Freedom of Information Act
This policy is intended to meet the requirements of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
I. A brief description of our public body is as follows:
- Paris Carnegie Public Library’s purpose is to provide materials and services for the recreational, social, informational, and educational needs of the community. Our service area is the City of Paris.
- An organizational chart is below.
- The total amount of our operating budget for the fiscal year ending April 30, 2022 is: $286,319.00. Funding sources are property and personal property replacement taxes, state per capita grants and other grants, fees, charges, used book sales, and donations. Tax levies are: Corporate purposes (for general operating expenditures)
- The office is located at this address: 207 S. Main St., Paris, IL 61944
- The library employs approximately the following number of persons: Full-time 2; Part-time 4
- Paris Carnegie Public Library Board of Trustees exercises control over our policies and procedures. The board meets monthly on the second Monday of each month (except August), 4:30 p.m., at the library.
- Paris Carnegie Public Library operates as a semi-autonomous department of the City of Paris. The library is a member of Illinois Heartland Library System, which acts in an advisory capacity regarding our operation and maintains the cooperative automated circulation/catalog.
- The library is required to report and be answerable for our operations to: Illinois State Library, Springfield, Illinois. Its members are: State Librarian, Jesse White (Secretary of State); Director of State Library, Greg McCormick; and various other staff.
II. You may request the information and records available to the public in the following manner:
- Please submit requests in writing. You may use our request form (pdf), but it is not required.
- Your request should be directed to the FOIA officer: Teresa Pennington, Librarian (Director). If emailing, please direct your request to read @ parispubliclibrary.org (without the spaces) and include FOIA in the subject line.
- You must indicate whether you have a “commercial purpose” in your request.
- You must specify the records requested to be disclosed for inspection or to be copied. If you desire that any records be certified, you must specify which ones.
- To reimburse us our actual costs for reproducing and certifying (if requested) the records, you will be charged the following fees: No charge for the first fifty (50) pages of black and white text either letter or legal size; $0.15 per page charge for copied records in excess of 50 pages. The actual copying cost of color copies and other sized copies will be charged. There is a $1.00 charge for each certification of records.
- If the records are kept in electronic format, you may request a specific format and if feasible, they will be so provided, but if not, they will be provided either in the electronic format in which they are kept (and you would be required to pay the actual cost of the medium only, i.e. disc, etc.) or in paper as you select.
- The office will respond to a written request within five (5) working days or sooner if possible. An extension of an additional five (5) working days may be necessary to properly respond.
- Records may be inspected or copied. If inspected, an employee must be present throughout the inspection.
- The place and times where the records will be available are as follows: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday at Paris Carnegie Public Library.
III. Certain types of information maintained by us are exempt from inspection and copying. However, the following types or categories of records are maintained under our control:
- Monthly Financial Statements
- Operating Budgets
- Minutes of the Board of Library Trustees
- Library Policies, including Materials Selection
- Annual Reports to the Illinois State Library
IMRF participation as part of City of Paris (external link)
