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variety of reference and nonfiction materials. Two library systems ventured into innovative programs as a result of the grants. One system used part of its funds to initiate a Coordinated Acquisitions Program with twenty-two subject specialties dispersed among member library subject centers, covering the entire range of the Dewey Decimal System. Another system used Title I funds to develop eight individual collections of tape cassetts and framed art reproductions which are housed in zone center libraries. Each zone has 5-9 member libraries and the program has encouraged the libraries within each zone to work more closely together.

Library manpower and staff enrichment

The quality of library service in the state will be improved through a shared staffing program designed for communities now unable to afford professional libraries and willing to share a professional with one or two neighboring libraries. Coordination of each program will be handled by the library systems. This twoyear project is partially supported by an LSCA Title I grant of $84,000.

A Staff Enrichment Program which strengthens the information and reference capabilities of local libraries by funding a staff member at the system level has been carried out with a $288,000 LSCA Title I grant beginning in fiscal 1974. The reference librarians hired under this proposal have been able to conduct workshops for local libraries, to weed reference collections, and generally to enhance reference service in smaller libraries. The agreement which systems made before accepting the grant was to pick up the tab for the new staff member in the third year.

Service to correctional institutions

A two-year LSCA Title I grant of $14,856 for library service to residents of five correctional facilities in the Bur Oak Library System was followed by permanent support from the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission, and the Illinois State Library for all state correctional institutions. The 1975 budget for the continuing support was $548,277. Regional service to Spanish-speaking residents

Spanish-speaking Americans constitute the largest minority group in the northwest suburbs of Chicago-a population of approximately 5,470. These residents are not presently being reached by traditional library services. In November 1975, Palatine Public Library, a member of the North Suburban Library System, received a $63.940 LSCA Title I grant to develop cooperatively with seven neighboring libraries public library services to Spanish-speaking residents of the eight communities served. The two-year project provides a Spanish-speaking librarian, support staff, equipment, and materials. The eight libraries are obligated to continue the program after the LSCA Title I funding ceases.

A somewhat similar project, El Centro de la Causa Library Project, is now coming to an end and is being absorbed by the Chicago Public Library into its regular ongoing program. The objective of this two-year project was to develop library service to a previously unserved population with special cultural and linguistic needs through a cooperative program operated by the Chicago Public Library and a community center. The model of public library service to the bilingual and bicultural community was developed with LSCA Title I funds. Illinois OCLC shared cataloging project

The Illinois Board of Higher Education and the Illinois State Library began a cooperative pilot project with the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) in 1974 for catalog card pr luction service offered by OCLC. The State Library and Reference and Research Centers at University of Illinois at Urbana, Chicago Public Library, and Southern Illinois University went on-line with the OCLC computer in Columbus in October 1974 to build a data base in first-level MARC (machine readable cataloging) format of all records that they input. In Spring 1975, an additional 26 academic libraries agreed to commit their own funds and to participate in the project. Funded in fiscal 1975 with a $53,000 LSCA Title III grant, the project has a staff of two systems librarians to coordinate the project with OCLC and to provide instruction in use of OCLC for librarians entering the project.

Expansion of the public library network

As the public library systems expanded their memberships to serve academic, special, and school libraries within their areas, it became necessary to create

additional staff positions within each system to work closely with the nonpublic libraries and to develop service programs which would bring the system into a broader operation. Because there is considerable difference in the number of nonpublic libraries in Illinois systems, provisions were made to fund either a fulltime project ($30,000/year) or a half-time one ($15,000/year) for each participating system. The grant includes the salary of a librarian qualified to work in a consultant capacity with all types of libraries, support staff, travel, and workshops. The two-year statewide budget for the project is $900,000 of LSCA Title I funds. Coordinated by the library cooperation consultant at the Illinois State Library, the program is designed to result in different types of libraries working together to provide more effective and efficient service. The program strengthens the systems and continues to recognize them as the main focus for library development in the state.

A system-based intertype library council

There are two different forms of multitype library councils in Illinois, both receiving LSCA funding. One is the Illinois Regional Library Council, to be covered later in this testimony; the other is a project undertaken by the Illinois Valley Library System in Peoria. The goals of the IVLS project are to promote and facilitate, within the system sti acture and system area, the use of all existing library resources in all types of libraries and to develop additional resources as needed. Accomplishments of the IVLS project include: a placement service, and experimental outreach program in seven member libraries in conjunction with Illinois Central College, a system-funded demonstration project providing access to twenty-nine data bases through a commercial supplier, and a restructuring of the IVLS governing board to include representatives from all types of libraries in the decision-making process. Forerunner of the statewide system expansion program, the IVLS project was begun in the Fall of 1973 with an LSCA Title I grant.

Summary of LSCA benefits to Illinois libraries

The most significant claim which can be made for LSCA impact in Illinois is that the establishment of the Illinois Library and Information Network, with its 911 member libraries and $10 million dollar annual state assistance program, was stimulated initially by LSCA funding. In attemping to solve the problem of the two million unserved residents, a Project PLUS program was devised to promote the establishment of tax-supported library services in areas where they were non-existent. Over a four-year period, LSCA Title I grants totaling $1.63 million dollars were spent to bring seventeen demonstration projects to areas of a total population of 198,102, resulting in the establishment of new libraries or library districts which have a total annual income from taxes of $1.38 million dollars. The Library Resources Enrichment Program to help local libraries purchase materiais to meet collection standards resulted in the purchase of 76,587 items of nonfiction materials from a 1972 LSCA Title I grant of $1,534,937. A Shared Staffing Program has enabled placement of professional librarians in two negihboring libraries where professional staff was not affordable previously. And a Staff Enrichment Program carried out with a $288 000 Title I grant enabled the hiring of deference consultants by systems providing the systems agreed to pick up the tab for the new staff member in the third year.

An LSCA Title I grant of $14.856 for library service to five state correctional institutions was followed by permanent support in the annual amount of $548.277 by three local state departments. Another Title I proiect enables regional library service to Spanish-speaking residents on a cooperative basis by eight participating public libraries which are obligated to continue the program when the LSCA grant ceases. A two-year project to fill the unmet needs of the disadvantaged has been continued as an on-going project of the Chicago Public Library.

The beginnings of a bibliographic network for the state are evident in the Illinois OCLC Shared Cataloging Project which is on-line at the state's largest libraries and in which 26 additional academic libraries have agreed to participate. A multityne library cooperation proiect undertaken in Peoria provided the blueprint for a massive network expansion plan to bring academic, school, and special ilbraries into the existing state library network. The two-year expansion program, funded at the state level with $900,000 LSCA Title I funds, enables the employment of library cooperation consultants in each public library system to work with nonpublic libraries in resources sharing and development activities.

This expansion program is basically the conversion of a public library network to a multitype library one.

Altogether, LSCA has been very effective as seed money, the state has been responsive, and the library users have benefitted immeasurably.

ILLINOIS REGIONAL LIBRARY COUNCIL

The Illinois Regional Library Council lives in peaceful co-existence with the resplendent Illinois Library and Information Network of which it is not as yet a part. The Council, founded in 1971 after two years in the organizational process, was incorporated as a not-for-profit Illinois corporation in March 1912. The Council was a grassroots eruption in the Chicago metropolitan area at the time the public library systems' successes were becoming noticeable and when the need was felt to promote cooperation among all types of libraries in the bibliographically-rich metropolitan region.

From its beginning, the Council has been funded with LSCA Title III funds to the extent of 85 to 88% of its operating budget (see Appendix III). IRLC has had the support of the Illinois State Library and of the seven metropolitan library systems and has enjoyed the active involvement of an ever-increasing membership. With a relatively small budget and a two-woman staff, we have been abe to initiate a program to increase access to a large portion of the region's library resources; publish two editions of a library resources directory; conceive and conduct a pilot project for improving delivery service; create a five year plan of service; obtain a grant to develop a serials information system which will soon result in both a machine-readable file and a published union list of serials; and conduct numerous feasibility studies including, but not limited to, those for a compact storage center, a data base center, and a local documents expediting project.

The six counties in the Chicago metropolitan area cover 3,714 square miles and have a population of seven million residents. There are estimated to be about 1,500 libraries in this area, with monographic holdings of at least 30 million volumes. The area's library users total three million, while 635,146 residents remain unserved (see Appendix I). The Council membership as of November 1, 1975, includes 272 libraries, of which 54 are academic, 12 school, 85 special, and 121 public libraries and library systems. Approximately 40 percent of these libraries are publicly-supported, while 60 percent are privately-supported.

The Infopass Program is a physical access program which allows a library patron to use the resources of cooperating Council member libraries when the resources he needs are not avaliable in his own library. Some libraries have extended borrowing privileges on the Infopass card. The Infopass Program, inaugurated in January 1973, has been adopted by councils in Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Peoria and reworked to fulfill the needs of these areas. The Wisconsin councils and the Illinois Regional Library Council have arranged contractually to honor each other's Infopasses on a reciprocal basis.

The need for an area wide delivery service was identified at the Council's first annual meeting in 1972. A Northwestern Illinois Delivery Service (NEIDS) was proposed and operated as a pilot project in 1973. NEIDS is an extension of public library systems' van routes in the suburbs and an interconnection with the John Crerar Library's subscription delivery service to city libraries. The NEIDS service initially brought an additional 122 libraries in the Chicago area into a pattern of daily or almost daily delivery service. Monthly volume during the eight month pilot project amounted to 1,100 shipments, a total savings to members of about $8,000 over the cost of dismal U.S. mail delivery. After the pilot period, the participating systems agreed to subsidize NEIDS on a continuing basis, while the Council continues to coordinate the service. A NEIDS II service was started as the result of problem discussion during the five-year-plan sessions. It was learned that the nightly shuttle service between The University of Illinois Chicago and Urbana campuses could piggy-back the library systems' deliveries from the Reference and Research Center at Urbana to Chicago to connect with the NEIDS I operation. The total cost of NEIDS I and II is less than $5,000 per year.

A Union List of Serial Holdings in Illinois Special Libraries is being developed with a state Higher Education Cooperation Act grant from the Illinois Board of Higher Education. By far the largest Council undertaking to date, the project has had the assistance of over seventy Council member librarians who have done

tiling, editing, and proofreading on a volunteer basis. The project began in mid-1973 with the awarding of a grant equivalent to about 30 percent of the funds needed for a project of this size. The published list will include 30,000 titles held in 142 special libraries throughout the state. In addition to the printed list, a machine-readable file will be generated to facilitate updating and spin-off of individual libraries' holdings lists.

A directory of library resources was published in 1973 to supersede an earlier directory which was issued to participants of the Infopass Program. The second directory, Libraries and Information Centers in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, provides descriptions of 303 libraries, including historical background and objective statements, open hours, collection descriptions, services offered, and use privileges offered to outside users. A third edition, compiled entirely by volunteers, computer-produced in a Council member library, and containing an additional 100 library entries, is planned for publication in 1976.

Other Council publications consist of a monthly newsletter to members, Multitype Library Cooperative News: a Guide to Educational Opportunities for Librarians in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, annual reports, and recently, the first of a series of research papers dealing with library cooperation and metropolitan service.

The Council Board provides a forum to which members, staff, and the public can bring library-related problems and inspirations. The Board reviews proposals brought before it and takes action, either by referral to another agency or by convening study groups to consider desirability and feasibility of proposed projects. The quarterly meetings of the Board of Directors, annual meetings for the full membership, and frequent workshops, committee meetings, and planning sessions throughout the Council area bring staff from all types of libraries into close interaction and promote fuller understanding of the problems of sharing resources and serving a great variety of library users.

The Council is a planning and coordinating agency and is involved in operating projects only on an experimental basis or when no other library agency is willing to fill existing gaps. Its membership had agreed to provide additional support, but not to the extent needed for an operation which can explore the full potential of multitype cooperation. In seeking alternative methods of funding, the Council held membership hearings to determine methods of future funding when its LSCA grant expires in 1977. It was the consensus to request the State Library to seek permanent state funding of regional councils, the formation of which would be initiated by library systems in the state.

That there is a need for regional councils in Illinois in face of the growth of multitype systems is a question which seems to be debated frequently both inside and outside the metropolitan area. Indiana Area Library Service Authorities face the same question in the matter of how they relate to the statewide bibliographic network, INCOLSA. Wisconsin and Ohio seem to be moving toward designating their metropolitan councils as nodes in the existing state networks of public libraries. The whole business of network relationships, or interfacing, assumes greater importance than it did a decade ago when the dynamics of networking were not so much upon us. Time and money are needed to evolve careful principles of network relationships, at the local, state, regional, and national levels, if we are to avoid large expenditures of money unnecessarily.

As present metropolitan council's funding under LSCA Title III expires, it will be necessary to seek state assistance for their continuation. The tendency is likely to be to try to fit metropolitan problems into statewide programs which can be justified to statewide-thinking legislatures. This will not accommodate the complexities of metropolitan area library service and is the very kind of over-simplification which will preclude the success of a comprehensive national network.

The extension of the Library Services and Construction Act will allow for continued development and experimentation, and for more critical examination of the means by which library resources can be shared and information delivered more quickly and efficiently to the ever more sophisticated and demanding library

user.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee for this opportunity to present testimony on the importance of extending the Library Services and Construction Act.

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PROJECT PLUS-PROMOTING LARGER UNITS OF SERVICE IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES

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