BISMARCK, Ill. (WCIA) — The Illinois Secretary of State and State Librarian, Alexi Giannoulias, is supporting schools with a $1.3 million grant to public school libraries.

It provides kids from kindergarten to 12th grade with resources like library books, e-books, audio books and more.

The Bismarck School District has three libraries. The school’s superintendent said this grant has been helping them year after year.

“I think the big thing for us is in today’s world, everything being such technology based, just the fact of kids reading is so important. And, if you can have novels in the library where the kids want to be at and get them to read, which we’re fortunate we do, we have a lot of kids and enjoy reading,” Superintendent Scott Watson said. “We want to make sure that they have those supplies to be able to do those types of things. So, you know, once again, I think the reading is the most important thing, keeping the interest in the reading aspect of it. And we’re fortunate K-12 that our kids enjoy it.”

He said they were awarded around $850 per library. Other schools who applied for the grant were Urbana, Westville, and Danville.