Official Commemorative State of Illinois Barack Obama License Plates Are Now Available to the General Public
Illinois Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White and the Illinois Library Association (ILA) are pleased to announce that the official Barack Obama Illinois license plate is now available for purchase to everyone. These special event license plates, which read “Illinois Salutes President Barack Obama,” are unique commemorative plates and until April 17, 2009, had been only available to owners of Illinois vehicles.

The plates have been on sale for the last sixty days and have already become the most popular special event plate in Illinois history. They were created to commemorate and celebrate the election of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as U.S. President, our nation’s first African American president. The proceeds will help support the ILA’s activities including iREAD, the summer reading program for Illinois youth. The plates make an excellent gift for family and friends and can now be purchased in multiple sets by anyone.

“ILA is delighted to partner with our State Librarian in this wonderful opportunity,” said ILA President Donna Dziedzic. “Libraries are more important than ever in this period of economic instability and more and more people are using them every day. Moreover, study after study have proven that the economic impact of libraries is greater than the amount invested in the libraries’ operations and, in fact, libraries are economic engines in their community.”

“Libraries are the cornerstones of our communities,” said Illinois Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White. “I am committed to working with libraries across the state to help them serve their patrons and communities at the highest level. The iREAD program represents an important effort to encourage our young people to read.”

In 2005, the then U.S. Senator Obama keynoted the opening general session of the American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago. He praised librarians as guardians of truth and knowledge, and thanked them for their role as champions of privacy, literacy, independent thinking, and most of all reading. President Obama has referred to libraries as “our windows to a larger world.”