Making it REAL! Interim Performance Report

Interim Performance Report (OMB#3137-0029)

Award Number: RE-01-04-0053-04

Awardee Institution Name: New York State Library

Period covered by this Interim Report: From: September 1, 2004 To: March 31, 2005

This report also available in .PDF format.

Project Director: Mary Linda Todd, Library Development Specialist
Telephone: (518) 486-4858
E-mail: mtodd@mail.nysed.gov

Narrative Description

A. What is the Purpose of the Project?

The New York State Library's "Making it REAL!" recruitment and education project has a number of objectives:

    • To launch a bold and imaginative plan to effect fundamental change in recruitment and education for librarianship
    • To provide financial support for 44 master's-level library students, enabling an infusion of new recruits into the library profession
    • To create a Teaching Library model that will provide best practices that can be replicated by library systems, library schools, and library organizations statewide and nationwide to help libraries and library schools build strong partnerships and develop new means of collaboration
    • To develop an online career resource website for use by future and current librarians
    • To help develop a stronger recruitment process for the field of librarianship with the development of new strategies, new means of communication, alternatives for library education, and a heightened awareness of recruitment needs for the 21st century

B. What activities or services have been carried out with project funds to support the purpose of the project? If the project schedule has not been met, explain why and describe the steps being taken to return the project to its proposed schedule of completion.

To date, only a small amount of the grant monies has been expended. This is because most activities have been of an organizational nature, necessary for laying the groundwork to implement the project components. The following activities or services have occurred since the New York State Library received the grant award:

    • We have hired two student assistants (the grant has provision for up to four assistants), each working 15 to 20 hours per week, who assist the grant project manager at the State Library.
    • An Internal Grant Team, composed of members from various units of the State Library, has been established to assist the project manager in making decisions about grant issues and activities.
    • Three grant partners, in addition to the project manager, attended the grant training workshop on Outcome-Based Evaluation held in Washington, D.C., in December 2004.
    • Grant project staff has met internally with State Education Department fiscal staff and appropriate accounts and fiscal processes for administering project funds have been established.
    • In 2004, the New York State Comptroller's Office instituted new grants management requirements for all State Agencies that includes a requirement for a contract for any grants of $15,000 and up. The State Library grant project staff worked extensively with all 20 grant partners to distribute and collect the paperwork necessary to comply with this new process, which included, among several activities, writing a contract for each grant partner. As of this date, the State Education Department has all the required paperwork and we are waiting for the grant partner contracts to be issued and payments to be made.
    • Grant project staff developed an RFP for a grant evaluator who could demonstrate experience in Outcome-Based Evaluation, the type of evaluation promised in the grant proposal. The RFP was issued in January 2005 and was awarded, through a bidding process in March, to REAP Change Consultants, a California-based consulting company. More information on this company is available on its website. The contract start date is April 1, 2005.
    • The grant project staff is currently developing a second RFP that serves a dual purpose: the development of the Online Career Resource Center and the development of a public-relations program to promote librarianship as a profession to New Yorkers of diverse backgrounds.
    • A contract developed by the project staff has been awarded to the New York Library Association (NYLA). NYLA will provide programs concerning diversity in librarianship at its annual conferences in 2005 and 2006.
    • The project grant staff is in the process of establishing a several member "Making It REAL!" statewide Advisory Council by extending personal invitations to nine of the grant partners and other library leaders throughout the state. The Advisory Council will help the State Librarian review and make policy decisions concerning the grant project and related recruitment issues.
    • The grant project staff has held informational meetings and demonstrations on the grant project. An extensive grant information program was held for all New York State Library staff during the Fall of 2004, which included a demonstration of the newly constructed project website.

C. What are the outputs of the project activities or services to support the purpose of the project? Explain what documentation is used to report the outputs.

    • The Teaching Library and Library School project partners have been involved in the scholarship recruitment process since the grant award in July 2004. To date, they have recruited 20 students that have been officially approved by the New York State Library. Several applications are in process. The recruits represent all parts of New York State as well as a variety of backgrounds and experience. They will enter a wide variety of types of librarianship. Information about each recruit will soon be available on the New York State Library's "Making It REAL! grant project website.
    • The grant project staff has developed a distinctive informational website devoted to the "Making It REAL!" project. This website, a part of the New York State Library website, contains information about grant scholarship criteria, grant partner contact information, a fact sheet explaining the grant project, and other related information. In addition to being a wonderful promotional tool, it has become an excellent starting point for scholarship applicants interested in the grant project.
    • To date, the grant project staff has held two major grant information meetings and several smaller, more informal meetings around the state to familiarize the library community with the project's activities and goals.

D. What are the outcomes of the project activities or services to support the purpose of the project? Explain what documentation is used to report the outcomes.

The outcomes identified in the logic model developed at the Outcome-Based Evaluation workshop in Washington, D.C., in December 2004 are long-term outcomes. Therefore, because the majority of the grant activities have been organizational in nature, we do not yet have any outcomes to report. We anticipate that more outcome information will be available by the end of the project's first year in summer 2005.

E. Report other results of the project activities.

N/A

F. Additional Comments:

The "Making It Real!" project is a very complex one with multiple components and 20 grant partners. The New York State Library grant project staff is proud of the project's accomplishments since the grant was awarded and looks forward to selecting the remaining scholarship recipients by the end of the first grant project year. We expect that all grant award students will be enrolled in library schools by the summer or fall of 2005.

In submitting this report the grantee certifies that all the information provided is true and correct.

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Last Updated: July 10, 2009