Secretary of State and State Librarian for Illinois, Jesse White, announces that 340 public libraries and school districts will be sharing more than $1.2-million in Back to Books grants. These grants will help schools and libraries across Illinois to acquire prink books, in order to improve their collections and to engage readers. Centralia Regional Library applied for the grant will receive about $5,000 from the Reading Realities Update grant. The funds will allow the library district to develop and expand two relatively new and high demand collections of urban fiction and graphic novels. The Back to Books grants were awarded using federal Library Services and Technology Act funds, provided to the Secretary of State/Illinois State Library, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, through the Grants to States Program.