Illinois Heartland Library System (http://www.illinoisheartland.org) will be creating a more comprehensive website in the future. For now, the IHLS website contains system-wide information. Until that website integrates area specific information, you will still be able to find up-to-date information regarding the Champaign Office’s delivery, automation and resource-sharing services on this website.

For a staff listing of IHLS, go to: http://www.illinoisheartland.org/about-us/staff.html

For LINC or ILDS delivery information, go to: http://www.lincolntrail.info/delivery.html

For automation information including up-to-date statistics and LINC Update, go to: http://www.lincolntrail.info/automation.html

Training events will be announced at a later time.

IHLS-Champaign Office staff will continue to be available for your questions concerning the new system at 217-352-0047.

This is the last official day of the Lincoln Trail Libraries System and my last day as Executive Director of LTLS . I am writing to let each and every one of you know how much I personally appreciate all of your contributions as well as those of your libraries during my tenure here. There have been many changes in the ability of libraries to provide amazing library service during the 45 years that LTLS was in operation. Each of you personally has contributed to this and each of the libraries that you worked in have improved your services. Thank You!

When I came here in 1983 the only computer we had was the “mainframe” for the automation system and we had fewer than 15 libraries that were part of the shared system. Twenty-eight years later we have more than 100 libraries in the shared automation system and we all use computers in our libraries and in our personal lives.

I leave you with a real sense of satisfaction that together we created great library service – through local efforts and through our cooperative efforts. I will miss the every day challenges of ensuring that the cooperative is alive and well and moving forward. I will watch from afar and close up as you move together toward expanded cooperation with new partners while continuing your current partnerships.

I leave a special thanks to the many members of the LTLS Board that I have had the pleasure of working with; what dedicated individuals. A final thanks to the great people who work at LTLS now and in the past – they always thought about the people that your libraries serve and how to improve that service. Truly they are committed to cooperative library service at a local, state, national and international level.

I leave you with a quote from one my library heroes – Hugh Atkinson, University Librarian, University of Illinois 1976 to 1986. “The first and most important thing that libraries should keep in mind when dealing with networks is that it is not necessary for products, outcomes, and uses of networks to be the results of an equal system, but rather that the network be valuable to each of the participants. Equity is not the goal -- results are.”

Keep up the good work for the members of your community. Our democratic values are counting on each and every one of you.

Jan Ison