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Submitted by Patrice Stearley

During 1997, NIDL continued to provide a much needed source for documents librarians in the northeastern congressional districts in Illinois to come together to share information about the events and activities in our libraries, foster cooperation by keeping each other informed about our collections and services, and provide a place to share knowledge regarding electronic resources and national developments.

Patrice Stearley, Northeastern Illinois University, served as Coordinator and John Shuler, University of Illinois at Chicago, served as Secretary.

The group held two meetings: April 25 at Northwestern University Library, Evanston campus, and November 21 at the Northwestern University Law Library, Chicago.

At each meeting some time was devoted to a round-robin where librarians from each institution shared developments in their libraries since the last meeting. This has been and continues to be a very useful mechanism for keeping each other informed.

In addition, at the April 25th meeting Cindi Wolff demonstrated Northwestern University's GPO Gateway and government web page. Later, those who had attended the GPO Depository Librarians' Conference shared information and discussed issues raised at the conference. Finally, Cindi Wolff volunteered Northwestern University to coordinate a web page for NIDL. By June, Joan Coogan, NIDL Webmaster, had mounted the home page on the web and has been adding to it and keeping it up-to-date since then. The members of NIDL owe her a huge debt of gratitude for her excellent work on the NIDL home page.

At the Novermer 21st meeting, after the member libraries round-robin, we devoted most of our time to discussing "Preparing NIDL for the 21st Century". People raised ideas about how we can work together more usefully in the area, in addition to collaborations or projects that we could explore. A number of good ideas were put forth:

1) a regional list of special collections, series, collection strengths
2) Peace Corps concept - an outreach program geared toward working with the library systems in Illinois to make non-depository libraries aware of the resources and services available at depository libraries
3) communication with elected representatives; sponsor congressional district web pages
4) speakers bureau
5) county governments - resources and links
6) contacts or partnerships with local EPA, NARA, other governmental agencies
7) NIDL web page enhancements: new documents librarians' resource page, link to ILLINET Web, NIDL web page advisory committee.

Two committees were formed at the November meeting. The Web Page Task Force will advise and work with Joan Coogan on NIDL web page development. Members are: John Brandt (Lake Forest), John Shuler (UI-C), Pegeen
Bassett (NU-Law), Sharron Manassa (IIT), and Pam Morgan (CPL). The Congressional District Information Committee will develop a shell for information to include on a web page for each district. Members are: John Klaus (U.S. Courts-7th dist.), Walt Baumann (DePaul- Law), Anne Abramson (John Marshall Law), and Steve Sposato (CPL).

New officers were elected for 1998. They are: RoseAnn Vonesh, Oak Park Public Library as Coordinator, and Linda Chia, Loyola University as Secretary. The group agreed on the principle of creating the office of Coordinator-Elect to allow for potential leaders to become acclimated to the role and responsibilities of the Coordinator. Patrice Stearley will compose language for action at the Spring 1998 meeting.

All in all it was a fine year with some good beginnings made. Thanks to everyone who participated in ways great and small.