Recipients of the Jay Fellowship
In 2017, the Jay Information Literacy Fellowship was established by a mother and daughter team, two former educators and school librarians: Hilda Jay '45 and Ellen Jay '85, '86. Both Hilda and Ellen taught in public schools and universities, wrote books on information literacy, and encouraged the teaching of critical thinking skills. The Jay Information Literacy Fellowship is given each year to a student working in the Teaching and Learning Commons of the IU Libraries with the intent of furthering information literacy instruction.
Read more about the Jay family in "Three Generations of Impact at IU Libraries."
Jay Fellows create programs and explore ways to improve literacy skills of students, focusing on public service areas in the library. For example, Madeleine Gaiser conducted an accessibility audit on Teaching and Learning online learning resources, while Valencia Posso created a virtual reality game to introduce students to Wells Library. In 2020-2021, Margaret McLaughlin assisted with implementing online learning objects to assist with a transition to online courses. Jay Fellow Taylor Strong researched and presented on the connection between information literacy and its connection to peace studies. Researching and using video tutorials across academic libraries, Abby Welch has created best practices to IU Libraries resources. Josie Shephard used oral history practices to engage and gather feedback from students about the libraries and its services. Lastly, Sophie Hand is exploring different ways to use 'zines to teach information literacy.
Previous Recipients of the Jay Information Literacy Award:
2024-2025 Josie Shephard, Sophie Hand, and Janet (Jane) Mireku
2023-2024 Taylor Strong and Abby Welch
2022-2023 Taylor Strong
2021-2022 Velencia Posso
2020-2021 Margaret McLaughlin
2019-2020 Madeleine Gaiser