with my work on museum informatics, but also with my efforts to promote academic innovation.”

He recently published a book, The Invisible History of Museum Computing, with co-author Kathy Jones, director of museum studies at Harvard University.

In his administrative role, Marty works to coordinate, communicate, and facilitate efforts across the FSU campus to foster an environment that encourages and supports academic innovation.

“My efforts draw heavily upon the lessons that I learned at the iSchool at Illinois, where I saw firsthand the importance of bringing together people with diverse interests and diverse backgrounds, and how those interdisciplinary connections can position

universities at the cutting edge of research and education,” he said.

Kazmer was advised by Caroline Haythornthwaite, who also served on Marty’s dissertation committee. Kazmer’s initial research efforts focused on distributed knowledge in online learning communities— she was the first teaching assistant in the Leep (MSLIS online) program, which began the year before she arrived at Illinois. Later, she led the longitudinal qualitative assessment for the African American Alzheimer’s Caregiving Training and Support project at FSU. Her current research applies theories of information behavior to Golden Age crime fiction with a focus on Agatha Christie. This research has led to unique experiences, such as being a guest on BBC radio with Agatha Christie’s great-grandson, serving as the first non-U.K. scholar to keynote the Agatha Christie scholarly conference in the U.K., and watching the sunset on a beach in Hawaii with Sir David Suchet on an episode of Travels with Agatha Christie and Sir David Suchet on BritBox. “The iSchool prepared me for my academic career and propelled me into a life I could never, ever have imagined when I was growing up in Washington, Pennsylvania,” said Kazmer.

“I’m grateful for my doctoral education every day, and proud to be an Illinois graduate.”

Marty and Kazmer have two children—Evan, 20, a junior at FSU, and John, 16, a sophomore in high school. Outside of work, Marty enjoys playing tabletop role-playing games (such as Dungeons & Dragons) and Kazmer takes ballet classes. Their family is heavily involved in Young Actors Theatre, a youth theater education program in Tallahassee. Marty made his stage debut this year as Daddy Warbucks in the production of Annie.

INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025 I 13

Alumni

Class Notes 1970s

2000s

Margaret Chandler (MSLIS ’71) passed away

Honore Bray (MSLIS ’06) retired as director

on October 16, 2024.

Sue Ann (Hamiter) Frizzell (MSLS ’72) passed

away on August 14, 2024.

Ann Marlow (MSLIS ’73) passed away on

October 24, 2024.

1980s Frances Drone-Silvers (MSLIS ’84) is the

recipient of the Starfish Thrower Award from the Health Sciences Librarians of Illinois (HSLI).

Molly Horio (MSLIS ’89) is the recipient of the

2024 President’s Award from the HSLI.

David Hunter (PhD ’89) gave a lecture at the

Clark Library at the University of California, Los Angeles, as part of the Karmiole Lecture series on the history of books and printing.

Ruth Riley (MSLIS ’85), librarian emerita, is

of Missoula (Montana) Public Library in 2022.

She is now vice chair of the board for “The Trust for MT Libraries.”

In September 2024, Linde Brocato (MSLIS ’09, CAS ’11) started her new job as a metadata librarian at the University of Arkansas Libraries.

As a solo librarian at his city’s community hospital, Salem Health, Paul Wilson Howard (MSLIS ’04) has been part of a research project investigating a clinical staff resilience intervention. Project results have been published in the Journal of Nursing Administration.

Daniel Kraus (MSLIS ’06) was interviewed by

I Love Libraries, an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA), for Episode 11 of their podcast “How I Library.”

Lora Del Rio (MSLIS ’08) was featured in the

the 2024 recipient of the Career Achievement Award from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

Illinois Association of College & Research Libraries Forum (IACRL) Member Spotlight on September 26, 2024.

Marcia Schnake Trauernicht (MSLIS ’85)

Jan (Pye) Marry’s (MSLIS ’04) debut novel Sweet Tea and Anzac Biscuits was released in

has retired from her position as university librarian at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.

George M. Woolsey (MSLIS ’82) passed away

in October 2024.

1990s Jeffrey Carrico (MSLIS ’97) passed away on

May 13, 2024.

John Klasey (MSLIS ’94) retired as senior

manager, knowledge resource management at DLA Piper in Chicago, Illinois, on January 3, after 38 years in the legal industry, including the last 25 at DLA Piper.

Jason Kuhl (MSLIS ‘99) began a new position

as CEO of the Metropolitan Library System of Oklahoma County in January.

Norma Linton (MSLIS ’97, PhD ’09) passed

away on October 6, 2024.

Bilal Salahuddin (MSLIS ’92) retired as branch

manager at High Meadows Branch of the Harris County Library System in Houston, Texas.

14 I INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025

April 2025.

Lindy Smith (MSLIS ’09) has started a new job

as assistant director of the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Libraries.

Mary VanSwol (MSLIS ’05) has been named

the new director of the Park Forest (IL) Library.

2010s Jeanie Austin (PhD ’17) is co-principal

investigator on a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant will ensure continued support for the Expanding Information Access for Incarcerated People initiative at the San Francisco (CA) Public Library.

Stephanie Dietrich (MSLIS ’18) started a new

position as educational programs manager for the Cancer Center at Illinois.

Henry Gabb (PhD ’19) was appointed chair

of the Board of Directors for the Linked Data Benchmark Council, a nonprofit organization that defines standard graph benchmarks and graph processing technologies.

Mandi Goodsett (MSLIS ’13) is the recipient

of the 2024 Jay Ladd Distinguished Service Award, presented by the Academic Library Association of Ohio.

A paper by Teresa Moreno (MSLIS ’19) was named the winner of the 2024 Annual Library Juice Paper Contest for her paper, “Interrupting the Criminalization of Information in the Academic Library Classroom.”

Ruth D. Nelson (MSLIS ’14) has authored a new book, Our Lady of the World’s Fair: Bringing Michelangelo’s Pieta to Queens in 1964, which

was recently published by Cornell University Press-Tree Hills.

Joshua Newport (MSLIS ’13), math and

science librarian at Illinois State University, was featured in the Illinois Library Association’s Member Spotlight for the week of December 9, 2024.

Christina Norton (MSLIS ’14) was featured in

the IACRL Member Spotlight on February 28, 2025.

Ziba Z. Pérez (MSLIS ’12) has been elected

to serve on the ALA Executive Board. Elected board members will begin a three-year term in July 2025 and conclude in June 2028. Pérez serves as a young adult librarian III at Los Angeles Public Library.

Julia Pollack (MSLIS ’12), creative program

manager for the University of Illinois Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, was featured in The News-Gazette for her artwork.

Catheryne Popovitch (MSLIS ’11) has been

appointed director of the Illinois State Archives. This past summer, she was also elected as president of the Council of State Archivists, a one-year term.

After spending a year as interim assistant dean, Zack Stein (MSLIS ’16) became the permanent assistant dean of technical services at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He also received tenure and was promoted to the status of associate professor.

Miguel Ruiz (MSLIS ’13) has been named the

new head of the Hispanic Reading Room at the Library of Congress.

Jordan Ruud (MSLIS ’12) has co-edited a new book, Censorship Is a Drag: LGBTQ Materials and Programming Under Siege in Libraries.

Elise Tanner (MSLIS ’15) has started a new

Donald Davis passes away

Amy Wildman (MSLIS ’19) was recently

D

position as the digital asset manager at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. promoted from assistant librarian to librarian at the Tolono Public Library.

Jamie Wittenberg (MSLIS ’15), assistant

dean for research and innovation strategies at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been elected as the new Board president of DataCite, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the visibility and accessibility of research.

Laura Fultz Youngstrum (MSLIS ’15) is the

new director of the Reddick Public Library District in Ottawa, Illinois.

2020s Becky Graham (MSLIS ’20) is part of Gresham

Smith’s Learning & Development team, which was named a Top 50 team (globally)

by OnCon as part of its annual OnCon Icon Awards.

Rebecca Greenlee (MSLIS ’21) has been

promoted to law librarian II and has been appointed to the Connecticut Statewide Access to Justice Commission.

Bridgette Hammond (MSLIS ’21) presented

her work at the international conference, “Archives of Traditional Culture: 100 + 10,” hosted by the Archives of Latvian Folklore in Riga, Latvia.

onald G. Davis (PhD ’72), one of three alumni who started the endowed Professorship in the History of Libraries and the Information Professions in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois, passed away on November 21, 2024. Born in 1939, he was educated at the University of California in Los Angeles and Berkeley, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in history and library and information science. He earned his doctorate in library and information science from the University of Illinois. His dissertation was “An Analytical History of the Association of American Library Schools.”

In 1971, Davis began his long service at the University of Texas in Austin, and in 1976, he became editor of the Journal of Library History, a position that he held for over thirty years. He co-edited the Encyclopedia of Library History (1994) and edited the second supplement to the Dictionary of American Library Biography (2003).

Davis received an MA from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 1996 and began his service as a lay minister in the Presbyterian Church. Throughout his academic career, he advised many PhD dissertations, published twenty books (including edited collections and conference proceedings), and authored one hundred papers and around two hundred book reviews. He was active in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and lectured and taught in over a dozen foreign countries. He and his wife Avis hosted many foreign students and visitors in their home.

In 1999, Davis received the Beta Phi Mu Golden Anniversary Distinguished Award. In 2006, the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress issued Libraries & Culture: Historical Essays Honoring the Legacy of Donald G. Davis, Jr., a collection of major essays that he had seen into print. The American Library Association (ALA) Library History Round Table presents the Donald G. Davis Article Award every even-numbered year to recognize the best article in library history.

Brandi Nahrwold (MSLIS ’24) was promoted

to director of library and information services at Trine University Main Campus in Angola, Indiana.

Mary Pedraza (MSLIS ’21) began a new role at

Send us your news!

Andrew Rea (MSLIS ’24) began a new

We’d love to hear from you! Send us your updates, employment/internship openings, or iSchool alumni networking opportunities in your area.

the University of Illinois Chicago Daley Library Special Collections on September 30. position as the digital resources archivist with the Department of Archives and Special Collections at Kansas State University.

Anna Sielaff (MSLIS ’23) is an associate

member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (featured in the film A League of Their Own). She has been doing research on former player Dottie Schroeder, who grew up in Champaign County.

Office of Advancement and Alumni Relations School of Information Sciences ischool-advancement@illinois.edu (217) 300-5746 ischool.illinois.edu/engage/alumni

INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025 I 15

Giving

Janoffs make charitable bequest to iSchool

“

Norm and I have been very fortunate in many ways and now have funds to help others receive further education, so I decided to make a meaningful gift to the school that helped me

”

so much.

C

arol Janoff grew up in the small town of Elmwood, Nebraska. Her family was not wealthy, but books were deemed a necessity.

“Even though we didn’t have a lot of spare money, my folks always let me order from the Scholastic Book Club,” she said. “I would cut little library cards and put them in my books and arrange them and play library.”

Carol always assumed she would become a librarian one day. In high school, she volunteered at the school library. After graduation, Carol’s parents took out a loan so that she could attend Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln. She had a scholarship and worked in the college library to support her studies. Unfortunately, there were no funds leftover for her to attend graduate school.

“I applied to three schools anyway, including applications for financial aid,” Carol said. “I particularly hoped to be accepted to the University of Illinois because of its wonderful reputation and one-year [MSLIS] program. And I was thrilled to not only receive admission but also a full fellowship that included room and board—essentially a free education.”

Her experience as a student with limited financial resources is one of the reasons why Carol (MSLIS ’73) and her husband, Norm (MS Electrical Engineering ’73) Janoff, decided to make a charitable bequest of $300,000 in support of the iSchool.

Carol met Norm at the University of Illinois when they were living in Daniels Hall, a graduate student dorm. Originally from Buffalo, New York, Norm had earned his BS

16 I INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025

in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan and was working on a master’s degree in the same subject at Illinois.

“I was there because it was the cheaper grad dorm (no A/C) and Norm [was there] because it was closer to the engineering buildings,” said Carol. “There were many older adults seriously pursuing additional degrees living in that dorm, but about a dozen of us new graduates banded together.

Out of that group came four marriages!”

After graduation, Carol accepted a job as the first children’s librarian in Morris, Illinois. She stayed for a year before getting married and moving closer to Norm’s job in the telecommunications industry. Her next position was as a children’s librarian in La Grange, Illinois. While working in the Chicago area, Norm went back to school and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago, focusing on finance. When his company moved its software development to Phoenix, Arizona, the couple followed.

“Over thirty years at the same company that went through many name changes, I was responsible for the operating system of our telephone switch, and in staff positions, I was in charge of our software productivity initiatives and our software estimate algorithms,” Norm said.

When their son, Philip, turned 4, Carol was ready to return to work. She found a job as a temporary, part-time librarian in the children’s department at the Mesquite Branch of the Phoenix Public Library, filling in while one of the librarians went on maternity leave.

“Luckily for me, she loved motherhood and opted not to return to the library. So, I kept that job—for twenty-five years! It was unusual for a librarian to be at the same branch for more than five years, but only the larger branches afforded part-time degreed librarians, so I got to stay,” she said.

There, she started storytime programming for children aged 2 to 6, selected books for the children’s section, helped with summer reading programs, and worked at the reference desks in both adult and children’s sections. Since she was working part-time, she was able to volunteer at her son’s schools, helping in his classroom during his elementary school years and volunteering in the school library through junior high. She also helped create a library for her synagogue. When part-time positions were eliminated in 2009, Carol decided to retire. After her retirement, she worked with BookPALS, a volunteer literacy program of Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) Foundation.

“The program was originally designed for professional actors to read to students in their classrooms but was enlarged to include former teachers and librarians,” she said. “For ten years I was a Book Pal reader in a title-one school in Phoenix. I did half-hour storytimes for two or three kindergarten (and sometimes first grade) classes once a week. It was a lot of fun, very rewarding, and the teachers loved it too.”

Norm took an early retirement from his company in 2003. He is in his twenty-second year of volunteering as a tax counselor with AARP Tax-Aide. A long-distance runner for over forty years, Norm is the chief operating officer of the Arizona Road Racers, a running club of five hundred members in the greater Phoenix area. In addition to the club, he leads an interval training session each week at a local high school.

The couple recently celebrated their 50th anniversary.

“Norm and I have been very fortunate in many ways and now have funds to help others receive further education, so I decided to make a meaningful gift to the school that helped me so much,” Carol said.

Scholarship alleviates financial burden for returning student

D

uring her time as an active-duty naval officer, Anna Hartman realized that she had a passion for helping others and building community. That passion, combined with a lifelong love of reading, led her to pursue an MSLIS degree at Illinois. Hartman is receiving support for her studies through the Balz Endowment Fund, which was established by Nancy (BA LAS ’70, MSLIS ’72) and Dan (BS Media ’68, MS Media ’72) Balz to help make education more affordable for returning students.

“This scholarship has made a huge difference,” said Hartman. “A recent change in work locations for my spouse led to additional living costs. The Balz Endowment Fund helped alleviate some of that financial burden and is allowing me to finish my degree in May 2025.”

Hartman, who earned her bachelor’s degree in English from the United States Naval Academy, chose the MSLIS program at the iSchool because of its reputation and flexible curriculum. She is especially interested in machine learning techniques and how they can serve the humanities fields.

“After graduation, my plan is to work either in an academic setting as a digital humanities librarian or pursue a career in a non-traditional library role. I would especially love it if these career opportunities allowed me to work with oral histories or archives,” she said.

Outside of class, Hartman enjoys taking her two boys (ages 4 and 1) to local parks and the library. When she isn’t spending time with her family, she is reading, knitting, or jogging around her neighborhood. Hartman is grateful to Nancy and Dan Balz for their generosity and thankful for donors who demonstrate their commitment to education through gifts to the iSchool.

“For anyone interested in supporting other students, I would say please do it! While you might think you’re simply supporting a student, you are investing not only in their future but in the well-being of their families, their friends, and their dependents. Your generosity reaches much farther than you might think,” she said.

“

This scholarship has made a huge difference. A recent change in work locations for my spouse led to additional living costs. The Balz Endowment Fund helped alleviate some of that financial burden and is allowing me to finish

”

my degree in May 2025.

T

Leave a legacy

here are a number of ways to give to the School of Information Sciences. These include short- and long-term options. The iSchool Advancement Office is happy to work with you to determine which option best fits your needs. If you would like to designate your estate gift for a particular use or gift fund within the School, please contact: Eileen Prillaman Assistant Dean for Advancement (217) 333-7344 prillamn@illinois.edu For more information about giving to the School, or to make a gift, visit go.ischool.illinois.edu/give INTERSECTIONS SPRING 2025 I 17

Non Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 75 Champaign, IL University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel Street, MC-493 Champaign, IL 61820-6211

Students and staff show their love for the iSchool Pictured below: Undergraduate ambassadors Alex Soja, Misha Gandhi, Rishabh Shah, and Dianne Park.

Top right: IT staff Brynnen Owen, Patrick Martinez, Brett Peugh, and Michael Greifenkamp.

Bottom right: Student Affairs staff Amira Al-Mutairi, April Carter, Stacy Clemmons, Lauryn Lehman, and Talia Shaw.

Follow us on social media

20 I INTERSECTIONS FALL 2024