About LTLS Members

Online Data Management Planning Tool Helps Researchers Meet Funding Requirements

A group of major research institutions is partnering to develop a flexible online tool to help researchers generate data management plans.  This effort is in response to demands from funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), that researchers plan for managing their research data.
 
The partners in this project include the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of California Curation Center (UC3) at the California Digital Library, the UCLA Library, the UCSD Libraries, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Virginia Library, DataONE, and the United Kingdom’s Digital Curation Centre (DCC).

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Receives Mellon Foundation Grant for Conservation

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library has received a $1.25 million challenge grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a senior-level conservator position in its Conservation Unit.
 
The Mellon Foundation grant includes $1 million as a permanent endowment and $250,000 to establish the new senior conservator position while matching funds are being raised.  The University Library has committed to match and exceed the amount of the grant by raising $1.5 million over three years.  The endowment will generate funding to support the position permanently.
 
The addition of the Andrew W. Mellon Endowed Conservator will allow the University Library to treat a broader spectrum and greater number of paper-based special collections materials in the conservation lab; provide more varied and numerous internship experiences for pre- and post-program conservation interns; and provide the leadership necessary to fully develop the University of Illinois’s role as a leader for conservation education, research, service, and collaboration in the Midwest and the nation.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Acquires 12-millionth Volume

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library has acquired its 12-millionth volume, the manuscript of The Adventures of Tommy - the only children's book written and illustrated by science fiction novelist, H.G. Wells.  A generous gift to the University Library from Illinois alumni Jim and Diane Staes of Rancho Palos Verdes, California, made the acquisition of this unique manuscript possible.
 
The Adventures of Tommy has been added to the Library's world-renowned archival holdings of the papers of H.G. Wells and joins his other manuscripts, including those of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds.  Through the use of cartoons or “picshuas,” as Wells called them, The Adventures of Tommy tells the story of a little boy who rescues a proud and very rich man from the sea - and the unusual thank-you gift he receives.  The manuscript now resides in The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois.

2010 Summer African Training Program

The Mortenson Center For International Library Programs at the University of Illinois recently conducted training programs for a group of associates from a variety of African nations. Below is a photograph of the 2010 Mortenson Associates.

Jan Ison, LTLS executive director, was one of the experts on hand to share information with the group.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Offers New Mobile Web Site

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library now offers a beta mobile Web site at http://m.library.illinois.edu. The site provides access to a core set of basic library services customized for successful use on mobile devices, including the ability to search the Library’s catalog, find Library locations and hours, access additional databases with mobile interfaces, and text librarians.

Upcoming Storytelling Festival Promises Humor, Drama

The Center for Children’s Books (CCB) at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) along with the Spurlock Museum will host their annual Storytelling Festival on Saturday, April 17, 2010 at 7 p.m. in the Spurlock Museum Auditorium at 600 S. Gregory St. in Urbana, IL.

The Festival will feature an eclectic mix of stories from around the world, from a child’s failed attempt to get a pet to a Japanese folktale about a judge with a creative approach to administering justice. Stories will be performed by a select group of GSLIS students, alumni, and faculty, including new storytellers and seasoned professionals.

2010 Edible Book Festival

Please join us for the 5th Champaign-Urbana Edible Book Festival.   Bibliophiles, book artists, and food lovers will gather to celebrate the book arts and the (literal) ingestion of culture.  Participants will create edible books to be exhibited, documented, and then consumed.  Photographs of all entries will appear in the Edible Book Festival online gallery.   This year we’re holding two separate events.

Gryphon Winner Inspires Budding Cartoonists

Adventures in Cartooning, written and illustrated by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost, has received the 2010 Gryphon Award for Children's Literature.

The Gryphon Award, which includes a $1,000 prize, is given annually by the Center for Children's Books, a unit of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The prize is awarded to the author of an outstanding English language work of fiction or non-fiction for which the primary audience is children in kindergarten through fourth grade. Award winners best exemplify "those qualities that successfully bridge the gap in difficulty between books for reading aloud to children and books for practiced readers," said Christine Jenkins, the director of the Center for Children's Books and a GSLIS professor.

Where's Alice?

No, not Alice Calabrese-Berry.  Alice Liddell Hargreaves, aka Alice in Wonderland.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library is exhibiting items from their Lewis Carroll collection from February 2-March 5, 2010.  We're "curiouser and curiouser" about what other Carroll-related items might be lurking in Illinois's libraries.

If you know of any, e-mail Chris Watkins.

Gates Foundation to support librarian training

The Gates Foundation will help the University of Illinois train librarians from around the world.

The two-year, $484,000 contract with  the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will support a training program for public librarians in other countries.

The Mortenson Center has already worked with librarians from more than 80 countries, and the money will expand that work to two more nations selected by the foundation, said Barbara Ford, director of the Mortenson Center.

The Global Libraries initiative works with countries that demonstrate a need and a readiness to help public libraries provide free access to computers and the Internet, and training on how to make use of these tools.

For the current project, the foundation is looking at Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Chile, Mexico and Botswana.