RAILS hires design group for L2 Redo

The Reaching Across Illinois Library System partnered with Aten Design Group to provide the design and development of a new L2 (librarylearning.info) platform, the statewide Illinois continuing education calendar and library directory.

Earlier this year, RAILS received special grant funding from the Illinois State Library for a total restructure and refresh of L2. In 2008, L2 began as a collaborative project between the existing Illinois library systems. It launched as a continuing education calendar, and additionally became a directory of all system member libraries.

L2 has evolved into a critical tool for staff from all types of libraries, library systems, consortia, and the Illinois State Library. There are currently over 20,000 users and 1,795 library agencies affiliated with L2 throughout the state.

"The new L2 will be a huge improvement in both design and function," said RAILS Application and Web Developer Brian Smith. "It will do things that the current L2 can't, like allow networking groups to manage their own events and give the catalog consortia a lot more access to their member libraries' profiles. Also, moving the State Library's annual certification process to L2 will simplify things for our libraries significantly."

Anne Slaughter, RAILS Director of Technology Services, said, "Aten has experience working on complex projects for libraries and other educational and cultural organizations. The open-source events calendar they've already developed is a great starting point for building the new L2 calendar."

The new L2 platform is expected to be released in the summer of 2020.

RAILS, based in Burr Ridge, is a regional library system, a government agency that provides services to libraries in northern and west-central Illinois, serving approximately 1,300 private, public, school, and university library members. Their services include continuing education and consulting resources to library employees and trustees, shared catalog support, e-book services, a cultural pass program, group purchases and vendor discounts, targeted grant funding to member libraries, and more.