610 Quincy St. Rapid City, SD 57701

605-394-6139

www.rapidcitylibrary.org
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Date:   August 2, 2006

To:       RCPL Board of Trustees

From:   Grants Committee

RE:      IMLS 2006 Laura Bush 21st Century Library Program

 

Date:   July 18, 2006

To:       Grants Committee

From:   Heidi Archie

Re:       IMLS 2006 Laura Bush 21st Century Library Program

 

The Rapid City Public Library was not awarded the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant as hoped.  However, the feedback was quite positive.  IMLS received 111 applications requesting more than $54,300,000, and announced awards totaling $20,863,145 to 35 institutions. 

 

The review process was quite lengthy and involved the following steps:

·         IMLS staff checked all proposals for eligibility and completeness

·         Preliminary evaluations were conducted by a group of five panel reviewers

·         Proposals were reviewed in a one or two-day panel meeting in Washington, DC

o       Each proposal was submitted by a lead reviewer to all panel members

·         IMLS staff analyzed panelists’ evaluations, reviewed budgets, and compiled preliminary funding recommendations.

o       Ratings of Excellent or Very Good were sent to a second Overview Panel for review

·         Overview Panel evaluated and made recommendations for funding

·         IMLS Director approved all funding

 

During this process, our library was rated as Very Good by 3 of the 5 preliminary panelists.  This allowed our proposal to move onto the Overview Panel.  The Overview Panel Comment Form shows a split decision with one panelist voting to fund and one voting not to fund. 

 

In summary, it appears the panelists felt the project was worthwhile in its cause, but suggested additions to our research.  The question was raised as to whether we were looking to target classes to specific ages of adult learner or to have classes be mixed with instructors incorporating the various techniques to appeal to the cross-section of users.

 

Overall, the comments were positive and this feedback can be used to refine our future grant requests.  The guidelines for the 2007 Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program competition will be available in October on their web site at http://www.imls.gov/.   With further refinement of our proposal we could stand a strong chance of funding in the next cycle. 

 

 

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