25 new jobs for Du Quoin

Mayor Rex Duncan and Du Quoin Economic Development director Jeff Ashauer will share the news tonight with Du Quoin council members that the city will soon be home to one of four offices of Illinois' largest library system.

Moving the offices of what was once the Shawnee Library System from Carterville to Du Quoin will mean 25 jobs for Du Quoin.

Duncan and Ashauer say a recruitment ad running in the Du Quoin Evening Call promises interviews to the first qualified applicants.

Of the 25 jobs, 15 will be full-time and 10 will be part-time.

This comes about through the hard work of Mark Gilula and son Zach, who purchased what many know as the P.R. Mallory building on South Madison Street, which more recently housed Prestige Trailers, Inc.

They have partnered with the City of Du Quoin on a TIF agreement that providing for the stabilization and renovation of the building. Much of the work has already begun.

The Gilulas have begun a warehousing enterprise to package and ship DVDs on orders placed on amazon.com.

The Gilulas are recruiting tenants for their building.

Landing the Shawnee Library System comes about because of John A. Logan College's need to take over office space which for years has been home to the Shawnee Library System. It is a huge Southern Illinois library system that works to share books, other printed materials, talking books an electronic materials between libraries.

Last year, the Shawnee system was merged with three other systems base in Champaign, Decatur an Edwardsville into the Illinois Heartland Library System, the largest networked library system in the state and one of the largest in the nation.

The four are the Lewis & Clark Library System, the Lincoln Trail Libraries System, the Rolling Library System and the Shawnee Library System.

The Heartland Library System covers 28,140 square miles and serves a population of 2,248,600 residents. There are 585 member libraries, 41 academic, 229 public school libraries and 56 special libraries.

Juliette Douglas of the Lewis & Clark Library System in Edwardsville will assist in transitioning he Shawnee program to its new headquarters in Du Quoin.

A timeline on that move has not been announced.