IMLS Awards $28M in Librarian Recruitment and Education Grants
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 06/22/2007
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) this week announced some $28 million in grants to 43 universities, libraries, and library organizations across the country to recruit and educate librarians. Among the projects supported will be one to credential librarians in the Atlanta area and another to boost the Internet Public Library's role as a laboratory for reference service.The funds, granted under the 2007 Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, will benefit thousands of students at all levels in programs ranging from tuition assistance to "curriculum development, service expectations, job placement, recruitment of non-traditional library students, and support for doctoral candidates to teach library science and research." (Here's the list.) The program, inaugurated in 2002, is designed to address a shortage of school library media specialists, library school faculty, and librarians working in underserved communities, as well as to prepare for "an anticipated shortage of library leaders."
Atlanta's Emory University, in collaboration with the University of North Texas (UNT), landed a $773,336 grant with a $291,158 match to "address the need for professional librarians with contemporary skill sets in north Georgia." The Emory-led project will "recruit, educate, and prepare an Atlanta-based cohort of thirty-five diverse graduate students for library careers with an emphasis on digital knowledge management." The students will get their degrees from UNT via distance learning. Emory director for digital programs Martin Halbert, point man for the project, said the program has been in works for several years, and its need more vital with the closing of the state's last accredited library school at Clark Atlanta University in 2005.
In Philadelphia, Drexel University's College of Information Science and Technology landed two hefty awards. A $613,478 grant with a $667,618 match will, in collaboration with the University of Michigan, Florida State University, and the University of Pittsburgh, "transform the Internet Public Library (IPL) into a fully featured virtual learning laboratory for digital reference." Also, a $992,100 grant with a $309,376 match will support a doctoral-level program to prepare new faculty "in information systems and technologies."
The Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation received a $999,980 grant with a $653,607 match for a master's level program on "community-based librarianship." That program will focus on "increasing minority representation among professional librarians and the number of youth librarians" throughout the city's library system.
