Published 1/15/2021
Ask your county health department to prioritize library workers in the vaccine rollout -- The Illinois Library Association has sent a letter to Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, asking her to include library workers in Phases 1b and 1c of the Illinois COVID-19 vaccine rollout plan. Similarly, you can help advocate at your county/region level by using ILA's template letter and sending it to your library's health department.
Published 1/14/2021 5:38 PM CT
Once again, Illinois Library Association has arranged its spring 2021 series of legislative events as opportunities for library staff and advocates to meet with your state and federal legislators and speak with them about issues affecting you and your library. This year, all legislative meet-ups will be held in a virtual format. Library trustees, directors, and staff from public, school, and academic libraries are encouraged to attend and participate.
Three of these meet-ups are dedicated to elected officials and library representatives from the central and southern Illinois areas: the Central Illinois Library Legislative Zoom Meet-up, Metro East Library Legislative Zoom Meet-up, and the Southern Illinois Library Legislative Zoom Meet-up.
Published 1/12/2021 12:00 PM CT
Join your IHLS friends and colleagues from around central and southern Illinois to discover how to harness the power of community partnerships to provide meaningful programming. Noah Lenstra will present Team Up to Keep Your Communities Active and Engaged during the first hour. The second hour will feature updates from the Illinois State Library, SHARE, IHLS Delivery, Marketing, and Membership staff.
IHLS has received another 100 copies of ILA's Serving Our Public 4.0: Standards for Illinois Public Libraries books. These books are now available for IHLS Members to purchase at a discounted price.
Published 1/8/2021 10:07 PM CT
Do you love your library community and want to help advocate for its needs? Representing your library type and geographical region on the IHLS board is a great way to do that. Here's what's involved.
Published 1/8/2021 6:00 AM CT
We've crawled the web for the most useful library links, curated for the librarians of Illinois. This #LibraryLinkRoundup contains the best of 2020 plus lots of new and updated content from Illinois Heartland Library System (including some recordings from Member Day)
In 2020 the Cataloging Maintenance Center (CMC) transcribed 261 oral history interviews for the Marshall Public Library.
Published 12/21/2020 4:25 PM CT
Illinois Heartland Library System has five surplus delivery vans that will be granted to member libraries to assist in community outreach efforts. Applying libraries must be public, school, academic, or special library members of Illinois Heartland Library System. In the application, libraries must explain how they plan to use a surplus delivery van(s) for the creation or expansion of mobile services and demonstrate that they can sustain the service. Projects that include service to underserved areas, enhancement of WiFi access for the community, and cooperative agreements with community partners are preferred. The online application opens Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020, and will close at the end of the day on Monday, Feb.1, 2021.
Copies of the 2020 ILA Illinois Library Laws & Rules are still available to purchase. This essential compilation includes all current laws and rules affecting library service in Illinois.
