About Us

The Chicago Area Solo Librarians (CASL) group formed in 2001, spearheaded by some solos in Chicago who wanted to meet and network, to commiserate and celebrate, the challenges of life as a solo librarian! A couple of us attended a grant-writing summit in the spring of 2001, "Lighting the Fire", sponsored by the Illinois State Library to help stimulate creative grants and projects within the Illinois library community with federal money from LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act). This initiative gave the twelve library systems in Illinois an opportunity to hold their own subsequent mini-sessions with member libraries to encourage innovative grant-writing within their systems.

Many solos who attended the Chicago Library System's (now the Metropolitan Library System) "Urban Fire" conference were eager to start a group which could share the talents of solos and contribute to the Chicago-area library community. We found common ground in looking for a way to offer real opportunities for networking and resourcing among our libraries, both for problem-sharing and problem-solving, and CASL was born! Our group's interactions, primarily through meetings or through our grant-funded workshops, have led to some really fruitful collaborations and projects among our members.