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Head Librarian/Director of International Programs
Illinois Fire Service Institute Library
Disclosure: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.
Lian Ruan, Ph.D in Library and Information Science, Head Librarian at the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI), Director of the IFSI International Programs and Affiliate Research Faculty at the School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has research interest on information behavior and international librarianship with numerous publications. She has served on multiple capacities, including President of the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) and CALA Executive Director. She serves on IFLA Information Literacy Standing Committee. She has organized the Chinese Librarians Scholarly Exchange Program (CLSEP) from 2005-2019 and trained over 423 librarians from 145 organizations all over China. She has also hosted 140 Chinese visiting scholars from 76 institutions since 2008.
Dr. Ruan received awards, including the University of Illinois Chancellor's Academic Professional Excellence award, the SLA Diversity Leadership Development Program award, CALA President Recognition Award, CALA Distinguished Services Award, and Illinois Academic Librarian of the Year Award. Under her leadership, her library was named the Finalist for the 2015-2017 IMLS National Medal for Museum and Library Service (The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor given to museums and libraries for service to the community). She was named as one of 150 for 150 (celebrating the Accomplishments of Women at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that is part of the U. of I.’s sesquicentennial celebration, https://gec150.web.illinois.edu/1990s/). She received the JCLC Advocacy Award at the 2018 3rd National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color in recognition of her significant efforts to improve and promote library services to culturally diverse communities. She was honored and recognized by the Illinois Firefighter’s Association Inc. for her accomplishments and contributions to Illinois fire service.