The big news I've come back to is that the LSTA grant awards in Illinois have been announced, and there's lots of good news in the press release. First and foremost, SLS got our grant to create a collaborative blogging and syndication news service for ourselves, Chicago Library System, Heritage Trail Library System, and River Bend Library System. Hooray!

It's actually a lot more than that, but this will be the most visible outcome for librarians across the State. I'll finally get the chance to test my theories about the potential for blogging and RSS within the library community (and for libraries within their own communities)!

The software package we're having written is a full content management system that includes all of the following:

• Individual and group blogging (with automatic RSS feeds),
• Individual and group news aggregation,
• WYSIWYG, browser-based editing to help distribute the workload of entering news and content,
• workflow with approval,
• multi-level authentication (public, SLS members, Illinois librarians, SLS staff, etc.),
• a robust search engine,
• shared link directories (even between the Systems),
• and more!

I am so totally excited about this! We hope to have something live early next year, so I'll keep you updated on our progress. The grant will provide us with servers for each System and installation of the software. This will really boost communication between Library Systems, their members, the State Library, the public, legislators... pretty much everyone interested or involved in libraries. And the big kicker - a site license for all Illinois libraries. Yes, once we get the kinks worked out, the software will be available to any library in the State!

The other grant awards (PDF) make interesting reading, too. I haven't added up the numbers, but quite a few SLS libraries received funding for their proposals, so kudos to all of them! And kudos to all of the libraries that received grant awards! Lots of customer service and marketing projects, both of which are (unfortunately) badly needed, as well as some interesting English as a Second Language (ESL) proposals.

Back home, I was shocked and saddened to find that voters rejected my home library's referendum request for an expansion project. They've got 100,000 titles crammed into 14,000 square feet, which is just insane. In a few short months, they'll have to start removing a book for every one that they add. That's called a "zero growth library," and it's a bad thing. I was going to rant here, but instead I'll just wish my local librarians better luck next spring, because they're doing good things and they deserve better than their residents are giving them.

And still there is good news at the Homer Library. All three grants Sheree submitted were funded, including the one to create a community web site and an information kiosk. It also includes a component for programming to help residents become "informed citizens" by educating them about local government, local media, and information literacy. I'm hoping they'll be able to use the software from my grant to create a collaborate site that will let the Village, Township, Chamber, schools, and others contribute current news and content. I'll keep you apprised of developments in this area, too, since it could be a good model for introducing blogging and RSS to maintain a current community site.