 FY 2008
Annual Report
Lincoln Trail Libraries System
Inter-System Cooperative Programs & Services
 Illinois Library Systems 
Illinois Library Systems work together on many projects. These
cooperative programs have provided improved service delivery to libraries in Illinois. LTLS has been involved with the following projects– collecting and maintaining monthly statistics for all multitype systems in Illinois, maintaining and coordinating content included on the Illinoislibrarysystems.info web site, planning activities regarding library systems and services, sponsoring events at both the Illinois Library Association Conference and the Illinois School Library Media Association Conference and maintaining a partnership with the Illinois State Library.
 ILLINET/OCLC Billing
LTLS continued to manage the billing for ILLINET/OCLC services through a contract with the Illinois State Library. This was the fourth full year of operation of this project. During the year, Ramona Rollins as Business Office Manager and Cristina Tackett as the Accounting Clerk worked for the project and continued to work closely with Sue Burkholder from the Illinois State Library. ILLINET/OCLC members seem comfortable with asking billing questions via phone or email, and LTLS was able to respond to the questions quickly and correctly. This partnership with ISL will continue for FY 2009 and LTLS is looking forward to providing this service for the long-term for the Illinois State Library. During the year it was determined to migrate to Traverse 10.5 software with Alternative Business Systems, LLC from Columbus, Ohio, with the new software upgrade were now able to offer members the ability to have their invoices emailed, faxed or delivered via US mail.
 Plinkit
LTLS, working in collaboration with the Rolling Prairie Library System and four other library systems, began participating in the cooperative Illinois Plinkit Project. Plinkit, a webpage authoring software, allows even the smallest library to have an attractive, easy-to-update web page. There is no need to know HTML or other specialized software. If you can copy and paste from a word processing program, you can use Plinkit.
 Plinkit, using an open source software called Plone, was developed in Oregon by the Multnomah County Library with an LSTA Grant. The software with its webpage template was given to the Oregon State Library. Oregon invited other states to join them in the development of this software for use by small, primarily public libraries. Colorado, Texas, and Illinois joined Oregon. This four-state collaborative is looking to expand the program to other states and other types of libraries. This is a great example of cooperation within and beyond Illinois.
 Cataloging Maintenance Center
LTLS continued (since the spring of 2001) as one of three cataloging maintenance centers (CMCs) to contribute to improved bibliographic access in the LLSAPs, to support improved access and resource discovery, and to help maintain trustworthiness in SILC by providing OCLC bibliographic records to replace local records that could not be matched to an OCLC record during holdings batch loads. This was the third year of providing original and copy cataloging for libraries that do not have that capability or who choose to outsource a portion of their cataloging to the CMCs’ Upfront Original Cataloging Project.
The LTLS center provided cataloging via the Upfront Original Cataloging Project for Galesburg Public Library, VanderCook College of Music’s Ruppel Library and, from July through October, 2007, for the LTLS Cataloging Center, generating a total of $10,701 in revenue. In addition, during June and July staff began work on Dublin Core metadata for digitized photographs of
photographs documenting the activities of the 99th Pursuit Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen during WW II
 MyMediaMall
 For the 3rd year LTLS LINC was a member with North Suburban Library System, the Alliance Library System and many libraries around the state in the MyMediaMall downloadable e-book, audiobook, and video service. This allows LINC members to bring a 24x7 library of e-books, audio books and videos to patrons in East Central Illinois. This collaboration saves costs and allows LTLS libraries to offer three times more content to users than if we had offered this program as a single system endeavor. In FY2008, 7,804 items were circulated to users of LINC libraries during the year. This is a 50% increase over FY2007. The LTLS web site is the number one library site referring users to the service.
 Library Learning
 LTLS participated with all other library systems and the Illinois State Library to plan and implement a statewide learning calendar. The year was spent planning and testing the new program. For LTLS we worked with the developers to seamlessly utilize L2 along with the current database that LTLS uses for all membership data including CE. The calendar will be operational in FY 2009.
 PolyTalk
 Lincoln Trail Libraries System was awarded a 3rd year LSTA grant for Polytalk, a library interpreters network for Illinois libraries. Nearly one in five Illinois residents speak a language other than English. PolyTalk bridges these language barriers to make the resources of all Illinois libraries available to all patrons. The ability to carry out this project would not be possible without intersystem cooperation. Consulting staff from each library system are instrumental in disseminating information about PolyTalk to their member libraries. They also helped solicit volunteer interpreters for the project. At the end of the year there were 175 Illinois Libraries that were registered Polytalk subscribers representing libraries in all multitype systems.
 WorldCat Local
WorldCat Local is a multi-system collaboration project between DuPage, Rolling Prairie, Lincoln Trail, CCS (Cooperative Computer Systems), Lewis & Clark Library System, and CARLI I-Share that LTLS is managing. Involving 25 libraries across the state, the funding for this project was made possible by the Illinois State Library through LSTA funds. The goal of this project is to develop a statewide user interface, recognizable by any Illinois library user. In addition the interface provides one-stop access to multiple resources with one search. Working to incorporate real-time connections to 5 different automation systems and seamless, authenticated access to local databases, statewide-purchased databases, local bibliographic data, and digitized content are some of the challenges involved in this project.
 Strategic Planning – Illinois Talking Books and Braille Service
In May 2008 Jan Ison and Joe Sciacca began working with the staff of the Illinois Talking Books and Braille Service (ILTBBS) to facilitate a strategic planning process. The goal is to have a new plan for the service during FY 2009, which will guide the continued service to these special users. In addition the plan will assist ILTBBS in meeting the requirement from the National Library Service to have a statewide plan. It is a very exciting cooperative opportunity for LTLS.
 Hosting Web Sites
LTLS hosts several statewide library websites on our server. This cooperative effort provides a central means to provide access to library specific content. The web sites available on the LTLS server are:
www.illinoislibraryday.info
www.illinoislibrarysystems.info
www.ioug.info
www.polytalk.info
www.librarydiversity.info
www.illinetoclc.info
 Youth Services Blog
LTLS and Shawnee Library System established a jointly authored blog, Youth Source. This is for libraries service to young people in school and public libraries. During FY 2008 Lewis and Clark and Rolling Prairie Library System joined in the partnership to provide information to librarians service this group of users. The blog can be found at http://lincolntrail.typepad.com/youth_source. This is a wonderful way to share expertise.
 WebJunction Illinois
 The library systems including Lincoln Trail collaborate with the Illinois State Library in supporting and promoting WebJunction Illinois (WJ-IL), a statewide customized implementation of the broader WebJunction Global. WebJunction Illinois contains a combination of content from the WJ Global community and a wide range of Illinois-specific content contributed by Illinois librarians.
Library systems contribute to WJ-IL by contributing content on topics relevant to the Illinois library community on topics including technology management, innovative cooperative programs, grant project updates, library management issues, etc. In addition, each system has designated consultants to serve as the WebJunction contact and the TechAtlas contact for member libraries.
 Library Partnership Trust
 Lincoln Trail Libraries System cooperates with the other multitype systems in The Library Partnership Trust (LPT). LPT works to bring new products and services to libraries across Illinois and to work together to aggregate purchasing power. By doing this library systems through LPT will be able to save libraries money and staff time through consolidated negotiations. During the year 8 separate offerings of resources were made available to libraries in Illinois and through this partnership libraries were able to save thousands of dollars.
| 
