In December the Lillie M. Evans Library District, along with approximately 200 other libraries in the Alliance Library System, will move to a new, improved online system.  By “online system” I mean the computerized library catalog and the program we use to check out and return items.   The Alliance Library System covers 14,000 square miles of west-central Illinois.  This is a huge territory, and moving 200 libraries to an updated system is a massive project that has taken over a year and a half and $1,000,000 to achieve.  The new system is scheduled to be up and running in December.

During the transition, you will see some temporary changes to your library service.  You will need to call the library to put items on hold.  Please do not do this from home as holds will not transfer from the old to the new system and we do not want your request to get lost in the transition.  This is only temporary and the staff will keep track of the holds on paper.  During the last part of November and first part of December, new material may not show up in the new system.  During this time, we will not be entering new items into the database.  We are working on temporary ways to handle new things during this short time period.  We ask your patience during this time of learning the new system.  It will be well worth the inconvenience, believe me.

The features of the new system, RSA Cat, are so exciting for the staff and we know you will enjoy using them.  One of the features that will make a big difference is the way we get materials from other libraries for you.  Sometime next spring you will be able to request things from other libraries from a computer and have them delivered to your library of choice.  After the first of the year, the library will have some classes to help you take advantage of the new catalog and some of the features of the website, www.lmelibrary.org.