The Institute of Museum and Library Services is soliciting proposals for its 2024 Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program to support the development of a diverse workforce of librarians and archivists in order to meet the information needs of their communities.
Donor Name: Institute of Museum and Library Services
State: All States
County: All Counties
U.S. Territory: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, or the Republic of Palau
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 09/20/2023
Size of the Grant: $50,000 – $1,000,000
Grant Duration: 3 years
Details:
The Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program supports the achievement of agency-level
- Goal 1, Champion Lifelong Learning,
- Objective 1.2, Support the training and professional development of the museum and library workforce. Like all IMLS grant programs, it is also designed to facilitate the delivery of significant results consistent with the IMLS federal authorizing legislation in particular, (Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program)). Each award that IMLS makes through the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program will thus contribute meaningfully to the achievement of both program and agency-level goals.
Projects are expected to:
- propose far-reaching impact to influence practice across one or more disciplines within the libraries and archives fields;
- reflect a thorough understanding of current practice, knowledge about the subject matter, and an awareness of and support for current strategic priorities in the field;
- use collaboration to demonstrate buy-in and input, and access to appropriate expertise.
Reflecting IMLS’s agency-level goal to champion lifelong learning, the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program has three program goals and from three to five objectives associated with each goal. Each applicant should align their proposed project with one of these three program goals and one or more of the associated objectives
- Goal 1: Recruit, train, develop, and retain a diverse workforce of library and archives professionals.
- Objective 1.1: Develop programs encouraging diverse students to pursue careers in library and information science. Delivery mechanisms may include, but are not limited to, summer institutes, workshops, certificate programs, and online networks.
- Objective 1.2: Collaborate with formal and/or informal learning organizations to incorporate promising practices from allied domains into library and archives services. Partners may include, but are not limited to, museums, school systems, universities, extension programs, youth-serving organizations, departments of correction, and workforce or economic development organizations.
- Objective 1.3: Develop workforce training to support families, groups, and individuals of diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds and needs. These may include, but are not limited, to young children and their caregivers, tweens and teens, un- and under-employed adults looking to make career transitions or re-enter the workforce, veterans, immigrants and refugees, individuals with disabilities, English-language learners, and senior citizens.
- Goal 2: Develop faculty, library, and archives leaders by increasing the institutional capacity of libraries, archives, and graduate programs related to library and information science.
- Objective 2.1: Support large-scale organizational change addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Activities may include, but are not limited to, needs assessments; formal and informal training at the individual and group level in relevant areas such as cultural awareness and competence, cross-cultural knowledge and skills, stakeholder management and engagement, organizational dynamics, and agile project management; facilitated cross-departmental workshops; and external evaluation.
- Objective 2.2: Create DEI initiatives, activities, and curricula to recruit, develop, and retain leaders from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds.
- Objective 2.3: Support the research of untenured tenure-track library and information science faculty, furthering the faculty member’s long-term research agenda, career trajectory, and professional development.
- Goal 3: Enhance the training and professional development of the library and archival workforce to meet the needs of their communities.
- Objective 3.1: Develop training to equip the library and archival workforce to engage in sustained community development. Approaches may include, but are not limited to, design thinking, data analytics, impact assessment, leadership development, organizational change, asset mapping, and collective impact.
- Objective 3.2: Create and/or refine training programs that build library and archival workforce skills and expertise in contributing to the well-being of communities. This work may relate to workforce and economic development; financial, health, social, or legal services; or efforts that increase equity and access.
- Objective 3.3: Create and/or refine training programs to build library and archival workforce skills and expertise in developing engaging lifelong learning opportunities, fostering attitudes of discovery, cultivating critical and creative thinking skills, and facilitating experiential and self-directed learning opportunities for all.
- Objective 3.4: Support training of the library and archival workforce to advance digital inclusion for the benefit of community members. Approaches may include, but are not limited to, enhancing digital infrastructures, platforms, technologies, online services, connectivity, digital literacy, privacy, and security, as well as creating new processes and procedures needed to sustain a robust online environment.
- Objective 3.5: Support training of the library and archival workforce in digital collection management. This may include, but not be limited to, preservation and access to information and resources through retrospective and born-digital content; digital preservation strategies; community archives; web archiving; and improving cataloging and inventory practices.
Funding Information
- Total amount of funding IMLS expects to award through this announcement: $8,500,000
- Expected amount of individual awards
- Planning $50,000 – $150,000
- Forum $50,000 – $150,000
- Implementation $50,000 – $1,000,000
- Early Career Research Development $50,000 – $750,000
- Applied Research $50,000 – $750,000
- Average amount of funding per award experienced in previous years $306,451
Period of Performance
August 1, 2024 – July 31, 2027.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible for an award under the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, you must:
- be either a unit of State, local, or tribal government or be a private, nonprofit organization that has nonprofit status under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended, and
- be located in one of the 50 States of the United States of America, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, or the Republic of Palau.
In addition, you must qualify as one of the following six types of organizations:
- A library or a parent organization, such as a school district, a municipality, a State agency, or an academic institution, that is responsible for the administration of a library. Eligible libraries include:
- Public libraries.
- Public elementary and secondary school libraries.
- Tribal libraries.
- College (including community college) and university libraries.
- Research libraries and archives that are not an integral part of an institution of higher education and that make publicly available library services and materials that are suitable for scholarly research and are not otherwise available.
- Private or other special library, but only if the State in which such private or special library is located determines that the library should be considered a library for purposes of Library Services and Technology
- Archives, including institutional, community-based, and special collections, that are under the supervision of at least one permanent professional staff member and are available to the public.
- An academic or administrative unit, such as a graduate school of library and information science that is part of an institution of higher education through which it would apply;
- A digital library or archives, if it makes materials publicly available and provides library or archival services, including selection, organization, description, reference, and preservation, under the supervision of at least one permanent professional staff librarian/archivist;
- A library or archival agency that is an official agency of a State, tribal, or other unit of government and is charged by the law governing it with the extension and development of public library services within its jurisdiction;
- A library or archives consortium that is a local, statewide, regional, interstate, or international cooperative association of library entities that provides for the systematic and effective coordination of the resources of eligible libraries or archives, as defined above, and information centers that work to improve the services delivered to the clientele of these libraries or archives; or
- A library or archives association that exists on a permanent basis; serves libraries, archives, or library or archival professionals on a national, regional, State, or local level; and engages in activities designed to advance the well-being of libraries and the library profession.
For more Inforamtion, visit Grants.gov.