About Sharing Success

Supported financially by a generous award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is offering eight full-tuition scholarships over the next three years to outstanding and diverse students who have a strong interest in youth services librarianship and are admitted to the Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) program.  Students may take courses on campus or select from our distance education offerings.

Sharing Success will allow outstanding library practitioners to further their education and training related to youth services librarianship. In addition, the program will provide institutional support for these students to develop continuing education workshops for other professionals.  Through these activities, Sharing Success will help broaden the base of youth services librarians who can provide quality continuing education for their practitioner peers in school and public libraries and who will meaningfully contribute to best practices and research in this field.

The CAS is a 40-credit hour degree program open to professionals who hold a master’s degree in library and information science and desire to update their skills, gain greater specialization in their professional training, or redirect their careers from one area to another. Students complete 32-credit hours of coursework with the remaining 8-credit hours spent working on an independent final project.

Students selected for these scholarships will have an MLS degree and ideally represent diverse populations.  They will also either have significant experience in youth services or have substantial experience in another area of librarianship and demonstrate a commitment to changing their career focus to the area of youth service in their research proposal statement. 

As part of their CAS work, students will complete a research project that relates to youth services and develop a continuing education workshop based on this research.  They will present their research-in-progress or their completed workshops first to an audience of GSLIS students and faculty, in order to receive appropriate feedback on the strength of their information and presentation skills. Students will also receive money to support their travel to conferences during each of the two years they receive tuition funding.

About Youth Services Librarianship

Youth services work in school and public libraries continues to be a vital part of librarianship.  Librarians in this field serve young people from birth through high school in addition to these young people’s families, caregivers, teachers, and community institutions. Research on literacy and cognitive development, national demands for 21st century literacy development, rapid advances in information and communication technologies, and the continued rise of published materials for young people require youth services librarians to continue to develop their professional skills and knowledge.

About GSLIS

GSLIS is the top-ranked graduate program in library and information science and the top-ranked youth services librarianship program in the country according to US News and World Report. Three full-time, tenure-track faculty members teach, research, and serve the profession in this field. In addition to these faculty members, more than six part-time adjunct faculty members who have quality records of practice, research, and service contribute to the youth services librarianship program at GSLIS. Complementing the faculty members and their expertise, the Center for Children’s Books (CCB) and the eminent review journal, The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (BCCB), are integral facets of GSLIS.  Additional opportunities to engage in youth services activities such as a youth literature and media discussion group and a storytelling group abound.