GENEVA – The DuPage Library System will come to an end this month as it and four other regional library systems will merge into one, officials said.
But the historic building at 127 S. First St., Geneva, will remain open as a center for the Voices of Vision Talking Books, which serves blind and vision impaired readers across the state, and for its catalog services, at least until July 1, 2012.
"The DuPage Library System, as a legal organization, stops June 30," DLS Executive Director Tom Sloan said. "On July 1, the merging of five library systems will be come the new Reaching Across Illinois Library System, or RAILS."
Sloan said a facilities study is still under way to see what the now-merged library systems should do with their remaining buildings.
The DLS building was built in 1917 for the phone company. Voices of Vision uses the ground floor and the catalog services are on the second floor. It still has a third floor which could be used as public meeting space, but that will have to be determined by the facilities study, Sloan said.
The statewide library system's headquarters will be in Burr Ridge, Sloan said. A new director has not been chosen yet, but Sloan said he is serving on the leadership team.
The merge is an effort to reduce costs and streamline operations in response to the state's fiscal crisis.
The new system will do what the five did together, which is provide services to more than 1,500 public, private, university, and school library members and deliver more than 30 million books and other materials loaned to users statewide.
Also, the system operates online catalogs for more than 800 libraries, which circulate more than 45 million resources throughout the state, officials said.
The new board will be made up of two representatives from each of the state's former five library systems, plus five more chosen at large, Sloan said.
The state's library systems were impacted by its fiscal crisis. Sloan said the state has paid 47 percent of what it owes DLS. The library system's appropriation was just over $1 million.
