Libraries and Librarian Education: 40 Recipients Receive $13 Million in IMLS Grants (First Cycle of National Leadership and Laura Bush Grants)

From IMLS:

The Institute of Museum and Library Services today announced 40 grants to institutions totaling $13,016,100. The grants were awarded through the first cycle of the National Leadership Grants for Libraries Program and the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.

Direct to Details + Abstracts of All 40 Grants
Highlights: National Leadership Grants

• Project Welcome of the Mortenson Center for International Programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the American Library Association to develop recommendations and an action agenda for libraries on information resources, services, training, and research needed to support the resettlement and integration of refugees and asylum seekers in the United States.

• The University of Utah’s project on the Western Name Authority File (WNAF) to work with Linked Open Data (LOD) using controlled vocabularies to create new data structures linking people, places, collections, and objects together in digital collections. The project will collaboratively analyze existing vocabularies, develop a data model, explore infrastructure, and test workflows that could be used throughout the Mountain West Digital Library network of partners.

• The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and its partners (including American Council of the Blind, Association for the BVI, Blind Service Association, Learning Ally, National Federation of the Blind-WI Chapter, and Vision Forward, Milwaukee Public Libraries, Milwaukee Public Museum, and Milwaukee Art Museum) for a collaboration to develop digital library design guidelines on accessibility, usability, and utility for blind and visually impaired (BVI) users. The project will benefit the approximately 20.6 million Americans with significant vision loss who cannot use digital libraries effectively because of the libraries’ sight-centered design.

Direct to Details + Abstracts of All 40 Grants
Highlights: Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program

The Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program supports projects to recruit and educate the next generation of librarians, faculty, and library leaders. IMLS is awarding $6,676,659 of the $39 million requested. For the 20 funded projects, grantees are providing $2.7 million in cost share. Funded projects include:

• Project MISSILE (Mobile Information Skills and Solutions in Library Education) of the University of Tennessee, which will put together interdisciplinary graduate coursework for LIS students to serve as mobile technology consultants for libraries.

• The project of the University of Texas at Austin and its partners, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, to examine how rural libraries address the challenges of Internet connectivity with hotspot lending programs. Investigators will create guidelines on program implementation, a report on rural Internet connectivity, and a final research report addressing the impact of hotspot lending programs on users’ quality of life and digital literacy.

• A National Forum grant of the UCLA Department of Information Studies to bring together stakeholders managing new forms of digital audiovisual evidence used by law enforcement. The project will help set specific priorities for the management and preservation of evidence generated by the widespread use of surveillance cameras, smartphones, and bodycams.

Learn More About Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program
Direct to Details + Abstracts of All 40 Grants

Filed under: Data Files, Digital Collections, Funding, Interactive Tools, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News, Patrons and Users, Preservation, Public Libraries