ILS Search Committee personnel
After much discussion, the SWAN board has approved the makeup of our ILS Search Committee. We had an overwhelming response to our call for volunteers from many talented member staff. The selection process was not easy, and we are grateful to all who put their names forward. Our final committee consists of five member staff and five SWAN staff:
- Allyson Renell, Director, Carol Stream Public Library
- Brittany Smith, Technical Services Manager, Saint Charles Public Library District
- Brooke Sievers, Assistant Director, Addison Public Library
- Hubbell Hinkhouse, Circulation Supervisor, Oak Brook Public Library
- Melissa Willer, Circulation Services Manager, Downers Grove Public Library
- Aaron Skog, SWAN Executive Director
- Cynthia Romanowski, SWAN Bibliographic Services Manager
- Ian Nosek, SWAN IT & System Support Manager
- Scott Brandwein, SWAN Assistant Director
- Tara Wood, SWAN User Experience Manager
We will meet regularly starting this week. These meetings will be closed, but you can see agendas and project updates on the ILS Search portal. The portal also contains an overall project timeline.
The ILS Search Committee will be responsible for providing feedback on our RFP draft document, reviewing RFP responses, and scoring them to pare down the list to a few finalists. This process should be complete by January 2027.
More opportunities to participate
Once the finalists have been chosen, we will need more SWAN member staff volunteers. Later this year, we will put out a call for staff who would like to participate in an ILS search task force covering one of the following topics:
- Circulation
- Cataloging
- Acquisitions
- Directors
- Reports & Analytics
These groups will join the ILS Search Committee in detailed vendor demonstrations and Q&A sessions that will take place around February. Each task force will provide feedback and assist in scoring the finalists so the Search Committee can make a final recommendation to the SWAN board.
Next steps
We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we plan to keep you updated every step of the way. Our immediate next step is finalizing and issuing the RFP document. SWAN staff have been working on the draft for a number of weeks, and the SWAN board has given it a review. Once the ILS Search Committee weighs in, we will be ready to release it, at which point it will be viewable to any interested member staff.
We plan to issue the RFP on October 14th.