Monday, July 22, 2013

The Lillie M. Evans Library receives Back to Books grant

The Lillie M. Evans Library District recently received a Back to Books grant for $4,500 from the Illinois State Library.  The Back to Books grant is a collection development grant offered to libraries for the acquisition of books and other materials. Grant funds have been used to purchase books, audios, and DVDs in the non-fiction areas of library & information science, education, languages, sciences, applied sciences, and geography & travel. Materials are appropriate for the adult and young adult age groups. 

To introduce these resources, we will have a series of 3 programs focusing on the materials purchased with this grant.  The first program will be an open house highlighting the collection.  Please visit the library on Wednesday, July 31 during our regular hours of 9am-8pm.  Materials selected for this grant will be displayed and available for checkout.

The second program on Wednesday, August 28th will target homeschoolers and resources available from the library through our newly created homeschool resource web page.  As part of the grant, we will be developing a section of our website for our homeschooling parents and students.  This will include links to online resources as well as tips on using the library catalog.  The page will also have information about any local groups that focus on homeschooling activities.

The final program will be a travel program at 6pm on Wednesday, September 25th.  It will start with a showing of one of our new travel DVDs (we will choose one that meets our public performance license) and will include a book talk of some of our new materials in this area.  Visit our website at http://lmelibrary.org for more information about this grant and these programs.

The funds from this grant will make it possible for us to better meet the needs of our local community.  Materials were purchased through a Library Services and Technology Act grant administered by the Illinois State Library using funds provided by the U.S Institute of Museum and Library Services.



Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Affordable Care Act and Libraries

At the American Library Conference last week, it was announced that public libraries will be part of the effort to get information and crucial computer time to the millions of uninsured Americans who need to get coverage under law.  The Affordable Care Act requires certain employers with at least 50 full-time employees to offer health insurance coverage to its full-time employees (and their dependents) that meets certain minimum standards or to make Employer Shared Responsibility Payments.

The initiative starts on October 1st when people without health coverage will start shopping for insurance online.  Coverage can start as soon as January 1, 2014.

In the meantime, there are some articles that are available at: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/07/01/libraries-enlisted-to-publicize-health-insurance-options/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/01/obamacare-libraries_n_3529849.html

In addition, the federal website is already up at https://www.healthcare.gov/ and the key features of the Affordable Care Act are available at http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts/timeline/timeline-text.html 


The Institute of Museum and Library Services is working with OCLC to develop an online toolkit and training webinars for librarians.  I'll post this information when available.