News from RAILS & Libraries

Debbie Baaske, acting Member Engagement Manager talks with Elizabeth Quinlan, Foundation Librarian at the MacArthur Foundation. Liz shares how she supports the more than 170 staff of one of the largest grant making organizations in the United States. Liz, who considers herself an “Information...

That wasn’t quite the tagline for our Welcome Back to the Library campaign last fall, but we did offer a chance to win McDonald’s and Target gift cards! As the summer of 2021 approached, Warrenville Library was starting to plan for a fall return to pre-pandemic hours and services. We were hopeful...

After years of hearing other librarians talk about Axis 360, our District librarians were anxious to give it try. It seemed even more ideal after having limited access to books during the Pandemic. With our students now having 1:1 devices, this was the perfect time to really push ebooks and having a...

Debbie Baaske, acting Member Engagement Manager talks with Colby Maddox, Manager of the Resource Center at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. The collection houses over 25,000 commercial and archival recordings, videos, books, photos, documents and periodicals. The main users of the...

Northern Illinois University has just released its 2022 entry for #ColorOurCollections, an annual social media festival hosted by the New York Academy of Medicine Library between February 7-11, during which libraries, museums, archives, and other cultural institutions around the world share free...

Debbie Baaske, acting Member Engagement Manager talks with Meredith Payne, librarian at the Illinois Service Resource Center. The ISRC provides behavior support for students who are deaf, hard of hearing, or visually impaired in Illinois. Meredith describes the library that consists of an expanding...

Libraries around the country have been in the news for distributing at-home COVID-19 tests, but we haven’t heard of too many libraries actually offering COVID-19 testing, until now! Some RAILS libraries have started offering this service, including Three Rivers Public Library District. The director...

Thanks to all who filled out the recent My Library Is... survey! In November 2021, RAILS conducted four separate surveys targeted at our four library types (academic, public, school, and specialized) to measure awareness of the My Library Is... campaign and to determine what changes to the website...

Debbie Baaske, acting Member Engagement Manager talks with Leora Siegel, Senior Director at the Lenhardt Library. Leora talks about all of the wonderful resources available to the public from the library during open hours and through ILL. She also shares information on their digitization efforts of...

The Exhibitions The Vespasian Warner Public Library District in Clinton has been looking forward to this month (January of 2022) for almost two years. The library was selected by Illinois Humanities to be one of six host sites for Voices and Votes: Democracy in America, a travelling exhibition from...

The purpose of Libraries is to provide opportunities. Opportunity for information, research, connection, cultural awareness; the list extends for miles. One of the Lisle Library District’s goals is to provide an opportunity for kindness. This effort has been conjured in collecting needed items for...

Debbie Baaske, acting Member Engagement Manager talks with Halle Cox, Director at the Kane County Law Library and Self Help Legal Center. Halle shares how the library serves the lawyers and judges, as well as the general public. She says approximately 85% of their users are the general public. They...

Debbie Baaske, acting Member Engagement Manager talks with Sarah Rice, Research and Knowledge Services Manager at Forefront. Sarah discusses how the library serves the organization and its over 1100 nonprofit members. The library has a wealth of resources on various aspects of fundraising and donor...

Pandemic Programming – Baby Goats, Churros, and Pumpkins Like many public libraries, the Lisle Library District has been challenged to provide new, primarily outdoor events for our community in response to the pandemic. Annual inside pre-pandemic events had included Harry Potter Day and Star Wars...

Debbie Baaske talks with Brenda Stenger, the director of the American Hospital Association Resource Center. Brenda discusses how the resource center serves the organization and outside users, and how demand has grown during the pandemic. She also shares some great ways that she’s marketed the...