This honor roll for Illinois libraries serves the dual purpose of recognizing outstanding voices in the library community, while creating a legacy through the ILA Endowment to continue their important work.
2018
Lou Flavio
Lou Flavio has been an Illinois library supporter for many years. Through his leadership, the library vendor he owns and operates, Today’s Business Solutions, Inc. (TBS) has become a partner that works side by side with libraries to bring services to our constituents.
TBS has been a sponsor of ILA’s TBS Technical Services Award since 2000 and the Librarian of the Year Award as of 2017, has been a Platinum Sponsor of the ILA Annual Conference since 2006, and a Reaching Forward sponsor since 2011. In addition to these sponsorships, TBS is a regular ILA Conference Pub Stroll sponsor and prior to the pub strolls, has hosted dinners at ILA, ALA, and PLA for their numerous clients. Most recently, TBS became the founding ILA Library Leadership Partner under this new recognition program. Not only providing financial assistance at the association level, Lou and TBS are also supportive of the local efforts of librarians to further the education of staff. TBS has been the top sponsor for the four ATLAS (Area Training for Librarians and Staff) Directors’ Retreats over the past 8 years. These retreats provide networking, programming, and much-needed decompressing for public library directors from all over the State of Illinois. Beyond donating to library-related organizations he has also contributed funds towards individual library projects when asked. Lou recognizes the value that a public library has on a community and is always willing to help bring that value forth.
Lou’s generous spirit stretches beyond libraries to local Chicago organizations with annual donations to Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, St. Baldrick’s Foundation, Mt. Greenwood Park Therapeutic Recreation Association, Chicago Public Library Foundation, Special Olympics Illinois, and the Helping Hand Center. Lou Flavio is a unique businessman who has integrity and truly cares about his clients and their institutions, creating and maintaining meaningful relationships with his clients. That is why TBS has products in more than 1,000 libraries throughout the United States. Lou is truly an Illinois Library Luminary.
Inducted August 21, 2018
Kathleen ("Kate") Boyle, 1952-2018
Kathleen (Kate) Boyle’s name is synonymous with resource sharing in Illinois. For twenty-five years, from 1979 to 2004, Kate served as Resource Sharing Manager of the Suburban Library System. She later served as Resource Sharing Manager of the Metropolitan Library System from 2004-2011, and Member Services Manager of the System-Wide Automated Network (SWAN) from 2009-2018. Kate was a leader in Illinois libraries’ adoption of technology to support reciprocal borrowing, inter-library loan systems, and library system automation. From 1980-2014 she served on every critical statewide committee tasked with interlibrary loan and reciprocal borrowing policy and automation. Kate served as a member of the ILLINET Interlibrary Loan Code Revision Committee, and was also a crucial participant in statewide development teams for VIC (Virtual Illinois Catalog), SILC (Statewide Illinois Library Catalog), and SILO (Serials of Illinois Libraries Online). Kate’s numerous accomplishments in library resource sharing include working on the project team that created Serials of Illinois Libraries Online (SILO) in the 1980s-1990s, designing and developing the self-adhesive label for delivery of materials within the Metropolitan Library System, and developing Illinois’s statewide Resource Sharing Policy Directory. She is the co-author of SWAN Recommendations on Symphony Integrated Library System (ILS) Profiling, which recommended expanded resource-sharing options for library patrons. Kate willingly shared her expertise and creativity with others and served as a mentor to all who crossed her path, expanding library services to Illinois residents and beyond.
Inducted August 14, 2018
Karen Stott Bersche
Karen Stott Bersche, of Bloomington, Illinois, served on the Reaching Across Illinois Library System Board (2011-2016) and the Illinois State Library Advisory Committee (2015-18) during her 35-year library career. She was a member of the State Board of Rural Partners from 1995 to 2015 – bringing a library perspective to the table of the public-private partnership organization.
While serving as Director of the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center (2005-2008), she received the 2007 Illinois Library Association Skrzypek Award for Leadership in Service to the Blind/Physically Challenged.
Library Journal honored Ms. Bersche in 2005 as one of "50 Movers and Shakers --The People Who Are Shaping the Future of America's Libraries."
As Alliance Library System Partnerships/Marketing Manager (1996-2005), Bersche focused on library development and marketing. The best-known marketing campaigns were: The Great Librarian Adventure, leveraging a $102,000 IMLS grant to coordinate a marketing campaign for recruitment into the librarian profession – laying the foundation for providing tuition-free MLIS degrees for 36 students thanks to a subsequent recruitment grant from the Laura Bush Foundation; Libraries Matter, which received international media coverage and raise $58,000 for Alliance Library System to use to educate librarians; Powerful Libraries Make Powerful Learners, which promoted research on the importance of school libraries; and Partners in a Great System, with its decorated, life-sized "PIGS" in 300 Illinois communities that promoted library systems and local artists - in partnership with the Illinois Pork Producers Association. (Featured in “American Libraries” September 2001.)
All of the campaigns resulted in television and press coverage for local libraries and librarians.
The Canadian Library Association, American Library Association, a Texas Library System, and Public Library Association hosted programs provided by Mrs. Bersche based upon publications she co-authored on library involvement in community and economic development. A previous career as a Chamber of Commerce Executive Director informed these publications, along with research done in partnership with Dr. Norman Walzer, Director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs.
Bersche was a public library director in northern Illinois (1983-1995) and in Towanda, Illinois from 2008 to 2018.
Inducted June 14, 2018
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