FTRF Names Katie Chamberlain Kritikos as Conable Scholarship recipient

CHICAGO — The Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) has selected Katie Chamberlain Kritikos as the recipient of the 2016 Gordon M. Conable Conference Scholarship. The Conable Scholarship will provide for Kritikos’s expenses to attend the 2016 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida.

As part of the scholarship, the recipient will attend FTRF and other intellectual freedom meetings and programs at the conference, consult with mentors, and present a report about her experiences and thoughts following the conference. She will be recognized at the FTRF Annual Member Reception from 5 p.m. — 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 23, 2016 in the Orlando Conference Center, room W209C.

This is the first time in its nine-year history that the Conable Scholarship has been awarded to a doctoral student.

"The committee was impressed by Katie’s long-term commitment to intellectual freedom," said Conable Scholarship Committee Chair Julia Warga. “Her graduate work and volunteer experiences demonstrate that she is someone who will continue to be focused on important areas of intellectual freedom. Katie’s research is currently focused on free speech, privacy, and ethics and their information policy implications. We are excited to meet Katie, and to introduce her to our members.”

Kritikos is a currently a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, School of Information Studies. She received a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Illinois School of Law in Champaign, Illinois. She is currently a research assistant at the Center for Policy Research at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

The Conable Scholarship was created to advance two principles that Gordon Conable held dear: intellectual freedom and mentorship. Gordon Conable was a librarian and intellectual freedom champion in Michigan and California who served several terms as president of the Freedom to Read Foundation. His unexpected death in 2005 inspired his wife, Irene Conable, and the FTRF Board to create the Conable Fund, which provides funding for the Conable Scholarship.

To donate to the Conable Fund, please visit www.ftrf.org/?Conable_Fund or call (800) 545-2433, ext. 4226.