Dr. Troy Swanson, Teaching & Learning Librarian and Library Department Chair at the Sylvia M. Jenkins Library at Moraine Valley Community College, is the 2026 recipient of the Illinois Library Association (ILA) Illinois Academic Librarian of the Year Award. The award, presented by the ILA Illinois Association of College and Research Libraries (IACRL) Forum, recognizes an Illinois librarian who is making an outstanding
statewide contribution to academic or research librarianship and to library development. The award is sponsored by Library Juice Academy.
Dr. Swanson has demonstrated leadership in his work on improving information literacy and information behavior as well as library outreach and advocacy. He has accomplished this through serving on the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards Task Force which developed the Framework for Informational Literacy for Higher Education and promoted it locally by developing the Information Literacy Summit and presenting its keynote address in 2024. Dr. Swanson has also presented at national conferences and our own ILA Annual Conference.
Dr. Swanson has written and presented on critical thinking and information literacy. His book, which he co-edited with IACRL’s Heather Jagman, Not Just Where to Click: Teaching Students How to Think About Information, received the ACRL Instruction Section’s Ilene F. Rockman Publication of the Year Award and another book, Knowledge as a Feeling: How We Know What Is True, provides psychological and neurological framework for building information literacy programs for students.
Dr. Swanson is also focused on library unions and representing libraries and librarians to the Illinois state legislature where his advocacy helped to pass HB1859, a law affirming community college courses taught by human intelligence rather than artificial intelligence. Part of Dr. Swanson’s activism included a Circulating Ideas podcast episode in 2025 where he interviewed librarians about the underfunding of libraries and the situation with Western Illinois University’s cutting of librarian roles.
The Illinois Academic Librarian of the Year Award will be presented at an awards ceremony during the 2026 Illinois Library Association Annual Conference. The conference will take place October 6-8, 2026, in Peoria, Illinois. For more information, contact the Illinois Library Association.
About the Illinois Library Association
The Illinois Library Association (ILA) is a professional membership organization that represents Illinois libraries and the millions who depend on them. Founded in 1896, it is the third-largest state library association and serves as a chapter within the American Library Association. ILA is comprised of 2,000 personal and more than 500 institutional members, made up of public, academic, school, and special libraries, as well as librarians, library staff, trustees, students, and library vendors.
