School of Music

Jade Kastel

Jade Kastel, M.L.I.S., M.M.
Assistant Professor, Music Librarian
Pronouns: she, her
Sallee 108
Phone: (309) 298-2147
Email: JM-Kastel@wiu.edu
Visit: WIU Music Library, jadekastel.com

Jade Kastel joined the WIU faculty in 2021 as the music librarian and an assistant professor. In 2023, Jade was appointed as the founding Diversity Officer for WIU Libraries. She graduated with a B.M. and M.M. in saxophone performance and a Masters in Library and Information Science, and she completed a teaching assistantship in the Tirocinante program at the Conservatorio di Musica “Niccolò Piccinni” in Bari, Italy. Jade is pursuing a DMA in jazz performance with a minor in queer studies at the University of Illinois.

In 2019, Jade was a fellow in the Institute of Jazz Studies Archival Fellowship at Rutgers University. Since 2008, Jade has worked as a jazz musician in Milwaukee, Miami, and now in Illinois. Her performances have taken her to Bolivia, Brazil, Great Britain, Italy, Slovenia, and across the United States.

Jade's publications have appeared in Notes, Florida Libraries, and Academic BRASS. Jade has presented at conferences for the Illinois Library Association, Southeast Florida Library Information Network, Society of Indiana Archivists, Southwest Popular/American Culture Association, Southern Miss Institutional Repository Conference, Florida Library Association, and at the Virtual Poster Conference for the Association of College & Research Libraries. Jade's scholarship focuses on the intersections of gender, women, nonbinary, and transgender people within jazz music, archives, and librarianship. She is an active commentator in the “Women’s Voices” series on Tri States Public Radio.

Before joining WIU, Jade worked as a librarian at Purdue University Fort Wayne and at Johnson & Wales University in North Miami, and she was the Supervisor of Library Services at Broward College in Davie, Florida.

Jade is an active member of the Music Library Association as a book reviewer for Notes, and currently serves as the co-chair of the CARLI Preservation Committee, secretary for the IACRL DEI Committee, chair of the WIU Libraries Diversity Committee, serves on WIU’s University Committee on Sexual Orientation Gender Identity and Expression (UCOSOGIE), and the Indiana Library Federation's Racial Justice & Inclusion Committee where she hosts the interview series Tapestry.