Insight

              INSIGHT
A Newsletter from the Illinois State Library • July/August 2001
J E S S E W H I T E • S E C R E T A R Y O F S T A T E A N D S T A T E L I B R A R I A N
Secretary of State and State Li-brarian
Jesse White has announced
that the state of Illinois has been cho-sen
by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation to receive a grant that will
provide funding for computers, Inter-net
access and other digital informa-tion
to public libraries serving
low-income residents.
“Bill and Melinda Gates are to
be commended for their enormous
generosity in bringing computer tech-nology
to citizens who might other-
Gates library initiative underway in Illinois
Mike Pearson, author
of “Illini Legends, Lists
and Lore,” donated
500 copies of his book
to the Illinois State
Library to be
distributed to public
libraries throughout the
state. Pearson, of
Champaign-Urbana,
displays his books with
State Library Director
Jean Wilkins.
Inside INSIGHT
State Library hosts Russian visitors
“Letters About Literature” contest
Small Public Library Institute
▼ ▼ ▼
State approves $74.1 million for libraries
At a time when significant fund-ing
cuts for libraries are being made
in other states, Illinois lawmakers
passed a budget in May that ensures
level funding for local libraries dur-ing
fiscal year 2002. The Illinois State
Library will receive $74.1 million for
various library and literacy grants to
be distributed to Illinois libraries (see
chart on page 2).
(see Gates on page 3)
wise go without these important
tools,” said White. “Public libraries
are ideal venues to help bridge this
digital divide.”
The foundation’s State Partner-ship
Program is guided by the fol-lowing
four principles:
• Funding is targeted to those
libraries serving low-income com-munities
where the need is greatest.
• Funding should help build
partnerships between the program
and grant recipients, between grant
recipients and their communities, and
within the library community.
• Funding should serve as a cata-lyst
for others to support the public li-brary
as an institution and to make
broad public access to information
technologies a priority.
• All program activities will en-courage
long-term, local technologi-cal
and financial sustainability.
The Illinois State Library and the
Gates Foundation have worked to-gether
to determine a list of eligible
libraries in Illinois. The foundation
will begin mailing grant applications
to these libraries by the end of the
summer.
“Here in Illinois we call this won-derful
opportunity ‘Opening the
Gates,’” said State Library Director
Jean Wilkins. “The State Library has
been working with the foundation
since 1999 to bring this initiative here,
and now we’re ready to help our li-braries
get this program up and run-ning.”
Wilkins is urging eligible librar-ies
to return their applications quickly.
State Library staff and staff from the
state’s 12 regional library systems are
The General Assembly also
unanimously approved a bill to
change procedures for issuing non-resident
library cards. Under current
law, a non-resident may obtain a li-brary
card from any public library
that has a non-resident card pro-gram,
which is optional for libraries.
(see State on page 3)