The university of illinois, school of information sciences at urbana-champaign and the ischool's center for children's books, in partnership with the university of illinois library, skeuomorph press &…

The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded the University of Illinois $199,992 under the National Leadership Grants program (CFDA 45.312) on September 1, 2026, to develop an interpretive and digital exhibit paired with field trip programming drawing on University of Illinois Library collections, including rare books, manuscripts, the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, and the School Collection.

The University of Illinois School of Information Sciences at Urbana-Champaign, through its Center for Children's Books, will partner with the University of Illinois Library, Skeuomorph Press & Booklab, and the Champaign County Forest Preserve to implement the project. The initiative will produce a digital collection development and readers' advisory guide prepared by the Editorial Board of the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, supplemented by materials from Center for Children's Books staff and the "Reading the Revolution" Scholars Council. Deliverables include American history-themed storytimes and school-aged library programming.

Work is performed in Urbana, Illinois, with a period of performance from September 1, 2026, through August 31, 2027. This is a project grant, a category of assistance funding within the National Leadership Grants program, which supports projects addressing critical needs in the museum and library fields with potential to advance professional practice through models, tools, research findings, services, practices, or alliances that can be widely used, adapted, scaled, or replicated.

The university of illinois, school of information sciences at urbana-champaign and the ischool's center for children's books, in partnership with the university of illinois library, skeuomorph press & booklab and community partner the champaign county forest preserve will implement a project based on the exhibit + field trip model. The project will develop an interpretive and digital exhibit drawing on the university of illinois library collections including rare book and manuscript library, sousa archives and center for american music, and social sciences, health, and education library's school collection. The project will develop a digital collection development and readers' advisory guide prepared by the editorial board of the bulletin of the center for children's books, with supplemental materials developed by the staff of the center for children's books and "reading the revolution" scholars council. Materials will include american history-themed storytimes, and school-aged library programming.