Update on Illinois Library System Money

From Joe Harris, SHLS

On Wednesday, 20 January 2010, the Illinois library community and our friends were asked to write to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and Illinois Comptroller Daniel W. Hynes, requesting that the long-overdue funding for Illinois's regional library systems be released, and the response was overwhelming. Almost 10,000 library supporters sent an e-mail message to the governor and/or the comptroller, resulting in about 20,000 messages sent!

On Friday, 22 January 2010, the systems received partial payment, approximately 30-35% of the money owed. To the best of ILA's knowledge, the systems received the following amounts:

Alliance Library System $540,000
DuPage Library System $357,788
Lewis & Clark Library System $315,279
Lincoln Trail Libraries System $240,575
Metropolitan Library System $936,721
North Suburban Library System $716,000
Prairie Area Library System $793,406
Rolling Prairie Library System $225,000
Shawnee Library System $416,756

This is a remarkable step, and it couldn't have happened without all of you and our many friends. Since full payment hasn't been received, this is a strong start, but we will still have further to go. ILA will continue to inform the Illinois library community about the next steps, for example, Snapshot Day.