DENTON (UNT), Texas -- For the second year in a row, the University of North Texas' College of Information had more students selected as American Library Association Spectrum Scholars than any other library and information science program at a Texas college or university.

Four UNT students were named 2014 Spectrum Scholars and will each receive $5,000 for one academic year. The Spectrum Scholarships are considered to be among the most prestigious scholarships for students earning graduate degrees in library and information science. Twenty UNT students have been named Spectrum Scholars since 2009.

The Spectrum Scholarship Program was established in 1997 by the ALA's Office for Diversity as a national diversity and recruitment effort to address the under-representation of certain ethnic groups in the library profession. In addition to the scholarship, each Spectrum Scholar receives more than $1,500 worth of pre-professional development activities and ongoing leadership training and career placement services.

All of this year's Spectrum Scholars in the College of Information are earning master's degrees in library science. They are:

• Mayra Corn of Las Vegas. Corn is earning her degree through the college's distance education program in Nevada and Utah. She is the fourth student from that program to receive a Spectrum Scholarship during the past three years. Corn has served as the youth services/children's library assistant for the West Las Vegas Library, part of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, since 2011, and has worked for the district a total of six years. She received her bachelor's degree in education from Nevada State College in Henderson.
• Yvonne Ivey of Dallas. Ivey is currently working at the George W. Bush Presidential Library as an Association of Research Libraries/Society of American Archivists Mosaic Fellow. She previously interned at the Coca-Cola Company Archives in Atlanta and The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. She also worked as a research assistant in the College of Information and as the social media intern for the Texas Library Association Program Committee.
  Ivey received her bachelor's degree in English from Spelman College in Atlanta in 2013 and received an Andrew W. Mellon Recruiting Tomorrow's Library Leaders Scholarship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to enter the College of Information.
• Brittany Rodgers of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Rodgers is earning her degree through the college's distance education program in Arkansas and Tennessee, called Educating Librarians for the Middle South, or ELMS. She has worked for the Springdale Public Library in Springdale, Arkansas, since July 2011, as a circulation clerk and an information assistant. Rodgers received her bachelor's degree in history and European studies magna cum laude from the University of Arkansas, where she studied abroad at the university's Rome Center.
• John Edward Martin of Houston. Martin is earning his degree through the college's distance education program in Houston and serves as the program's liaison. He previously received his bachelor's degree in English and religious studies from Rice University and a doctoral degree in American literature from Northwestern University. He taught American literature and composition courses at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Louisiana Tech University in Ruston and San Jacinto College in Houston.
  In addition to being a Spectrum Scholar, Martin received a scholarship from the Association of Research Libraries Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce Scholars Program, which covers the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years.

A fifth student in the College of Information, Angela Price of Memphis, Tennessee, received a $5,000 Christopher Hoy/ERT Scholarship for 2014-15 from the American Library Association. The scholarship is named for a longtime ALA staff member who directed the association's Conference Services Office for more than 20 years.

Price is also earning her degree through ELMS, the college's distance education program in Arkansas and Tennessee. She has worked as a librarian and library assistant for the Memphis Public Library and Information Center since November 2011. Price also volunteers for the Memphis Zoo, where she worked as a zookeeper from 2006 to 2010.