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2011-2012 Annual Report
According to the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, to deliver the goods is to “do what is required, to come up to expectations.” I hope and believe that is what ILA did this year not only for all our members, but for library patrons throughout the state. I know we did our collective best, and I’m grateful to each of you for meeting and exceeding my own expectations of what this organization can accomplish— every one of you came up with “the goods.” As some of you will recognize, this play on words is also a nod to a project that took a lot of our time and energy this year, preparing an extensive study on the future of library cooperation statewide, especially in terms of materials delivery. Funded by an LSTA grant from the Illinois State Library, the study resulted in a starting point to truly consider resource sharing in a new environment. Thank you to all who provided history, background, statistical information, and analysis. The study reflects the care and commitment we all share for Illinois libraries. We delivered a lot of other goods, too—bold, brilliant, and brave conference programs and powerful messages to legislators and policy makers at all levels of government. Congratulations to our Public Policy and Advocacy committees, who by working closely together, effectively kept libraries in the forefront of legislators’ minds. We delivered articles about system mergers, e-books, and new libraries for poetry and research in the ILA Reporter every other month. We continued to develop partnerships with library organizations near and far, to deliver iREAD’s summer reading theme—Reading Is So Delicious—to libraries worldwide. You read that right, worldwide. iREAD is created by librarians, for librarians, and there is no other program like it. We can be very proud of our youth services colleagues who create our themes each year and also of iREAD’s new registered trademark status—iREAD®! Continuing that theme of deliciousness, one of my last official acts as ILA President was to deliver ice cream to the new member leaders at the ILA Orientation Session in Peoria in July. It was indeed a pleasure to welcome so many new faces, fresh pairs of eyes and ears, and interesting new ideas and approaches. I look forward to the coming year as a past-president, sharing what I’ve learned, and continuing to work toward making ILA everything it can be.
Lynn Elam ILA President, 2011–2012 Download the Annual Report for 2011-2012 in PDF format.
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