The first Illinois Plinkit Conference was held in Springfield on May 1^st.  Forty-five attendees and speakers came together to share the benefits of becoming a Plinkit Library.  Plinkit is a website template based on an open source software called Plone.  Thirty-five libraries were trained on Plinkit in 2007.  They came to the conference to share their experiences with using Plinkit and to find out what new features will be coming.

•        Anne Craig, Director of the Illinois State Library gave greetings from the State Library and Secretary White.
  
  
•       Tom Peters of TAP Information Services talked about Plinkit as Web 2.0.
  
  
•      The Future of Plinkit was given by Beverly Obert from the Rolling Prairie Library System.
•       Troy Brown from the Shawnee Library System spoke about the Technology of Plinkit.
  
•        Eric McKinney, trainer for Rolling Prairie Library System, discussed Getting Started and Training with Plinkit.

Three librarians from established Plinkit libraries shared their experiences and how Plinkit has helped the library to market itself 24/7.  Those librarians were: Jennie Alexander, Mt. Zion Public Library District; Connie Steudel, Carbondale Public Library; Lacey Wright, Barclay Public Library District, Warrensburg.  The day concluded with breakout sessions based on the experience of the libraries.

Panel Discussion Group	Breakout Session A: Libraries needing introductory information	Breakout Session B: Libraries with basic Plinkit training having questions	Breakout Session C: Advanced Plinkit Libraries

The participants of the conference gave their thoughts on Plinkit.  A few favorite samples were:

“Plinkit is Stupid Proof.”

“Plinkit looks great, less intimidating.”

“Plinkit for Dummies does not have to be written, it is that easy.”

Thanks to all of our conference participants!

Plinkit is a cooperative project of seven multitype library systems in Illinois.  Working together with the Plinkit four-state collaborative of Oregon, Colorado, Texas, and Illinois, they have brought Plinkit, Public Library Interface Kit, to Illinois Libraries.  While Plinkit began as a public library service, schools, special, and college libraries are using Plinkit as their website.

For more information about Plinkit go to www.illinoisplinkit.org