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Politics & Government

State Funds Come Through to Keep Interlibrary Loan Program Running

Five library systems working on merger to keep books, DVDs, CDs and other materials flowing between libraries.

Interlibrary loan and borrowing of books, DVDs, CDs and other materials will continue to be delivered by van to the Ela Area Public Library as patrons have been accustomed to now that the program has received $716,715.39 from the state to fund the program. 

A pending merger between five library systems will keep the service in tact. The North Suburban, Alliance, DuPage, Metropolitan, and Prairie Library systems have been working on a solution for months because state funds for the service have been late.

 “We have been encouraged to merge by the state,” said Mary Witt, acting executive director at North Suburban Library System (NSLS).

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Due to lack of funding from the state, the idea is to merge and “not duplicate efforts,” said Witt, which in the long run will open up funding for van delivery.

If the library merger goes through, that will free up salaries of five executive directors to one.

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“Our goal is to combine efforts and scale down,” said Kathy Caudill, NSLS board president.

Van delivery includes interlibrary loan and reciprocal borrowing. Those services give library patrons the option to obtain books and materials from other libraries and also check out and return books and materials from other libraries in the system. The van delivery makes these services possible.

Up until last week, the NSLS hadn't received funding for the 2010-2011 fiscal year from the State.

“We have no idea why the money came through,” said Caudill. “We were under the assumption that we were not going to receive it.”

The outlook of the van delivery was looking bleak in October 2010 when NSLS released a statement on their website saying, “NSLS (and other Illinois library systems) only have enough cash to operate until December 2010.”

The applied for and received a Library Services and Technology Grant for $139,000 in the beginning of October, according to Witt.

In November NSLS was given $427,410.72 of the Live & Learn Fund owed from last fiscal year 2009-2010.

That money extended the life of the van delivery until the end of June 2011, when the merger is also set to be complete.

“Our libraries rely on van delivery, it is so important,” said Caudill.

The costs associated with van delivery run $60,000 per month. That includes all vehicle costs, personnel, building costs, and overhead, according to Witt.

The volume of requests for materials a library receives determines the frequency of the van deliveries. Public libraries have the greatest volume since they are the ones that deal with the general public said Witt.

“Right now we are working towards merging and keeping ourselves going,” said Caudill.

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