A Visit from the Institute of Museum and Library Services

Jennifer Peacock

Administrative Services Director

The Mississippi Library Commission (MLC) receives federal funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Service (IMLS) through the Library Services Technology Act (LSTA) Grants to States program. In order to receive these funds, MLC must have a federal five-year plan in place that provides direction for how these funds will be spent. Once during each five-year plan, the program officer from IMLS assigned to Mississippi comes for a site visit. These site visits are three days long, with the first day at MLC viewing records and talking with various MLC staff about the goals of the Five-Year Plan and how they are carried out. The next two days are on the road visiting libraries that have received LSTA subgrants to see how the funds are used in the communities in Mississippi.

From left, MLC Executive Director Hulen Bivins, IMLS Senior Program Officer Dennis Nangle, IMLS CFO Chris Catignani, MLC Library Services Director Tracy Carr, and MLC Administrative Services Director Jennifer Peacock

Jennifer Peacock, who serves as both Administrative Services Director and LSTA Coordinator, and Susan Liles, PR Director, accompanied the IMLS program officer for Mississippi, Dennis Nangle, and another IMLS employee, Chris Catignani, who was scheduled to be in town for an event on Friday, so he came early to tag along on the site visit.

Text to Checkout at the Bovina Grocery

The site visit consisted of seven stops covering the central part of the state and showed both small, rural areas with smaller library systems as well as larger systems. First was a quick stop in Bovina where a pilot program called Text to Checkout is located in the Bovina Grocery. The next two days encompassed stops at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library, Humphreys County Library System, Madison County Library System, Noxubee County Public Library, Mid-Mississippi Regional Library System, and Central Mississippi Regional Library System. In each of these systems, the directors were able to highlight the projects that LSTA funds had helped them to roll out over the past several years and explain the impact it had on their patrons and communities.

Chris, Dennis, and Jennifer with Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library Director Katrina Stokes

Jennifer, Chris, and Dennis with Humphreys County Library System Director Sidney Cobb

Madison County Library System (MCLS) staff David Jackson, MCLS Director Tonja Johnson with Chris

Noxubee County Public Library Director Shameka Conner with Jennifer, Dennis, and Chris

Chris, Jennifer, and Dennis with Mid-Mississippi Regional Library
System Director Josh Haidet and Youth Services Librarian Lindsay Fitts

Chris and Dennis with Central Mississippi Regional Library System Director Mara Polk

Special thanks to Katrina, Sidney, Tonja, Shameka, Josh, Mara, and their staff for welcoming us and taking the time to help advocate for all Mississippi libraries by showing the importance of the federal funding MLC receives and the impact it has both statewide and in the local communities.

Chris, Jennifer, Dennis, and MLC PR Director Susan Liles