Anne Craig, iSchool adjunct lecturer and senior director of the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), has been inducted as an Illinois Library Luminary. The Illinois Library Luminary program, an initiative of the Illinois Library Association (ILA), recognizes those who have made a significant contribution to Illinois libraries.
Craig served as director of the Illinois State Library for 11 years prior to her current position at CARLI. She began at the Illinois State Library as a reference librarian in 1989 and served in various roles until 2005, when she was appointed as director. Under her leadership, the state library secured numerous competitive grants for Illinois libraries, which continue to uplift the profession in Illinois and beyond. She has led the ILEAD USA Program, a leadership and technology skills continuing education program, adopted by 12 other state libraries. Also under her coordination, Illinois was selected as a Service Hub for the Digital Public Library of America.
Craig worked with the state’s three library systems to establish landmark projects including the Patron Driven Acquisitions Project, the eRead Illinois Program, and the Dream Grant. The Veteran's History Project, the Talking Book and Braille Service, and the Illinois Center for the Book have all been recognized by the Library of Congress as exemplary. Craig also instituted an outreach program that included mobile librarians and "Little Libraries" distributed throughout the state capital. Earlier in her career, Craig worked at Northern Illinois University's Founders Memorial Library.
Since 2016, Craig has served as senior director of CARLI, where she has overseen a restructuring of the I-Share database, which included the addition of over 38 million physical items, enabling students, faculty, and staff to borrow materials from consortium members. Additionally, under Craig's jurisdiction, CARLI was awarded the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) from the US Department of Education in 2021, which has funded initiatives to relieve students of textbook costs and promote the expansion of open educational resources.