IMLS Awards $20.3 Million For Recruitment, Training
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 6/18/2008
- Several programs to "grow your own" librarians
- A study of economic impact studies
- A look into multiplayer online games
On June 17, the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded 31 institutions grants totaling $20.3 million as part of the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, which since 2003 has provided more than $100 million to recruit and train new librarians. The awards include efforts to increase the diversity of the profession, study digital librarianship, assist in the Gulf Coast, and foster executive leadership.
Notable are a grant to study economic impact studies of public library service and another to study “massively multiplayer online” games.
Diversity projects
University of Arizona, Tucson: $999,860 (match: $847,324) for "Knowledge River II—Building Capacity for Diversity in Library and Information Science Education," offering 48 scholarships for MLS students, especially from the Hispanic and Native American communities, in a follow-up to an already existing program.
City of Dallas: $545,909 (match: $99,607) for "Dallas Public Library Grow Your Own Library Program," an effort to recruit 30 staffers, especially those who are Spanish-speaking, to replenish the library’s ranks.
Fairfax County Public Library, VA: $265,258 (match: $198,502) for "An American Future: Library Service Opportunities for Immigrant Youth," a three-year project to recruit 90 low-income, immigrant youth for paid internships in the library.
Association of Research Libraries, Washington, DC: $728,821 (match: $311,946) for the “RL Minority Fellowship Program,” which will provide 45 MLS students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups with internships in an academic or research library. It will also provide these ARL Minority Fellows with librarian mentors, opportunities for leadership development, and career placement.
Leadership projects
State Library of Louisiana, Baton Rouge: $155,946 (match: $160,222) for "Executive Leadership Training for Louisiana Public Librarians” tailored to public library leaders and potential leaders. The project will establish the structure and materials needed to repeat the training in future years.
Simmons College, Boston: $955,694 (match: $876,813) for "Ph.D./Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions: Targeting Public and State Library Leadership," which will add 18 rising leaders in the public and state library arenas to a program that has previously attracted mainly students from the academic library community.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh: $391,400 (match: $418,061) for a "Management Skills Workshop," a three-year project including a year-long professional development program for staffers, a second tier to develop executive leadership skills and learn nonprofit management skills, as well as a third tier to produce a case study and educational training materials.
Preservation & digital projects
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge: $279,672 (match: $269,784) for "The Mid-Gulf Coast Collaborative for Continuing Education in Archives Management," which will target the staffs of small, resource-challenged repositories in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, to help with post-Katrina preservation challenges.
Pratt Institute, New York: $756,324 (match: $521,910) for "Preparing Information Professionals for Museum Libraries in the Digital Age: Pratt-SILS in partnership with the Brooklyn Museum Project M-LEAD,” which will recruit and provide scholarships to 30 students to become museum librarians. The partners also will produce a study on the current state of museum library education.
Drexel University, Philadelphia: $224,386 (match: $42,086): "Modeling Interpersonal Discourse for Digital Information Service: Evaluation of the Question-Answering Service of the Internet Public Library," which will analyze transcripts from the Internet Public Library’s Question Answering Service.
University of Texas, Austin: $255,040 (match: $88,081) for "Video Games and the Cultural Record: Studying the Creation Processes and Artifacts of the Video Game Industry for the Purpose of Collection and Preservation," an effort to study the collection and preservation of “massively multiplayer online” (MMO) games.
University of Maryland, College Park: $591,554 (match: $513,961) for the "Digital Humanities Model Internship Program," in which the university’s College of Information Studies and the schools of information at the University of Michigan and the University of Texas at Austin will partner with three digital humanities centers to create 18 internships for MLS students interested in careers in digital humanities centers or digital libraries.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: $878,634 (match: $848,176) for "DigCCurr II: Extending an International Digital Curation Curriculum to Doctoral Students and Practitioners," working with the National Archives and Records Administration and the University of Glasgow to develop an international, doctoral-level curriculum and educational network in the management and preservation of digital materials.
A study of economic impact studies
University of South Carolina, Columbia: $155,885 (match: $44,861) for "Assessing the Economic Value of Public Library Services: A Review of the Literature and Meta-Analysis," an effort by Assistant Professor Jennifer Arns at the university’s School of Library and Information Science to “gather, summarize, and integrate recent studies on the economic impact of public libraries in their communities” and “create and disseminate models for further public library economic benefits studies, as well as methods for incorporating the findings from this research into library promotional materials.”
