CARLI News May 27, 2026

CARLI News May 27, 2026

Submitted by mjhuls on Wed, 05/27/2026 - 12:27pm

2026 CARLI Governance Board Election

The election and appointment process for the new members of the CARLI Governance Board is now complete.

Directors who will serve 3-year terms: 

  • Spencer Brayton - Waubonsee Community College
  • Carolyn Ciesla - Elmhurst University
  • Steven Harris - Northeastern Illinois University

Directors who will serve 1-year terms are:  

  • Dennis Krieb – Lewis and Clark Community College
  • Geoff Pettys - Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
  • Amanda Pippitt – Millikin University

All newly elected and appointed terms will begin on July 1, 2026. Please join us in welcoming these new members of the CARLI Board.

Deadline June 1: Apply for the CARLI Scholarship

The CARLI Scholarship provides financial assistance to current employees of CARLI Governing Member Libraries pursuing graduate studies leading to a Master′s Degree in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Scholarships may be awarded for both on-campus and/or distance education programs.
 
Applicants must be employed by a CARLI Governing Member Library at the time of application. Preference is given to full-time employees, but part-time and student employees may also apply. The applicant must also be enrolled or accepted and will be a student in a graduate school program during the academic year, semester, or academic quarter for which the scholarship is received. First-time recipients are given preference, but students may apply for and be awarded the scholarship more than once. Candidates awarded the scholarship must supply proof of admission or enrollment to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before the scholarship is disbursed. Applications are due on June 1, 2026.

Give to the CARLI Scholarship Fund

We would like to thank our donors for their generous contributions to the scholarship fund. You can give to the scholarship fund online. The minimum donation is $5.00. We hope you will consider supporting future librarians and help CARLI grow the profession with a contribution.

ILDS Turnaround Time Change Begins June 29

Due to sustainability, efficiency, and safety reasons, the Consortium for Academic & Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), the Illinois Heartland Library System (IHLS), and the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS) are announcing a change to the Illinois Library Delivery Service (ILDS).
 
We are moving the RAILS and IHLS delivery vans′ regular meetup time. Currently, RAILS and IHLS shuttles meet every weeknight in Champaign to exchange materials. These shuttles will meet during the day, rather than at night effective June 29.
 
This change will mean that some items will now have a 48-hour turnaround time instead of 24 hours. The change will only impact items that are traveling between two separate hubs. Items that stay within their respective systems′ service areas will be unaffected.

Other than this change, statewide interlibrary loan delivery will remain the same. We at CARLI, IHLS, and RAILS understand that ILDS is a significant benefit for our member libraries.
 
IHLS and RAILS libraries that do not participate in CARLI will see little to no change in their delivery turnaround times.
 
We appreciate your understanding in this matter and hope this change will cause minimal disruption to our interlibrary loan delivery patterns.
 
For more information, please contact the following organizations:

Save the Date: CARLI Annual Meeting and Annual Directors Meeting 

Mark your calendars for the CARLI Annual Meeting, to be held at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, November 10, at the I Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign. There will be a meeting of the CARLI Governing Directors preceding the annual meeting.

Registration information will be shared as soon as it becomes available.

Check Junk/Spam Folders for CARLI Support Email

Due to more strict email policies recently implemented by Microsoft, Google, and other email companies, please check your Junk and Spam folders for email from CARLI Support tickets. Several member libraries have found that email from CARLI′s ticketing system are being incorrectly tagged as junk or spam. 

Member libraries should send email to create a ticket with CARLI to support@carli.illinois.edu. Outgoing email from CARLI′s ticketing system will come from servicereplies@uillinois.edu. CARLI recommends that member library staff add this address, servicereplies@uillinois.edu, to your email address book and set it to be allowed through any local spam filters, if necessary, to ensure that you receive ticket communications from CARLI’s new ticketing system. 

For more information about using CARLI Support and creating and responding to tickets, see "Contacting CARLI Support."

14th Annual Instruction Showcase – June 4, 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. 

Registration to attend the 14th Annual CARLI Instruction Showcase is now open. Sessions this year will be focused on this year′s theme "Trust Us: The Role of Library Instruction in Transforming Landscapes.- This theme centers on trust and how we cultivate it with students, collaborate with colleagues, navigate systems and emergent technologies, while also developing our own expertise in a rapidly shifting information landscape. 

Please share with anyone at your institution who may be interested: we welcome all library staff and LIS students to this event in the hopes of expanding our community of practice. Registration closes on June 4 at 8:00 a.m.

Electronic Resources Management Tea (ERMT)

The ERMT: Electronic Resources Management Tea is continuing through the summer!

Join us on the fourth Wednesday of the month from 9:00–9:45 a.m. on Zoom. 

Information about the ERMT is shared on the CARLI E-Resource Contacts mailing list. If you are not currently a subscriber, visit this link to subscribe.

Archives 

Emotional Labor in the Archives: Supporting Archivists Mental Health in Donor Relations

The CARLI Archives Committee welcomes members to a webinar on Emotional Labor in the Archives on June 9, 1:00–2:00 p.m. presented by April K. Anderson-Zorn, the University Archivist at Illinois State University.

Archivists often encounter tremendous emotional labor in archival repositories. Experiences can include processing sometimes traumatic collections, assisting researchers who are exploring community trauma, and collaborating with donors experiencing a ′trigger event′ such as suffering a loss, a health crisis, or other life-changing circumstances. This presentation will explore emotional labor, how it manifests in archival work, and suggest ways to implement mental health wellness practices into daily life.
 
Registration is required.

CARLI Member Archives Collection Highlight

This month′s archives collection highlights the National Louis University Archives and Special Collections on the 140th anniversary of the institution. This highlight showcases the papers of the founder of National Louis University, Elizabeth Harrison, which document her move to Chicago to pursue a career in education, her leadership and work in a budding kindergarten movement, and her building an internationally recognized institution.
 
Read this full article for more on this special collection.

Professional Development Alliance Events

The following programs from the Professional Development Alliance are currently on the calendar. Programs are offered on a wide variety of subjects. Check out everything the alliance is making available to our libraries!

  • June 2: Accessibility in Web Design: Designing for All Using AI Tools
  • Digital Possibilities Webinar Series
    • June 3: Session 1: Tending the Community: Building and Sustaining a Crowdsourced Transcription Project
    • June 10: Session 2: Strategies for the Digitization of Municipal Archives: The Chicago City Council Audio Recordings, 1970–2012
    • June 23: Session 3: Digitization in a Box: Imagine the Possibilities!
    • July 8: Session 4: Digital Realities and Possibilities for a Sousa Archives Researcher
    • July 15: Session 5: Meet the Chicago Collections Consortium and Revs Institute
    • July 29: Session 6: Strategic Approaches to Transcription
  • June 9: Emotional Labor in the Archives: Supporting Archivists Mental Health in Donor Relations
  • June 9: Fun in the Stacks: Enhancing Student Experiences through Non-Traditional Library Events

To register, visit the CARLI Event Calendar.

Recordings of past CARLI-sponsored PDA events are available on the Professional Development Alliance website when permitted by the presenter. 

View recordings of past AI-specific PDA webinars offered this fiscal year, compiled by Minitex.
 
Are you interested in presenting a topic for CARLI members and the Professional Development Alliance? Or would you like to moderate a follow up discussion for an upcoming program? to become more involved in CARLI′s continuing education efforts!

Digital Possibilities Webinar Series hosted by CARLI and FLVC:

Session 1: Tending the Community: Building and Sustaining a Crowdsourced Transcription Project - June 3, 11:00 a.m. –12:00 p.m. 

Newberry Transcribe invites volunteers to help unlock the Newberry Library′s handwritten historical collections — one document at a time. In this webinar, Digital Services Librarian Jen Wolfe discusses the philosophy behind the project, the outreach strategies that have built an active volunteer community, and the ongoing work of sustaining a transcription program after launch. Attendees will come away with a framework for thinking about crowdsourced transcription not as a technical problem but as a community relationship — one that remains meaningful even in an age of AI.

Session 2: Strategies for the Digitization of Municipal Archives: The Chicago City Council Audio Recordings, 1970–2012 - June 10, 1:00–2:00 p.m. 

In 2024 Chicago′s Office of the City Clerk was awarded a Recordings at Risk grant by the Council on Library and Information Resources to digitize a collection of City Council meeting audio recordings that span 40 years of Chicago political history. In this webinar, Matt Messbarger will explain the specific challenges faced and strategies developed to plan and complete this large-scale project with a focus on access and preservation of a unique record of Chicago history.

Session 3: Digitization in a Box: Imagine the Possibilities! - June 23, 1:00–2:00 p.m. 

The FLVC Digital Services + OER team, led by Rebel-Cummings-Sauls, will describe the "Digitization in a Box" Program — its origin, development, launch, and progress. Windy Gamble, of North Florida College, will share her institution′s journey in using the equipment, learning from FLVC′s training, and succeeding in digitization as a newbie.

Session 4: Digital Realities and Possibilities for a Sousa Archives Researcher - July 8, 1:00–2:30 p.m.

The University of Illinois' Sousa Archives and Center for American Music is both a special collections music archives and museum whose historical collections document diverse music cultures, legacies, and technologies in North, Central, and South America as well as portions of Europe, Africa, and Asia. Our collections are meant to be actively engaged by people of all ages and music backgrounds and abilities. Our philosophy is grounded in providing access to our music collections using all available resources and technologies to enable our visitors to engage with our collections physically, intellectually, and actively. In this presentation, Scott Schwartz will highlight how the Sousa Archives approaches on-site and online public engagement to its music collections using some of today's digital technologies.

Session 5: Meet the Chicago Collections Consortium and Revs Institute - July 15, 10:00–11:00 a.m.

The Chicago Collections Consortium (CCC) is a membership organization of 60+ institutions composed of public and private universities, public libraries, special libraries, museums, and other repositories with collections that chronicle the rich history of Chicago. Its portal, EXPLORE Chicago Collections, is its flagship initiative, providing "one stop shopping": a site for researchers, teachers, students, and the public to find digital images and locate archival holdings on Chicago topics without searching individual institutions′ online catalogs one at a time. Founded in 2012 with twelve governing members, CCC has since grown to 60+ members. Ellen Keith, Executive Director, will discuss the portal, the organization′s other outreach activities, and the organization′s next steps in its second decade.

Revs Institute will share how they are embracing emerging technologies and digital dissemination to expand access, enhance discovery, and preserve specialized knowledge. Arthur Carlson, Director of Archives and Research Center - Revs Institute, will highlight current projects at Revs Institute including a machine learning metadata generation project, the development of a specialized large language learning model to support research, and efforts to document and share specialized at-risk knowledge and share that with the world.

Session 6: Strategic Approaches to Transcription - July 29, 1:00 p.m. 

Liz Bloodworth, Illinois Wesleyan University, will discuss the use of AI tools for transcription of both oral history interviews and handwritten text documents. With increasing demands on staff time, especially in small shop archives, AI offers an opportunity to enhance the discoverability of archival materials through efficient transcription. Liz will share tips for using AI tools ethically and responsibly, stressing the importance of human review throughout the process.

Then, Chris Levesque will discuss digital engagement in the University of West Florida′s Citizen Archivist Projects. During Library Week 2025 and 2026, the UWF University Libraries hosted participatory transcription events of letters and ship logs from their Digital Archives. This effort is built on the well-known National Archives′ Citizen Archivist model to engage students, faculty, and the larger UWF community. This talk will discuss selection of materials, implementation of the project, and lessons learned.

Preservation Tip

Preservation Tip: Beyond Paper: Five Tips for Digital Preservation 
Liz Bloodworth, University Archivist & Special Collections Librarian, Illinois Wesleyan University

Many patrons and students view digitization as a means for preserving film and physical documents. Yet, digital files present their own challenges for those tasked with preservation. While paper has proven itself as a medium with the potential to last for hundreds of years, the digital medium is far less certain. Archivists, librarians, and other cultural heritage professionals tasked with the care of digital collections work to ensure the extended lifespan of these materials. The article shares five key tips to support this unique area of preservation.

Read the full article!

Other Library News

Call for Lightning Talk Presentations for HSLI 2026

The Health Science Librarians of Illinois (HSLI) annual conference will be virtual September 29 - October 1, 2026. This year’s theme is “Preserving the Past, Inspiring the Present: Librarians Advancing Health Science.” HSLI is seeking proposals for Lightning Talk Presentations.

Topics can include any area of librarianship. Incorporating this year’s conference theme is appreciated but not required. Student submissions are encouraged. If you have presented, or plan to present, a poster or lightning talk at another meeting this year (such as MLA or Midwest Chapter/MLA), recycling the content for HSLI is totally okay!

Presenting author(s) must register for the conference and be available virtually to present (exact time TBD). More information about the conference can be found on the HSLI website.

For consideration, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words using our submission portal. The deadline for abstract submission is July 20, 2026. Participants will be notified of acceptance no later than August 11, 2026. 

Any questions or concerns can be directed to .

Upcoming CARLI Events and Meetings

Consult the CARLI calendar to view the current list of meeting times and locations.

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