UIC librarian named Illinois Academic Librarian of the Year

The Illinois Library Association has named Emily Gilbert, information services and liaison librarian at the University of Illinois Chicago Library of the Health Sciences, as the 2024 recipient of its Illinois Academic Librarian of the Year Award. The award, presented by the organization's Illinois Association of College and Research Libraries Forum, recognizes an Illinois librarian who is making an outstanding statewide contribution to academic or research librarianship and library development.

Gilbert, who is also an assistant professor, has shown leadership in her efforts to make libraries more inclusive. She has been vocal about bringing representation to various populations in libraries and encourages library workers to be open about their identities when they can do so safely.

Though she has researched a variety of library topics, she centers her research on "systemic anti-fatness and how libraries can create an inclusive and accessible future for people in all bodies." Her research on anti-fatness will be presented at the 2024 Illinois Library Association Annual Conference. She also recently collaborated with a medical student to present a colloquium on anti-fatness to students in the UIC College of Medicine, and she attends curriculum meetings to speak up for more weight-neutral terminology and practices in medical education.

Gilbert is a passionate advocate for all libraries and for those who want to get involved and improve their communities. She has written about and presented her experience of running for her local public library board and has used her story to encourage those who struggle to speak up to do so. In her time on the Schaumburg Township District Library Board, she has helped improve patron services and update policies to reflect the needs of a 21st-century library in an ever-changing landscape. Gilbert has demonstrated a commitment to listening to the community, and she works hard as an individual contributor to the collective library board. She is particularly proud of the small part she played in the central library's recent second-floor renovation.

Gilbert has been involved with the Illinois Association of College and Research Libraries Forum since 2018. She served as incoming/sitting/past president of Illinois Association of College and Research Libraries from 2020-23 and participated in numerous committees. In her time as president, she made significant impacts on how the association's executive board operates. Unprompted, she took on the valuable yet invisible work of succession planning and documenting timelines and tasks of the forum's operations to facilitate easy transitions in leadership. Her efforts will have a lasting effect on the association's success.

The Illinois Academic Librarian of the Year Award will be presented at an awards ceremony during the 2024 Illinois Library Association Annual Conference Oct. 8-10 in Peoria. For more information, contact the Illinois Library Association.