School of Information Sciences

News

  • Four MSIS Students Receive John C. Winslow Memorial Scholarships

    The John C. Winslow Memorial Scholarship was established in 2019 for both current and prospective MSIS students. Students who are already working in public libraries and who are graduates of the University of Tennessee and/or Vanderbilt University are given special consideration for this scholarship. This year, four students were awarded the scholarship; here’s a little…

  • New Students Join Science Liaison CALL Project

    Eight new MSIS master’s students are joining the second cohort of the Collaborative Analysis Liaison Librarians (CALL) instructional project this fall semester, bringing the number of CALL participants to 12. The program was created with funding awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian grant program. SIS Associate…

  • SIS Professor Dania Bilal Gets IMLS Grant to Create Institute on Artificial Intelligence

    SIS Professor Dania Bilal, along with collaborators at two other universities, received a $208,142 Institute of Museum and Library Services grant to create the IDEA (Innovation, Disruption, Enquiry, Access) Institute on Artificial intelligence (AI). “We’re very excited about receiving this grant, as you know IMLS is very competitive. AI is one of the top three…

  • MSIS Student Kay P Maye Awarded ALA Spectrum Scholarship

    After a year in the MSIS program, student Kay P Maye is seeing information in a new light, through what he says is a critical lens that he’s learned to use. “I got into [information sciences] because I wanted to do something different, but still related to the social sciences, and now I feel like…

  • SIS Alum Jennifer Chilcoat Becomes Arkansas State Library Director

    Jennifer Chilcoat (’89) admits she didn’t follow a rule handed to her and other SIS students by their professor at the time, Mike Pemberton. He told them to stay at their first job out of grad school for 3-5 years, and then move onto something new…but she ended up staying at the Central Arkansas Library…

  • Learn About a Lecturer: Plato Smith Introduces Students to Data Management

    Lecturer: Plato Smith Location: University of Florida, Gainesville Education: MLIS, North Carolina Central University; PhD, Florida State University What do you teach at SIS?I teach INSC 590: Introduction to Data Management. This introductory course includes basic data management concepts and models within library information sciences that students need to know. The course leverages the DataOne…

  • SIS Alum, School Librarian Kelly Passek Uses Drone Service to Loan Students Books

    Kelly Passek loads books into packages to be delivered to students via Wing drone delivery. Photo courtesy of Wing. Imagine a middle school student looking out their front door to see a drone hovering above them, a long tether attached to a box extending from the small flying machine – when the box is released,…

  • SIS Students Help LGBTQ+ History to be Heard Through ‘Voices Out Loud’ Projects

    Director of Voices Out Loud and Research Librarian Donna Braquet  Voices Out Loud is an archives and oral history project started by UT Research Librarian Donna Braquet, who felt like there needed to be a resource chronicling the history of LGBTQ+ people in East Tennessee. Various pieces make up the collection, including three projects SIS…

  • Seattle Public Library, Led by SIS Alum Marcellus Turner, Awarded 2020 Library of the Year

    SIS alum and Seattle Public Library Executive Director and Chief Librarian Marcellus Turner credits the library’s staff for earning it the 2020 Gale/Library Journal Library of the Year Award. “This is well-deserved recognition of their commitment to involving community voices in programs, reducing barriers to access and actively pursuing key partnerships. It’s our staff that…

  • MSIS Student Brianna Blackwell Participates in Summer Research Fellowship

    Brianna Blackwell already had an undergraduate and graduate degree in English when she decided to earn her MSIS degree at the University of Tennessee starting in the fall of 2019. Her desire to further pursue research that can be applied in real-world scenarios is part of what piqued her interest in the field of information…