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: April 1, 2005 To: September 1, 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.

    The following grant activities or services have occurred since April 2005.

    • All grant partners have been awarded contracts (12 Teaching Libraries and 6 Library Schools) and are in the process of drawing-down money for expenses as needed.
    • The Internal Grant Team met in July and was updated on all grant activities and discussed several grant-related issues.
    • 36 scholarship recipients have been recruited and have started school in either the Summer or Fall sessions. In addition to the 36 students, one more recipient needs to be awarded, as the original recipient had to leave the program for personal reasons.
    • A Teaching Library grant partner, the Capital District Library Council, decided to drop out of the grant. That left 2 scholarships to be awarded. The Internal Grant Team decided to award the scholarship money to one of the Library School grant partners - University of Buffalo, Department of Library and Information Studies, School of Informatics, as they already had a pool of students who had applied for the grant scholarships and had not been chosen. SUNY Buffalo is in the process of awarding 6 additional scholarships. This will bring the grant project total to 43.
    • Two student assistants continue to work 15-20 hours per week on grant-related activities, including working with the grant evaluator.
    • As mentioned in our last report, an evaluator was hired to do an outcome-based evaluation. That company is REAP Change Consultants, a California-based consulting company. (www.reapchange.com) Three consultants from REAP Change traveled to New York State in June and met with the grant partners over a two-day period, June 1 & 2. The meeting gave the grant partners an overview of what was to be expected concerning evaluation and they worked in small groups to develop their individual outcome-based logic models. It was a very successful meeting and all partners said they felt that had a better understanding of the purposes of the grant project and their individual roles. (For more information, please see the Program Evaluator Workshop portion of the NYSL grant website.)
    • Currently, grant partners are still in the process, with the help of REAP Change consultants, of developing their individual program outcome-based evaluation logic models. The goal is to have final versions of all logic models completed by the end of 2005.
    • Project manager, Linda Todd, has been working with one of the grant partners, the New York Library Association (NYLA) to develop program offerings at NYLA's 2005 conference that address the importance serving a diverse library population. Three programs have been scheduled. They are: Reaching Immigrant Populations; Librarian's Toolkit for Serving Spanish Speakers; Disability Awareness and Resources for your Library Systems.
    • Since these three programs are being sponsored by the grant, each program will include, in it's introduction, an overview of the grant program and participants will be asked to complete a special survey that will be used for grant evaluation purposes.
    • All scholarships recipients were sent a letter inviting them to the 2005 NYLA conference, explaining that their conference registration fees would be waived, as such fees would be paid for through the grant. As of this date, we don't yet know how many recipients will take advantage of this opportunity.
    • Since April 2005, two more RFPs were developed, issued and bids were reviewed and awarded. One RFP concerning the development of the Online Career Resource website. The second RFP concerned the PR campaign that will publicize the Career website and promote librarianship as a profession. We are waiting for the paperwork to be completed by Grants Management so those contracts can be issued and work can begin. Hopefully, both projects can begin by December 2005.

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.

    • 1 meeting of the Internal Grant Team was held.
    • 36 scholarships have been awarded to date, with 7 more to be awarded by the end of October.
    • 2 RFPs have been developed, issued and bids have been awarded. This brings the total to 3 RFPS that have been developed and awarded concerning this grant project.
    • 3 programs have been developed for the NYLA 2005 conference, to be held October 26-29 2005.
    • 36 letters have been mailed to scholarship recipients inviting them to the NYLA conference.
    • 1 meeting, which occurred on June 1 & 2, was held with REAP Change consultants and grant partners.
    • An article appeared in Interface Magazine explaining the Making It REAL! Project.
    • 2 surveys, developed by REAP Change Consultants, were developed and are in progress. One survey is polling the grant partners concerning their experience in recruiting the scholarship recipients. Another survey is currently polling the scholarship recipients and should be done by November 2005.
    • The grant project staff has expanded the informational website devoted to the "Making It REAL!" project. This website, a part of the New York State Library website, contains information concerning the scholarships, the grant partners and a fact sheet. It has been expanded to included the Grant Evaluator Meetings held in June, required fiscal forms needed by the grant partners to receive funds, and a scholarship recipient web page that contains pictures and information concerning the students involved in the project.

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 identifies in the logic model developed at the outcome-based evaluation workshop held in Washington, D.C. in December 2004 are long-term outcomes. During the first year of the grant, most of the activities were organizational in nature, so there are currently no outcomes to report. However, now that scholarship recipients have been identified and have started their studies and the vendors for the website and the PR campaign have been chosen, there should be more activities to report during the second year of the grant that will fulfill the role of indicators and activities for those outcomes.

E. Report other results of the project activities.

There are no other results to report at this time. Perhaps year 2 of the grant project may result in additional results.

F. Additional Comments:

The "Making It REAL! Project is a very complex one with multiple components and 20 grant partners, in addition to three vendors. The New York State Library grant project staff is proud of the project's accomplishments since the grant was awarded and is looking forward to the beginning of the grant's second year, since most of the organizational activities have been completed and all scholarship recipients have started their studies. This is a project that actually changes lives, and the New York State Library is proud to have a part in the Librarians for the 21st Century Program.

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Last Updated: July 10, 2009