SPRINGFIELD –– Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White has announced that the Illinois State Library and Illinois State Archives will participate in a one-year project to develop a plan for monitoring and evaluating changes made to electronically published state government documents and records to ensure permanent public access.
White said the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services has awarded a 2001 National Leadership Grant for Libraries totaling $246,025 to fund the project. The State Library and State Archives will work with the State Library of Ohio and the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign's Graduate School of Library and Information Science to develop the plan.
"Here in Illinois and throughout the world, more and more entities both in and out of government are publishing important documents and records exclusively on the World Wide Web, and it is imperative that plans are developed to permanently preserve these documents for public consumption," White said. "I am delighted that two divisions of the Secretary of State's office will offer their knowledge and expertise to develop a model that can eventually be used by all 50 state governments. We can also pave the way for interstate site searching, and define the most cost-effective methods to achieve the highest quality results.
"Two years ago the Illinois State Library received a similar IMLS grant to develop Find it! Illinois, our wonderfully successful initiative to establish and administer a statewide digital library. Find-It! Illinois continues to expand, and has become the one-stop web site for Illinois information. This new IMLS grant is another indication that Illinois is leading the way in developing new solutions to critical high tech problems."
