I have news from the Illinois State Library (ISL), the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, and the College of Lake County. I have two pieces of news from the ISL.
Firstly, there is news about the FY 2012-2013 Illinois Public Library Annual Report (IPLAR). ISL Communications Manager Patrick McGuckin announced the ISL “is pleased to release the FY2012-2013 Illinois Public Library Annual Report (IPLAR) data collection tool using the LibPAS software for data collection.”
To access the Illinois Public Library Annual Report using the LibPAS portal, one will need to know one's library’s ISL User Name and Password. If one needs assistance with this information, contact Becky Hunter, ISL, bhunter1 [at] ilsos.net, (217) 782-7849, or 1-800-665-5576, ext. 2. One will also need Adobe version 8.0 or higher for PDF printing.
Please note, submission of a paper copy of your library’s IPLAR to the Illinois State Library is no longer required. The Certification page and paper copies of any additional documentation (if applicable) to the Illinois State Library will continue to be collected. For a complete list of the IPLAR paper submission components, please refer to the IPLAR Instructions.
For questions regarding content/subject matter and edit checks, contact Robert Jones. His e-mail address is rjones1 [at] ilsos.net. He can also be reached at (217) 785-1168 or 1-800-665-5576, ext. 2. For questions about software and technology issues, contact the LibPAS Help Desk at 1-800-521-4930.
Secondly, Annual Library Certification continues through Sunday, March 31, 2013. Pat McGuckin announced that “During the second week of the Annual Library Certification process, more than 500 libraries have submitted their online forms. Remember that this is a requirement for any current full or developmental system member library. The online form is available at http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/library/libraries/librarycertification.html.”
The online form requires that each agency provide a DUNS number and an FEIN number. These numbers can be agency-wide numbers (for example, a school district number). If the agency already has these numbers, the library does not need to procure a separate DUNS or FEIN number. Information on obtaining these numbers is on the ISL website.
Other questions received concern obtaining the agency’s ELI Control Number and the main administrative branch number for each library system member. This information is available through the Library Learning website L2…
The Annual Certification Process is required for all library system members to qualify for system services, programs, and services from the ISL. The window for this certification began Wednesday, January 2, 2013 and will be open through Sunday, March 31, 2013. Questions about the process should be emailed to ISL Library Development Group at isl_certify [at] ilsos.net.
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The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum’s copy of the Emancipation Proclamation is currently on display through Monday, January 21, 20913. One hundred fifty years ago, on January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln used his executive authority as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army and Navy to free slaves in the rebellious Confederate states and to authorize runaway slaves “of suitable condition” to join the U.S. military. In other words, in practice the Emancipation Proclamation only helped slaves who could be liberated by Union troops or could free themselves and make their way to the protection of the Union military. It did not apply in the four border states – Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri – slave-holding states that remained loyal to the Union.
In the fifth paragraph of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln wrote it applied to “Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.”
The Emancipation Proclamation was more important as a political document than a legal one. It removed any doubt the Civil War was fought over slavery and spelled the end of slavery in the United States. After Lincoln issued it, Maryland amended its constitution to outlaw slavery and on January 11, 1865, Governor of Missouri Thomas C. Fletcher issued an executive decree banning it there.
To commemorate the anniversary, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum is displaying its signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, plus two new artifacts, in the Museum’s Treasures Gallery. These artifacts are on display through Monday, January 21, 2013.
“Every year in our country, the legal and social equality of all races continues to come closer to our ideal,” said James M. Cornelius, Curator of the Lincoln Collection. “The great break with the past, the seminal event, the leap forward, began with Lincoln's pen...People at the time - black or white, American or European, North or South - knew this, and their experience tells us to celebrate this document and its anniversary.”
The Emancipation Proclamation is one of the officially printed commemorative copies that Lincoln signed in full, along with Secretary of State William Seward and Lincoln’s private secretary, John G. Nicolay. President Lincoln signed the original Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, in private with only a few witnesses at his side. The ALPLM points out that there was “no ‘photo opportunity’ as we like to say today.”
It is fortunate that the commemorative printing was made because Lincoln’s original manuscript was lost in a conflagration that consumed a number of historic documents at the Chicago Historical Society during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The Emancipation Proclamation measures approximately 27 by 20 inches. It was most recently displayed during a five-day special viewing around his birthday in 2012, and during the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial.
Next to it are two artifacts displayed never before. One, created in the 1870s, is a bronze statue of Lincoln breaking the shackles of a slave.
The sculptor was probably a Frenchman, Léon Falconnier. It was inspired by a giant Washington, D.C., statue by Thomas Ball for which Frederick Douglass gave the dedication speech in 1876. In that speech Douglass declared Lincoln “the white man’s president,” though he had earlier deemed him “the black man's president.”
Falconnier may have wanted to capitalize on Ball's work, which, though less popular today, was commissioned and paid for by freedmen and helped solidify the image of Lincoln as the liberator of a race. Lincoln in fact had urged freedmen to show their gratitude to God and not to him, since freedom is a human right.
The other item on view for the first time is an 1864 notice of a slave sale in Louisville, Kentucky. This sale, held nearly two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, shows that the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to the border states during the Civil War in order to keep these slave-holding states in the Union. The next year, Lincoln and Congress voted to change the U.S. Constitution with the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery in the entire United States.
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The College of Lake County (CLC) is looking for a Dean of Libraries & Instructional Services. The job needs to be filled due to the retirement of the previous dean.
The CLC is a community college with a student body of 17,000. With campuses in Grayslake, Waukegan, in Vernon Hills in Lake County in Far Northern Illinois along the lakeshore, halfway between Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, it serves a 442-square-mile district with over seventy-five inland lakes and a population of 713,000 residents, the third largest population in the Illinois community college system.
The CLC states, “The Dean of Libraries and Instructional Services is responsible for providing administrative organization and leadership to departments including the library, academic support services (tutoring and testing), professional development and learning technologies, and the art gallery. The Dean, in cooperation with faculty and staff, interprets the needs of the students, faculty, staff, and community, and sets the direction for all instructional support activities and programming so that the respective personnel of each area may effectively carry out their role. In addition, the office is responsible for the coordination of effort with various units of the College to insure satisfactory delivery of services throughout the College and community in support of the College's strategic plan. The Dean works closely with other Divisional Deans in the development of procedures to ensure consistency in the interpretation and application of policy.”
Applicants must have a MLS degree from an ALA-accredited school and at least seven years of experience working at libraries “or learning resources experience in higher education.” The deadline to apply is Friday, January 25, 2013.
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