CARLI Update
October 2, 2017
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Anne Craig
Senior Director, Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois
We have really great news to share on many fronts!
I have been crisscrossing the state, sitting down with directors in small groups called “listening sessions”. These are informal and intended to help CARLI hear about opportunities that our members may know about but cannot implement alone--that is, services or programs requiring the resources of a consortium. Many ideas have surfaced, including building institutional repositories, brokering services (rather than content), having CARLI serve as a facilitator of discussions and thought, addressing the need for more continuing-education, and capitalizing upon opportunities to tell CARLI’s “story”. The listening sessions have been a wonderful experience. I will resume scheduling them in the spring.
Two exciting programs in the Directors’ Webinars Series are coming this fall. “Demystifying the Process: Getting Your Article Published” will take place on Tuesday, October 17, from 2:00 to 3:00 PM. It will be presented by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Also, “Current Copyright Issues” will be held on Wednesday, November 1, from 10:00 to 11:00 AM. The presenter will be Carrie Russell, American Library Association, Office for Information Technology Policy, Director, Program on Public Access to Information. Both webinars will be recorded and available for viewing. Please check the “CARLI Director Resources” page for more information.
Additionally, I-Share has some exciting developments. We have four new libraries coming into I-Share, bringing our total up to 90! The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, McHenry County College, Moody Bible Institute, and Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, will be live by March, 2018. We anticipate our Request for Proposal for I-Share Next to be released very soon. Please watch our e-newsletter for information.
CARLI has joined the Open Textbook Network (OTN), a consortium of colleges and universities working to advance open-textbook initiatives. Open textbooks can be downloaded at no cost or printed inexpensively. CARLI is thrilled to be a part of this community of schools, universities, and institutions making a difference in higher education by addressing the growing concerns about educational affordability. Seventeen CARLI Governing member institutions, plus two other Illinois consortia, supported CARLI’s membership in the OTN. Through this collaboratively funded system membership, all 128 CARLI Governing member libraries will realize the benefits of OTN membership. The members of CARLI’s new Open Educational Resources (OER) Task Force are working to shape the “Open Illinois” initiative, a concept for uniting thought and action around OERs in CARLI.
CARLI will host its very popular New Directors’ Institute on May 16 and 17, 2018, for CARLI directors who have been in their positions for up to 36 months. Eligibility is self-selecting, so, if you have been in place a little longer and feel that you would benefit, then, by all means, please consider attending! More information will be forthcoming.
We are excited that the last ingest for the Illinois Digital Heritage Hub included not only the CARLI Digital Collections and the Illinois State Library’s Illinois Digital Archives, but now also the Chicago Public Library and the Chicago History Museum’s collections. These additions bring the total number of images in the Digital Public Library of America to approximately 220,000.
Now that the budget for the State of Illinois has been adopted, CARLI looks forward to a more stable FY2018 (July 1, 2017 - June 30, 2018). Although final budget numbers are still being finalized, we know that financial resources will be reduced from FY2015 levels. In fact, our planning indicates that we should expect future budgets to continue constricting available funds. The CARLI organization has been aggressively trimming expenses for the past three budget years. For this reason, we feel that we are in a very secure position going forward for FY2018.
Lastly, I look forward to seeing you all at the CARLI Annual Meeting, in Champaign at the I Hotel, on Friday, November 17!
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