Every once in a while someone will comment to me that it must be nice to have a job where you can sit around and read all day…Those old stereotypes are hard to put to rest. This past month has been a whirlwind for me. April means the close of our fiscal year, National Library Week, a Poetry Slam, an Author Fair, a countywide Library Dinner, and Legislation Day in Springfield. This year, preparing and presenting a speech at a neighboring library system and writing a column for a library publication were thrown into the mix. It’s been very busy and terribly exciting.

One of our talented staff members, Mitchell Haug, prepared this video which pokes some fun at those old library stereotypes. If you work at a library or if you are a frequent library user, I think you may enjoy watching it.

Cindy Fuerst
Library Director

A very bright person (and I can't remember who it was for the life of me) once said that the world is made of two types of people: creators and processors. Creators actually add to the substance of the universe: painters, writers, movie makers, architects and so forth. While processors just move stuff around, without really creating much: accountants, sales people, stock brokers, store clerks and such. What are librarians? On the surface we seem to be classic processors. We move the information created by someone else through the system into the patron's hands. Our library is working hard to break that mold. Clearly we do a lot of processing, but we also are doing ever more creating. For example, a staff member is working on a documentary about Kankakee WWII veterans. I created a promotional video about Kankakee. We are also making ourselves a venue for others to create. Tonight is a teen poetry slam that will be podcast. Our Project Next Generation puts cutting edge software in front of young people to learn web design, music production, and video editing. When professionals ask, "What will libraries do in the info saturated future?" I think the answer is clear. Produce the info!

Stephen Bertrand
Assistant Director