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Chapter Topics ~ Fall 2020

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IACRL: Illinois Chapter Holds Its First-Ever People’s Choice Award in Scholarly Publishing

By Eric Edwards, Illinois State Library

How can a statewide ACRL chapter increase recognition opportunities for its members and other academic librarians in the state, while also giving academic librarians an opportunity to participate actively in choosing the recipients of that recognition? The Illinois Association of College & Research Libraries had those goals in mind when creating its first-ever People’s Choice Award in Scholarly Publishing. The organization opened the call for submissions to all Illinois academic and research librarians, with the main guideline that the scholarly work had to have been published within the past year. While all six of the entries took the form of published journal articles, the guidelines also allowed pre-published works, poster sessions, blog posts, and other forms of scholarly communication.

Once the submissions period closed, the Illinois academic library community then had a month to vote on a winner. The main criteria that voters used when selecting their favorite were the organization and content of the submission, the clarity of the writing and the relevance of sources, and the content’s relevance to Illinois academic libraries.

JJ PionkeThe first-place winner was JJ Pionke (left), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose article, “Library Employee Views of Disability and Accessibility”, appears in Journal of Library Administration. The runner-up was Elena Carrillo, University of Illinois at Chicago’s Daley Library, whose article, ʺWelcome to the Library: Data-Driven Student Worker Empowerment,ʺ appears in Evidence Based Library & Information Practice. Tina Griffin, of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Library of the Health Sciences-Chicago, finished third, and her article, “In Aggregate: Trends, Needs, and Opportunities from Research Data Management Surveys”, appears in College & Research Libraries. The three winners discussed their articles during a webinar on November 9. This gave them an opportunity to share their research outside of a conference or other formal setting, another goal of the award.

            Elena Carrillo                Tina Griffin

                    Elena Carrillo                                         Tina Griffin

Spring 2020

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Chapters Council Roster

Alison Larson
Alison Marie Larsen
Chair


Leslin Charles
Leslin Charles
Editor


Dawn Behrend
Dawn Behrend
Vice Chair


Lisa Nickel
Lisa T. Nickel
Past Chair


Eric Edwards
Eric Anthony Edwards
Secretary


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Ryan Gjerde
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LibGuide Adminstrator



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Carrie E. Dunham-LaGree
Carrie E. Dunham-LaGree
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