Florida State University and partner University of Alabama will collect and analyze data on how STEM teachers can most effectively collaborate with librarians. The data will be collected at focus groups held at four national conferences: the American Association of School Librarians, the Public Library Association, the National Science Teachers Association, and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This variety of participants at these conferences will allow for diverse opinions, thoughts, and ideas to be compiled, supporting the analysis of how the collaboration between STEM teacher and librarian is working today and providing recommendations on how it could be improved. The overall goal of this planning grant is to assess what is happening in the field so the information can then be shared with the educational and library communities for greater impact.
This report describes key findings from the Chicago Public Library (CPL) Maker Lab, a hands-on collaborative learning environment for residents of Chicago to create and design items while enhancing their 21st century skills. The key outcomes of the Maker Lab are building basic literacy; building digital, information, and cultural literacy; advancing critical thinking and problem solving; advancing creativity and innovation; and fostering communication and collaboration.
Westchester Library System, in partnership with Lifetime Arts, ALA's Public Programs Office, and AARP Foundation, will improve, expand, and sustain creative aging programs in public libraries and position libraries as community cornerstones for positive aging. Built on Lifetime Arts' capacity-building model, this initiative reflects new scholarship on the benefits of social engagement and creative expression for healthy aging, employs nationally recognized best practices in arts education, and promotes partnerships between librarians and arts and community organizations. Through the new Lifetime Arts Affiliate Network, up to 150 librarians will participate in in-depth training, receive ongoing technical assistance, participate in a national peer network, and receive support to implement programs in their communities. The program will provide a practical, replicable, and sustainable approach for transforming library services for older adults to align with new knowledge, societal priorities, and collaborative practice.
Westport Library, with its partners, Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and Connecticut State Library - Division of Library Development (CSL-DLD), and with SPARK! Consulting, will introduce a new model of maker space in libraries and a way to systematically integrate the culture of interactive "making" into the library profession. Westport will introduce a culture of innovation, while honoring the needs of more traditional libraries. There will be self-directed, hands-on maker experiences; maker workshops; and makers-in-residence who will support workshops and innovation labs on topics such as robotics, LED quilt creations, and tinkering with home electronics repairs. The library will also create Interactive Innovation Stations (iStations) to introduce people to the concepts and techniques of innovative thinking. It will be an environment where people can experiment, take calculated risks, and work collaboratively.
The Howard County Library System (HCLS), in partnership with the University of Maryland Baltimore County, will use this grant to enhance the teen digital media lab at the Savage Branch Library by adding science, technology, engineering, and math projects and implementing that same STEM-focused model in three other libraries. The "Hi Tech Academy: The Road to a STEM Career" project will address the increasing demand for workers with STEM-related skills as the number of college graduates in these fields decreases. This program will create a model to be replicated at other libraries, bring awareness of how to best teach these skills, increase interest in STEM for youth, and address the demand for these skills in the community.
Stanford University Library, in partnership with the University of Santa Cruz, will develop a publishable metadata scheme for digital games, including ontology and terminology, as well as a system and tools for citation of in-game events and game states. While the work of collection and preservation is underway, digital games present unique and complex stewardship problems, including methods for description, discovery and citation. As acquisition of this type of collection increases, challenges with cataloguing, storage, and access are compounded. This framework will provide a complete solution to the closely linked problems of finding, accessing, and citing digital games, a growing and important part of modern culture.
Federal support for museums through the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is based on the premise that museums are valuable community organizations providing rich opportunities for learning and civic engagement. Yet, until recently, there has been a paucity of systematic and evidence-based research on the public impact of museums. Therefore, since 2005, the IMLS Office of Museum Services has funded research projects under the auspices of the National Leadership Grant program. These grants support projects that ‘raise the bar’ in museum research and practice. Funded projects have
The Missouri Botanical Garden and partners at Harvard University, Cornell University, and New York Botanical Garden will test new means of crowdsourcing to support the enhancement of content in the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). The BHL is an international consortium of the world's leading natural history libraries that have collaborated to digitize the public domain literature documenting the world's biological diversity, resulting in the single, largest, open-licensed source of biodiversity literature. The project will demonstrate whether or not digital games are an effective tool for analyzing and improving digital outputs from optical character recognition and transcription. The anticipated benefits of gaming include improved access to content by providing richer and more accurate data; an extension of limited staff resources; and exposure of library content to communities who may not know about the collections otherwise.
The Metropolitan Reference and Research Library Agency's National Digital Stewardship Residency in New York (NDSR-NY) addresses the library profession's lack of staff who are trained to successfully acquire, manage, and preserve digital materials. The three-year project builds on the pilot program (NSDR) developed by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It will support 10 students in gaining skills and experience to begin successful careers in digital stewardship; increase the number of skilled professionals; and help replicate the model residency program across the country. The NDSR-NY project will transform the landscape of certificate programs by using a blended approach that combines education with practical, hands-on work and by bringing together best practices to build a tested curriculum that teaches core competencies.
The goal of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Academic and Cultural Enrichment (ACE) Scholars: New Americans for Community College Librarianship project is to increase the number of immigrants and refugees in community college librarianship. The project includes a recruitment drive, a targeted and focused curriculum that emphasizes multicultural, multilingual, and community engaged librarianship, and a proven practicum model, the Real Learning Connections. The project will result in a sustainable curriculum as well as a multilingual and multicultural cadre of 10 librarians, ready to serve diverse community college students, and ready to work in community college library environments.
The cybersecurity workforce is one of the most critical employment sectors in the country. The Cybersecurity for Science Information (CSI): Developing Workforce Proficiency project brings together the University of Tennessee (UT) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to develop plans for curriculum and research opportunities that will provide students with knowledge and hands-on experiences to confront today's ever-changing cybersecurity challenges. For this planning grant, UT and ORNL will collaborate with the University of New Mexico Library and the Los Alamos National Laboratory to develop a detailed recruitment strategy; blueprints of cybersecurity educational modules; a platform for sustainable curriculum design; and a strategy for ongoing assessment The project will also identify additional stakeholder groups.
"In the past several years, New England Aquarium (NEAq) renewed all exhibits, built new additions, and made substantive efforts to restructure its interpretation strategies to transform the visitor experience. With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant #MA-06-12-0143-12, the Aquarium embarked on A New Strategy for Visitor Engagement: Interpreting our Mission for a Changing World. From fall 2012 through summer 2014, NEAq developed, implemented, and evaluated a comprehensive approach to increasing the capacity of front-line staff and interpreters to engage with