How Illinois’ Secretary of State Became a Librarian
The top funding sources for Illinois adult literacy programs are the community college board and the secretary of state’s office. That got us wondering: What does the Secretary of State have to do with literacy?
Turns out, the Illinois Secretary of State is also the Illinois State Librarian. Through that, the office distributes $6 million a year in literacy grants to local tutoring programs.
The library – and state archives – have been part of the secretary’s job, at least informally, going way back to Illinois’ first secretary of state, a guy named Elias Kent Kane, who later was a U.S. senator from Illinois.
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Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Funding, Libraries, News
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.