Dr. Marcia Mardis, assistant professor at the School of Library & Information Studies, will present the second annual Hazel Harvey Peace Lecture, “Coming full circle: How the past can help us get it right in 21st century learning,” at the University of North Texas (UNT) College of Information on Sept. 11. The event is co-hosted by the Texas Center for Digital Knowledge at UNT.

Dr. Mardis is winner of the 2010 American Association for School Librarians Distinguished Service Award and will present a lecture aimed toward practicing school librarians, teachers, administrators, public and academic librarians. The annual lecture is an event to raise money for the Hazel Harvey Peace Scholarship Fund and for research in children’s and youth services, as well as school libraries.

The late Peace is highly revered in Ft. Worth as a lifelong educator and community activist, especially as an advocate for children’s literacy and the rights of the homeless. She was the first African-American woman to be honored with an endowed professorship at a Texas public university, when Dr. Barbara Stein Martin of the UNT Department of Library and Information Sciences was named the first Hazel Harvey Peace Professor in Children’s Library Services in 2004.