ILEAD U: Team Pandora

This is the third installment from the ILEAD U Project.  Click here or on the category hyperlink to read more about it. – Mick Jacobsen

Team Pandora was comprised of three libraries in the Springfield area- the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library (Jan Perone), Illinois State Library (Debra Aggertt, Sandra Fritz and Beth Paoli) and University of Illinois Springfield-Brookens Library (Pamela Salela).

After a few meetings a final decision was reached by the group to try to improve services to Illinois State government agencies particularly those that had lost or did not have an agency library.

Team Pandora had a major obstacle to overcome by having to get information through state government’s somewhat limiting restrictions.  With the participation of the University of Illinois Springfield, the major issues of who could pay and order the grant material and possibly host any web products we came up with could be solved.

With Jan’s connections, a survey created by Team Pandora was sent out to a small group of central Illinois librarians and was eventually allowed to be sent to Deb’s connections at the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The three libraries came up with resources in their respective libraries that would best suit state employees’ needs.  UIS- Central Illinois Non-Profit Resource Center, ALPL- newspapers& historical resources and ISL- state and federal documents.

The team eventually used the resources purchased through the grant to create a web portal (content management system) and video for the site.  Team Pandora was divided into two sub-committees that worked on the portal called LRISA (Library Resources for Illinois State Agencies) and the other worked on writing, filming and editing a video.

The in-session ILEADU classes assisted in learning about Content Management Products.  It was also essential in learning about the possibilities for video use and the tools needed.

Most members of Team Pandora had little or no experience with any of the technologies used so it is safe to say, the learning curve was great and the information learned was immense.  Technologies learned include Adobe Connect Pro, Survey Monkey, WordPress and Camtasia.

The challenge for the future will be if the site can become a reality.  As mentioned previously, the hurdles placed by State Government can be difficult but we hope to preserver.


TTW Contributor Mick Jacobsen