New York State Library

Division of Library Development

Making It REAL! Recruitment, Education, And Learning:
Creating a New Generation of Librarians to Serve All New Yorkers

Student Survey 2005
Making It REAL! Grant Evaluation

March 2, 2006

Contents Executive Summary Demographics and Career Backgrounds Recruitment Perspectives of Successful Scholarship Applicants Making It REAL! Grants in Relation to Education and Career Plans Navigating Library School Student Reactions to and Expectations of Making It REAL! Conclusions References

Appendices Appendix A: Career Plans Appendix B: Intended Library School Specializations Appendix C: Types of Additional Work Experienced Expected Appendix D: Survey Instrument and results

Executive Summary

All forty (40) Making It REAL! scholars responded to a web-based survey between September 2 and November 4, 2005. The purpose of the survey was to establish a baseline of student characteristics against which to measure later changes, and to gather student feedback about their recruitment and the scholarship program. The 15 Teaching Library scholars met the Teaching Library grant target numbers and two are slated to start later. The University award scholars are four short in numbers of a target 29, despite transfer of funds from the Teaching Library to University scholarship categories that added five scholars to bring the University total of 25. More University scholarships may be awarded later.

If five rural students are included as "diverse," the Teaching Library scholars met grant diversity targets based on self-reported diversity. The five additional University scholars included four non-Hispanic white females, and this dropped the diversity percentages from 85% reported earlier (Maack 2005) to 73%, or below the target of 82% diversity. Students are still quite diverse, including Puerto Rican, Puerto Rican/Dominican, Cuban and South Americans in the "Hispanic" category, five Spanish speakers, and also speakers of Arabic, French, Djiboutian, Punjabi, Russian, Vietnamese, and some Italian. Only three of the students are males, all already countable as ethnic or Hispanic minorities.

University award recipients had a median age (25 to 29) ten years younger than Teaching Library award recipients (35 to 39). About 73% of University award recipients were ages 20 to 39, and 73% of Teaching Library scholars were 30 to 49.

All students had received or were pending baccalaureates and almost one-third had Masters or first professional degrees in a non-library and information science field. About one-quarter (27%) of Teaching Library scholars and one-sixth (16%) of University award recipients had been the first in their families to attend college.

Most students (38) reported prior careers, with 62% of University award recipients and 75% of Teaching Library scholars having worked previously in libraries for pay, often in non-professional positions, although some had held the title but not the certification of librarian. Other careers for the University award group especially included English or art teachers and writers/editors, and English and other teachers, systems analysts, nurse, and social worker were in the Teaching Libraries group.

Recruitment. Almost half of the students (47% to 48%) rated time available to apply for the scholarship and for library school admission as "Good" and 31% rated scholarship application time "Excellent." However, only 21% rated time available to apply for library school as "Excellent." About 30% rated time available to complete the library school application process as "fair" or "poor," indicating that this is where students could benefit most from improving timing.

Almost six out of ten students heard about the scholarship from only one source of information. University award recipients especially heard about it from University faculty or staff or from the NYSL Making It REAL! website, and Teaching Library recipients mostly heard about it personally from a supervisor at work or friends. This underlines the importance of personal outreach as well as use of electronic media that was reported by the partners (see Maack 2005).

About 95% of the students rated the overall recruitment process "excellent" (45%) or "good" (55%). They also rated highly clarify of scholarship terms (53% Excellent, 34% Good) and availability of information (46% excellent and 41% good). Of the 29 who were interviewed during the selection process, 97% rated the interview process "excellent" (66%) or "good" (31%).

The Grant, Education and Career Plans. The motivations for earning the Masters degree centered around meeting professional requirements for being a librarian, career change or career development. Nearly half of the respondents expressed a desire to provide service to the community. University award students made comments like: "I wished to get further involved in the academic library field, but to do that I needed a degree," "I like working in a library atmosphere," "Service to the public," "To be able to help the Spanish Community with information needs" and to assist students having difficulty reading. Some liked the information technology aspects of the field. Teaching library students wanted career changes "I decided it was time to take it to the next level," including salary increases, and nine of the 15 explicitly mentioned providing service: "I enjoy helping people," and "I believe I would make a great role model for those young children of color interested in learning."

Nearly six out of ten (59%) rated the grant availability as "very important" in their decision to seek a Masters degree in librarianship at this time, and that included all of the Teaching Library students. For one-third of the University award recipients, however, the scholarship availability was "neither important nor unimportant." More than eight out of 10 scholars cited financial assistance, including tuition scholarship and travel funds, as their primary reason for applying for the scholarship, include about three-quarters (74%) or University award respondents and 93% of Teaching Library respondents.

Over half (52%) of University award recipients and 35% of Teaching Library scholars mentioned the opportunity to network with other librarians and to establish professional contacts as a reason to apply for the award. Four of the Teaching Library respondents focused on the apprenticeship and mentoring aspects, "will help me learn far more than just being in school" and "I will be a well rounded and skilled librarian," and "the wonderful mentoring program." Other responses mostly centered around education, such as the opportunity for exposure to "the various aspects of library science methods and structures," and career development, including, "help me to figure out what are the necessary paths to take in order to remain competitive."

In an important difference, over half (59%) of the University award recipients felt it was "likely" (42%) or "very likely" (17%) they would have reached five year career and education goals with their Making It REAL! scholarships, while 87% felt that it was "unlikely" (47%) or "very unlikely" (40%) that they would have attained their five year career goals without the scholarship.

Career goals for University award recipients notably included becoming school media specialists (one-quarter), or gaining additional Masters, first professional or Doctoral degrees after the MLIS (one-sixth). Others sought additional library or archive certificates and one in five were vague about their post-graduation plans.

Career goals for Teaching Library scholars were more specific and included two wanting to be school librarians, three school library media specialists, two public children's or young adult librarians, two public and one business librarians. Plans included starting up a mobile library service, and becoming a public library director. One intended to become a Ph.D. Two simply wanted to be professional librarians.

About 58% of the scholarship recipients had mentors, but there was no clear correlation of having a mentor, deciding to accept the scholarships, go to school now, or pursue a particular career plan. About 93% of University award scholars and 78% of Teaching Library scholars maintained contact with their mentors.

Navigating Library School. Five of the 40 students (one-eighth), who are the same five of 15 Teaching Library students (one-third) are attending three library schools that are not Making It REAL! grant partner schools. Three of those students are at Clarion University (in Pennsylvania) and Texas Woman's University (in Texas), the other two at Queens College. This is possible because Teaching Library scholars are significantly more likely to be taking courses primarily online than are University award students. Two of the partner library schools (Palmer School of Long Island University and SUNY, Buffalo) are only teaching scholars from this grant program to whom they awarded scholarships. One library school (Pratt) has only one Teaching Library scholar, and the rest of its grant students are those to whom it awarded Making It REAL! scholarships. One (Syracuse University) is teaching only one scholar to whom it awarded a scholarship, but seven Teaching Library scholars, most of whom are taking advantage of its online course and degree offerings. Among other things, this skewed distribution of scholars across library schools suggests that only half of the library school grant partners (St. John's, SUNY Albany, and Syracuse) have much incentive to engage in the university-Teaching Library partnerships that the grant proposal expected to form. Only half of the students might be attending library schools where Teaching Library-university partnerships might occur, based on the numeric distribution, and one (Queens College) is not even a Making It REAL! partner.

Over half (51%) of the students were admitted at their universities before receiving their scholarships, and this was significantly more likely to be the case for the University scholars (73%) than for the Teaching Library scholars (20%). This difference in scholarship award in relation to timing of University admission was already noted in the report on the partners' survey regarding recruitment (Maack 2005).

Of the 19 students admitted before receiving their scholarships, nearly three-quarters (74%) would have "absolutely yes" (37%) or "probably yes" (37%) have attended that library school even if they had not received the scholarship. As explained in the earlier report (Maack 2005), the library schools admitted awarding scholarships primarily to students, albeit diverse students, that it had already admitted, rather than trying to attract new students, including new diverse students, to the library profession through scholarship offers. The student data tends to confirm that most of the library school scholarship recipients, diverse as they are, would have entered the profession anyway.

The four most important factors that students chose their library schools were: a) location, b) reputation, c) availability of online programs, and d) lower costs. Online programs were of special interest to Teaching Library students, which (along with reputation) is why Syracuse attracted so many Teaching Library scholars. SUNY Albany and SUNY Buffalo were noted to have a cost advantage.

Seven scholarship students (19%) applied to other library schools at the same time, for the same four reasons. In only two cases were they not admitted. Financial assistance availability was the most common reason to attend one library school instead of another.

About three-quarters (73%) of the Teaching Library students and two-thirds of the University Award students planned specializations in their MLIS degrees. Seven University award students and two Teaching Library students checked "don't know" but most gave specific possible specialties anyway. Specializations for University Award recipients included six school library media specialists (25%), three or four archivists, two digital archivists, two law librarians, one each in systems librarianship, cultural informatics, medical librarianship, public reference, academic and children or young adult librarianships. Teaching Libraries often specified interest in particular areas when awarding grants, and the students include three future school library media specialists, two rural and small public librarians, two young adult or children's librarians, and one each in business, digital libraries, cataloging/metadata, and possibly general public librarianship.

All but one student expected to complete his or her Masters by December 2007 and over half (57%) expected to finish by the end of Spring 2007 or earlier. However, half of the students felt it would be "difficult" (42%) or "very difficult" (8%) to finish by their target times. While over half (53%) of the students started library school course work in Fall 2005, 18% of the students had started between Summer 2004 and Spring 2005, and one-quarter started in Summer 2005. If going to school full-time there should therefore be no problem in finishing the curricula in the one and a half years that faculty at these library schools intended. So why did students feel it would be difficult to finish in time?

Expectations of difficult academics in library school, of difficulties in working while attending library school, and of problems in attending school full-time correlated positively with expectations of difficulty in finishing by their target times. In particular, 81% of student who found it "very difficult" to work and attend library school also felt it would be "very difficult" or "difficult" to complete in time (and vice versa). Three-quarters of students who felt it would be "very difficult" to attend school full-time also rated completing library school on time "very difficult" or "difficult."

Students appear to have adjusted their anticipated attendance patterns in accordance with their perceptions of difficulty of academics and difficulty of going to school full-time. Most students (80%) anticipated taking off no semesters so the main attendance pattern solution was attending part-time with "part-time every semester plus summers" the most frequently checked attendance pattern. Overall 80% of the Teaching Library scholars chose a part-time attendance pattern, while 47% of University Award scholars anticipated full-time library school attendance. The Teaching Library and University Award students have similar perceptions of academic difficulty, overall, so the difference in attendance patterns logically relates to working. However, the perceived difficulty of working and going to library school holds whether one is working full-time or part-time.

Nevertheless, of the students who expect to earn money to finance their education by working full-time while in graduate school, 81% plan to attend school part-time. That includes 91% of those with Teaching Library awards of 60% of those with University awards. For Teaching Library students, going to school part-time is the primary way to get a degree in a reasonable time frame, in their opinion, since almost all have to work full-time.

Scholarship students split fairly evenly about taking online courses, 41% anticipating none, 32% up to one-half, and 27% half to almost all courses online (with one in five - 22% -- at "almost all"). Over half (53%) of the Teaching Library scholars intend to take half or more of their courses online (and usually "almost all"), while half (50%) of the University Award students expect to take no online courses. By and large, then, University Award students will receive mostly face-to-face classroom instruction and Teaching Library scholars will participate mostly in online coursework. The five reasons with the highest "very important" ratings for taking online courses are: time convenience (70%), need to continue working in current job while going to Library School (63%), Availability of courses in a Library School specialty (60%), Can't/won't move away from family to attend Library School (60%), and Don't live near any Library School (54%).

University Award students are significantly and moderately strongly more likely than Teaching Library students to finance their education using loans (56% cf. to 20%). Teaching Library students are significantly and strongly more likely to work full-time to finance their library school educations (73% cf. to 20%). Both sub-groups use savings. Only University Award students expect to receive teaching or research assistantships (12%), work part-time outside the university during the school year (12%), work over the summer either full-time (8%) or part-time (8%).

Students did not understand the "Teaching Library" concept very well -- especially not those who had University Awards. However, two-thirds of those with Teaching Library awards expected to be gaining experience at multiple "Teaching Libraries" (i.e., multiple library sites), and almost half (47%) said they would gain experience at one "Teaching Library." The distinction between a library site and a "Teaching Library" as a system or Council of libraries is not clear. Almost three-quarters (72%) of the University Award recipients anticipated experience at one "Teaching Library," but might well have confused that with required practicum experience (68% of University Award students and 67% of Teaching Library students expected "Other practical/work experience").

Student Reactions to and Expectations of the Making It REAL! Program. Overall, 71% of the scholarship students felt that "The overall requirements of the Making It REAL! scholarship were appropriate in relation to the opportunity to get a library school degree." Moreover, in a moderately strong, significant difference, over half (53%) of the Teaching Library recipients viewed the overall requirements as "very good" in relation to the opportunity, compared to 13% of University Awardees.

About 92% of the scholarship students felt that two years of NY library employment after graduation was an appropriate amount of time to expect, and 95% felt that less than two years would have been acceptable as well. The break point would have been at three years of post-graduation service. Under half (47%) of the students would have still accepted the scholarship with three years of work in NY libraries after graduation, and one-third (32%) would have considered it if the scholarship amount was appropriate. After that the program would have had diminishing returns. Outright acceptance would have declined drastically to 18%, 8%, and 8% at four, five, or six years of post-graduation work; and just 45%, 37%, and 24% respectively would have considered the possibility depending on the amount.

Other factors that students would take into consideration include help in finding jobs, job location, family considerations (including spouse's careers) and personal career advancement possibilities. University Award students especially looked at the scholarship amounts and the other factors at lower years of post-graduation students than Teaching Library students did. However, the Teaching Library award recipients also stated general uncertainties of life as among the "other factors" to consider.

Eight out of ten (82%) of the students felt that the proviso of working for two years in specific library systems or Councils that provided awards was appropriate, but "only if jobs at the right level are available after graduation." In other words, this was not viewed as a fair proviso in the abstract.

The overwhelming first choice for scholarship award funds use was tuition and fees. Overall, under half (45%) of the students said the amounts available for tuition and fees were "about right," and over one-third (38%) said "too little." However, only 35% of the University Award students, compared to twice that percentage (71%) of Teaching Library students gave the "about right" response. The difference was not simply one of public versus private university costs, since both Pratt (private) and SUNY Buffalo (public) students were especially likely to be among the 57% of University Award students to give the "too little" response. It is therefore likely specific to the local University award strategies.

Only 20 to 26 students responded to questions about adequacy of funds for other uses. Just under half of those who answered said that the amount allowed for books (44%) or travel to professional conferences (42%) was "about right," with 58% noting "too little" for professional conferences, and 48%
"too little" for books. Over half to three-quarters said that the amounts for school supplies (57%), computers (65%), and living expenses (75%) were "too little."

When forced to rank expenditures based on their priorities, Tuition and Fees were most important (89% ranked 1, 3% ranked 2), then books (65% ranked 2 or 3), then computers (59% ranked 1, 2, or 3). However, separating the students by award origin, Living Expenses jumped to second choice for University Award recipients, with Tuition and Fees in first place and Books in third place. Most of these are taking face-to-face courses and might have had to move to their universities to do so, and Conference Travel and School Supplies ranked fifth and sixth, below Computers. The Teaching Library students, however, ranked expense items in the following order: Tuition and Fees, Books, Computers, then Conference Travel, School Supplies, and Living Expenses in last place. The older Teaching Library students are more likely to be taking online courses and working full-time, so are likely already living near where they work. They view Living Expenses more as a given and less worth devoting scarce scholarship dollars to cover.

Demographics and Career Backgrounds

This report is based on the results of a web-based (SurveyMonkey) survey of 40 Making It REAL! scholarship recipients. The data was gathered between September 7 and November 4, 2005. The response rate was 100 percent for those who had completed all the necessary procedures to receive the scholarship awards and were in the United States, including five students at the SUNY, Buffalo campus who received scholarships in October 2005.[1] For the most part students answered all appropriate questions, except for one largely blank survey that was retained in the analysis.

With 15 Teaching Library recipients the Teaching Libraries met grant targets for scholarship placement, and will exceed the target when two Teaching Library scholarship recipients who will be surveyed later are added. Even with the recycling of scholarship money from a Teaching Library that withdrew from the program to a university partner, with 25 scholarship recipients the universities are still four short of the award target of 29. Some universities may still award scholarships to students who would begin next fall.

[1] There were 42 surveys started, but two were partial surveys by students who also did more complete surveys. The more complete versions of the surveys were retained. One recipient who was to start school in January 2006 was in his native Bangladesh and so did not complete the survey. One replacement scholarship recipient had not yet been admitted to a library school also was not surveyed at this time. One student who was surveyed unexpectedly left the program after her first semester in library school, but her responses are included in this report.

As expected from the recruitment survey of the partners, [2] about 92% of the scholarship recipients are females, with only three males and three non-respondents. The overall median age of all respondents is in the 30 to 34 range, however the median age of recipients of University awarded scholarships is ten years younger (25 to 29) than that of Teaching Library Scholarship winners (35 to 39), as shown in Chart 1. About 73% of the University scholarship recipients are ages 20 to 39, and a similar proportion of the Teaching Library scholarship students between ages 30 and 49.

[2] Maack, Stephen C. October 7, 2005 Making It REAL! Student Recruitment: Library School and Teaching Library Survey Results. Los Angeles, CA: REAP Change Consultants.

Student Diversity Self-Reports

The diversity goals of the Making It REAL! grant program are:

• Teaching Libraries meet or exceed a target of 50 percent for student diversity.
• Library Schools meet or exceed recruitment targets of 82 percent for student diversity.

Since three students did not respond to the ethnicity question and five more were added after the partner recruitment survey was done, the group shown in Table 1 on the next page is not the same as that shown in the earlier report based on a partner recruitment survey (Op. Cit.). However, we see a similar distribution of diversity as reported earlier from the partner data. As discussed in the earlier report the Teaching Library recipients would include rural status of five (5) Caucasian females from rural areas, intending to provide library service in rural libraries, to meet, and in fact exceed, the 50% diversity target for Teaching Libraries. The addition of five females to the university scholarship sub-group, four of whom identified themselves as non-Hispanic Whites, and one of whom did not answer the demographic questions, lowered the university recipient diversity proportion to 73%. Based on the student survey data, then, the universities did not reach the student diversity target of 82%, while previously they had exceeded it at 85%, according to the earlier partner survey data.

The students nevertheless identify themselves as a very diverse group, indeed. The University award recipients were especially adept at identifying themselves with nuances of diversity. Students were asked about their diversity within the "Hispanic" category and identified themselves as Puerto Rican, Puerto Rican/Dominican, Cuban, and South Americans. The men would all already have been counted as members of a minority group under either the "race" or the "Hispanic" category. Handicapped individuals included those with both physical and mental handicaps. Those who indicated other languages besides English especially spoke Spanish (5 students), but also Arabic, French, Djiboutian, Punjabi, Russian, Vietnamese, and some Italian. Students proclaimed American, Colombian, Indian, Italian-American, Italian/Polish, Jordanian-American, Puerto Rican/Russian/Jewish and Italian, and White/African American/American Indian nationalities. One student self-identified as having other than heterosexual preferences, which information could not even be requested in an employment situation but was asked to be provided voluntarily on this survey due to the known existence of a large gay and lesbian community in New York City in need of library services.

Educational Background

A baccalaureate degree is the usual minimum requirement for admission to library school, and not surprisingly all students met that minimum or had that degree pending. Of interest, though, is that one-third of the Teaching Library scholarship recipients as well as 32% of the University scholarship recipients already had a Masters or first professional degree in another field.

Table 1. Scholarship Recipient Diversity - Student Self-Report* by Scholarship Origin

The survey asked about two other potential risk factors - being the first in one's family to get a baccalaureate degree, or to go to graduate school. Overall, 20% of the scholarship recipients, included 27% of Teaching Library scholarship recipients and 16% of those with University scholarships, had been the first in their families to obtain a baccalaureate degree. Since other studies have demonstrated that students who are the first in one's family to attend college are less likely to obtain baccalaureate degrees, these eight students had already beaten the "at risk" odds and six of the eight were now continuing their journey into further educational terra incognita by attempting a Masters degree. However, two[3] of the first-generation in college students already had Masters degrees, so obtaining the library degree would be a variation on the theme of graduate school for them.

[3] One has a Making It REAL! scholarship from a Teaching Library, the other a university partner scholarship.

Thirteen Making It REAL! students are the first in their families to attempt graduate degrees, including the eight who were the first in their families to attend college as undergraduates. However seven of the 13, including the two mentioned earlier, already had Masters degrees in other fields. Only five students, including three with University awards and two with Teaching Library awards, were the first in their families to get baccalaureate degrees, had only earned baccalaureate degrees to date and are now seeking library school Masters degrees. Hypothetically, these five might be the students most at risk of not finishing. Indeed, one of the students that fit this profile is the surveyed student who has already dropped out of the scholarship program.

Career Backgrounds

Nearly all of the 40 students (38) reported a prior career background, with almost half (18) having had two or more careers or jobs. Considering all careers, almost two-thirds or the respondents (25 or 65%) indicated that they had worked in a library. Only one student reported a prior career in information technology. One-third (13) had worked at some point in education. Writing and careers involving words, and public service fields, including sales and nursing, accounted for the next largest group (9 or 24%). In addition, more than a third (14 or 37%) had volunteered in libraries, primarily as library assistants.

Prior Careers of University Award Recipients. All but two of the 25 university award students reported a prior career background; most (14 or 62%) reported having more than one career or job. Fourteen (62%) indicated that they had worked in a library for pay in some capacity, while 7 (30%) had volunteered in a library. Paid positions included visual resources coordinator, circulation assistant, library page, aide or assistant, clerk in public, academic, and special libraries, teaching information literacy, and teacher/librarian in school libraries. Volunteer positions included intern, fund-raising consultant, and library assistant. The university awards, then, would help people become professional librarians, but in at least six out of ten cases have gone to students already exposed to library work in some capacity, rather than to people with no prior library volunteer or paid work experience.

At least 14 had worked (62%) in areas other than librarianship, with more than half (8) of those in education and related areas, including teaching art and English in a private school, English as a Second Language, elementary education, and higher education administration. Writing and careers involving words made up the second largest grouping, including technical writer, technical editor, novelist, advertising, administrative assistant, and events planning and public relations. The remainder reported working in a public service field, namely restaurant management, retail sales, and customer service.

Prior Careers of Teaching Library Award Recipients. All fifteen of the teaching library award students reported a prior career background, but unlike the university award students, only four (27%) reported having had more than one prior career or job. Nearly three-fourths (11) had prior experience in libraries, five of them with the teaching library with which they are affiliated. This is not particularly surprising since we saw from the Teaching Library partners' surveys that many of these partners had focused on their own staffs to field scholarship candidates. Slightly fewer than half of the students (7) said that they had also volunteered in a library. Paid positions included interlibrary loan assistant in a college library, teaching assistant in a school library, administrative assistant, program assistant, children's room coordinator, teaching assistant, library assistant, children's specialist, and library director in public libraries. Volunteers worked in public, school, and college libraries, performing a variety tasks.

Of the eight who reported career experience outside of libraries, five had worked in education, including as elementary school tutor, math teacher, college teacher, in Reading and English as a Second Language, and in special education and reading. One had a long career in systems analysis and computer consulting, one worked as a nurse for more than twenty years, and one as a social worker for 23 years.

The authors' deduction is that one outcome of the scholarship awards has been not so much to attract people who are not very familiar with librarianship to the field, as to encourage people who have some lower level experience with libraries and library work to try to become professional librarians.

Recruitment Perspectives of Successful Scholarship Recipients

An earlier report (Maack 2005) presented the partners' views of the recruitment process. We do not have any information on the view of the recruitment process from the perspective of all applicants. However, we did ask the successful applicants, those who received the scholarships, what their views were about the recruitment process. That is what is reported here, with a comparison of student responses to partner responses as appropriate.

Recruitment Timing Questions

As reported in an earlier report (Maack 2005), in their surveys partners expressed many concerns about the timing of recruitment in relation to delays in state contract and budget processes, and delays within the partner organizations themselves. Many partners ran short, rushed recruitment processes at the last minute in order, they said, to meet library school application and admission deadlines. A few ran longer recruitment processes that were highlighted in the earlier report as "best practices."

Some partners expressed concern that students would not have sufficient time to complete their degrees by the grant target deadline of December 2007 if they started graduate school too late. Analysis indicated that this concern might be overstated, since the library schools that scholarship students were attending all offered programs that could be completed in one and a half years if students attended full-time. While faculty designed programs that could be completed in one and a half years by full-time students, the question remains as to whether the Making It REAL! students would, in fact, be attending school full-time, all the time. So the student survey asked several questions related to recruitment timing, anticipated attendance patterns, and expected degree completion dates.

Without being given any of the above context, students were asked to rate the Making It REAL! scholarship recruitment process on several dimensions, two of which were:

• Time available to apply for the scholarship.
• Time available to complete library school admissions processes after I learned about the scholarship.

The most frequent rating regarding time available to apply for the scholarship and to complete library school admissions was "Good" (47% and 48% respectively for the two questions above). The next most frequent response was "Excellent" (31% and 21% respectively). However, 22% of the students rated time available to apply for the scholarship as "Fair," and 30% rated time available to complete the university admissions process after learning about the scholarship as "Fair" or "Poor."[4]

[4] There was no statistically significant difference in student responses to these questions based on whether students had received Teaching Library or library school Making It REAL! scholarships.

Judging from these ratings, students might not have been as inconvenienced as the partners feared. There is, however, room for improvement in the timing of grant awards if NYSL and the partners are seeking more "Excellent" ratings from students on these measures. The time relationship of the scholarship award availability to university admissions process is the most problematic for the students. However, New York State Library has little or no control over the timing of IMLS awards in relation to university admissions, or over the state fiscal and contracting processes, so it is unclear what changes it might make to avoid timing issues related to recruitment in the future. We shall return to the partners' concern about impact of student start dates to completion later in this report.

How Successful Candidates Learned of the Scholarship

As shown in Chart 3, about 58% of the students awarded Making It REAL! Scholarships heard about it from only one source, and 24% from two sources. A one-way ANOVA test showed that there was no significant difference in number of sources by partner type (University or Teaching Library).
Chart 4 below shows how the successful applicants, who got the scholarships, learned about them. This chart is not directly comparable to Chart 5 in the partner recruitment survey report (Maack 2005), since it only shows the responses of successful applicants, not all applicants that the partner efforts might have reached.

Overall 35% of the recipients heard about the scholarship from faculty or staff of the partner Universities. Perhaps not surprisingly, recipients of University awarded scholarships were significantly more likely[5] to have heard about them from this source (52% did) and accounted for all but one student in this category.

[5] Fisher's Exact Test p = .004 (1-sided); Phi = -.460, p = .004.

The second most frequent information source, mentioned by 25% of students, was a personal approach by a supervisor at work. Here again there is a statistically significant difference by source of award,[6] only this time it is the Teaching Library recipients who mentioned this source (53% did), with only two University recipients checking it.

[6] Fisher's Exact Test = .002 (1-sided); Phi = .507, p = .001.

The third most common source of information was the New York State Library Making It REAL!web site. About 18% of all recipients saw information about the scholarship there, but six of the seven of these were University award recipients.[7] "Friends at work," the fourth ranked source, was mentioned by 15% of all recipients, but they were all Teaching Library scholars (40% of whom benefited from this source).[8] In fifth place we find flyers, which were especially used by Teaching Libraries, and it is the Teaching Library scholarship recipients who predominate in this category. Organizational website communications and e-lists rank well done in the information sources consulted by the successful applicants.

[7] Not statistically significant, partly due to a small number of respondents in the Teaching Library category. About 7% of the Teaching Library and 24% of the University award recipients used this source of information.

[8] Fisher's Exact Test = .001 (1-sided); Phi = .542, p = .001.

Scholarship Recipient Rating of the Recruitment Process

The student survey asked students to rate the recruitment process along four dimensions other than time available for applications. These dimensions are:

• Availability of information about the scholarship;
• Clarity of scholarship terms;
• Interview process for the scholarship;
• The scholarship application process in general.

About 87% of all scholarship recipients rated information about the scholarship either "Excellent" (46%) or "Good" (41%). According to the successful scholarship recipients, by and large the partners communicated the terms of the scholarship clearly.

Over half (53%) of the scholarship recipients rated the clarity of scholarship terms "Excellent" and another one-third (34%) rated them "Good." There was a difference by origin of the scholarship, with 61% of those receiving university awarded scholarships rating clarity "Excellent" and 60% of those with Teaching Library awarded scholarships using the "Good" rating.

Of the 29 recipients who participated in interviews for their scholarships, almost two-thirds (66%) rated the interview process "Excellent" and 31 percent rated it "Good," with no significant difference by awarding partner.

About half of the recipients rated the overall process "Good" and slightly under half (45%) rated it "Excellent." These findings are from the successful candidates, so might be biased toward the favorable side, but do suggest that the processes used were generally well executed.

Making It REAL! Grants in Relation to Education and Career Plans

Motivation for Earning the Masters Degree

In reply to the direct question "Why do you want to earn a Library School Masters degree?" respondents typically provided more than one motivation. All either stated or implied that it was to satisfy professional requirements. Career change or (for those working in libraries) career development, were specifically noted by two-thirds of the university award students, and by all of the teaching awards students, for a combined percentage of nearly 80%. Nearly half of the respondents expressed a desire to provide service to the community. University award students also noted that librarianship offered the opportunity to combine their diverse interests. Two University award students and two Teaching Library students mentioned advances in information technology, and two University award students wrote about careers in information science.

Motivation of University Award Students. Most of the 24 respondents included their reasons for wanting to become librarians in their answers to why they wanted to earn Masters degrees. This implied that the reason for earning the degree is that it is the requisite degree for the profession - and several stated that explicitly - "I want to work in a school library," "I wish to work as a librarian," "[To] become a librarian," "[To] be able to do everything in a library setting that I wanted."

The most common reasons for wanting to be a librarian revolved around career change (9) and/or, for those with non-professional library experience, career development (7):

• "While unemployed I thought a lot about what I really wanted to do,"
• "Desire for a career"
• "I am in the midst of a career change"
• "I wished to get further involved in the academic library field, but to do that I needed a degree"
• "[H]aving worked many years in a different library setting, it was a logical career path."

Those who had library experience also expressed a great deal of job satisfaction - "I absolutely love my job," "I LOVE being the librarian," "I truly enjoyed ever aspect of my work," "I like working in a library atmosphere."

Another common reason for earning the degree was a desire to serve the public, cited specifically by eleven respondents with comments such as:

• "Service to the public,"
• "I enjoy helping the patrons,"
• "To help people find the information they seek."

Seven of these respondents were even more specific about the people they wanted to serve or the kind of service they hoped to provide. Two wrote about working with children in the school library. The others said:

• "Serve diverse populations and level out the playing field,"
• "EDUCATION JUSTICE FOR ALL CHILDREN,"
• "To be able to help the Spanish Community with Information needs,"
• "To integrate my knowledge of law and assist in making it free and available to the public,"

and to assist students having difficulty reading. Another seven noted that librarianship would allow them to combine their interests and education, among them, "books, media, learning, and service," "education and technology," "fashion, costume, Southeast Asian art, art history," law, and journalism.

Two noted advances in information technology, specifically "the management of electronic data records," and "preserving information and materials for future generations digital archiving." Two were interested in a career in information science - "I have a degree in Computer Information Systems and I believe [it] will enhance my abilities " and "Obtain a job in the information science field and be successful at it."

Motivations of Teaching Library Award Students. The 15 teaching library respondents usually gave more than one reason for earning the degree, and, like the university award students, they either stated or implied that their objective was to become a librarian. For all of them, earning the degree represented a career change (5) or, twice as often, career development (10):

• "I decided it was time to take it to the next level,"
• "I didn't have a passion for teaching,"
• "I wanted to make a change,"
• "[N]ow it's time for me to make it a career,"
• "Salary increase."

Those with library experience also expressed job satisfaction - "My personality and skills also fit well," "I love my work at the library," "I love the field of librarianship."

The desire to provide service was explicitly stated by nine of the respondents with comments such as:

• "I enjoy helping people,"
• "I love doing research, reading books and helping people,"
• "I love working with students,"
• "I believe I would make a great role model for those young children of color interested in learning."

Others said such things as "My personality and skills also fit well with this type of profession,"and "I hope to gain more knowledge and increase my skills."

Working with information technology was mentioned by two students - "In this field one is at the hub of new information and technology."

Influence of Grant on Earning the Degree Now

Overall 59% of scholarship recipients rated getting the grant as "very important" in their decision to seek a Masters degree in librarianship at this time, and 15% rated it "important." So the availability of the scholarship has a positive impact on the timing of seeking a library degree, as might be expected.

However, University award and teaching library award students differed most on this factor.[9] While nearly 60% of the university award students ranked the grant as a "very important" or "important" influence, all of the teaching library award students said that it was "Very Important." The most frequently mentioned reason for the grant's importance was the need for financial assistance. Personal factors, including children's ages, and the predicted shortage of librarians and school media specialists were cited by some university award students.

[9] This difference was statistically significant with a Pearson Chi-Square = 16.957, df = 4, p = .002, but the result is not reliable because of the degree of skew in the responses and the small N. In fact, 80% of all the cells have an expected count of less than 5, with a minimum expected count of 0.38.

University Awards. For nearly 60% of the 24 respondents, the Making It REAL! Grant was either "Very Important" (8 or 33%) or "Important" (6 or 25%) in their decision to begin earning a degree in librarianship at this time - "I've been wanting to go back to school for about a year now, but I knew I couldn't afford to;" "I wouldn't be able to afford to do so in the future."

For one third (8) of the respondents, the award was neither important nor unimportant. A variety of other factors were considered more important in their decisions:

• "I decided before I graduated that I wanted to work in a school as a librarian;"
• "My third book is being published this year, so I decided that it was time;"
• "My own kids are now teenagers;"
• "I wanted to change my career."

The predicted shortage of librarians and school media specialists was cited by three of the eight. The remaining two respondents said that it was Unimportant or Very unimportant - "I just graduated with my bachelors," "I know now what type of degree I wanted."

Teaching Library Awards. Given the strength of the response[10] to the question on scholarship award and timing of the decision to get a library degree, it is perhaps fair to suggest that almost all of the Teaching Library scholars would not be in library school today without the existence of the Making It REAL! scholarship. The grant was "Very Important" to all 15 respondents, primarily because it provided the financial means, but also because it was an incentive to apply for school.

[10] Cramer's V = .659, p = .002, but again the significance is questionable because it depends on the Chi-Square value, which is questionable.

• "The main reason I am doing this at this time is because of the scholarship;"
• "Time and money issues are what prevented me from pursuing an MLS before this grant opportunity;"
• "I have been researching this degree for at least 4 years but could not afford to pursue it;"
• "Without it I would not have the necessary financing,"
• "What got me focused was this scholarship;"
• "I decided it was too good an opportunity to pass up."

Two also noted other personal reasons for applying - "Many colleagues were planning to retire" and "Now that my own children are older, it seemed like the right time."

Reasons for Applying to Making It REAL!

Both University Award respondents (17 of 23 or 74%) and Teaching Library respondents (14 of 15 or 93%) cited financial assistance, including the tuition scholarship and travel funds, as their primary reason for applying to Making It REAL!, for a total of 31 out of 38 or 82%. Of the remaining, 5 of the University Award respondents said that the focus on diversity was most important and 1 said "The chance to recruit more librarians and serve the public." The remaining Teaching Library recipient said, "It completely fit my career goals."

Other Benefits of Making It REAL!

There was very little difference between University Award respondents and Teaching Library respondents on this measure. The opportunity to network with other librarians and to establish professional contacts was mentioned by 11 of the 21 (52%) University Award respondents and 6 of the 13 (35%) Teaching Library respondents, for a total of 17 of 34, or 50%. Other University Award respondents gave a variety of responses, most centered around education, such as the opportunity for exposure to "the various aspects of library science methods and structures," and career development, including, "help me to figure out what are the necessary paths to take in order to remain competitive." One respondent said that it would "help me to demonstrate my commitment to library causes." Four of the Teaching Library respondents focused on the apprenticeship and mentoring aspects, "will help me learn far more than just being in school" and "I will be a well rounded and skilled librarian," and "the wonderful mentoring program. One noted that "Not having the financial burden of loans after graduation allows new MLS graduates the opportunity to weigh job openings on merit and interest."

Prior Library School Applications

Seven (18%) of the scholarship recipients (6 with University and 1 with a Teaching Library award) had previously applied to library school[11] before the Making It REAL! scholarship program. All but one were admitted. However, in four cases (including the one Teaching Library award case and three University award students) the students had started attending the library school they were at now and then learned about the Making It REAL! scholarship program. For these students the scholarship was an incentive to continue in library school but only in the exceptional Teaching Library case could it truly be said to be an incentive to apply to and attend library school. One person had been admitted and was scheduled to start but then had to undergo medical treatment for a serious physical problem.

[11] Students had applied previously to SUNY-Albany, SUNY-Buffalo, Pratt, Rutgers, Palmer School, and UB (two people).

Career Plans and Making It REAL! Grants

The students were asked "Other than earning a Masters degree, what are your career and educational goals over the next five years? University scholarship recipients had a wide variety of library related career plans, including specializing in certain types of librarianship and earning doctorates in both library specialties and other fields.

Students were then asked "How likely do you think it would have been for you to attain your educational and career goals over the next five years if the Making It REAL! scholarship had not been available to you?" The career plans are listed in Appendix A for recipients of University and Teaching Library scholarships, sorted by the response to this question. The survey was taken after the students already had their scholarships. It is therefore not certain whether the goals preceded the scholarship, and the scholarship simply made them possible, or the goals came into focus after students knew about the scholarship.

As shown in Chart 7, over half (59%) of the students with University awarded scholarships felt that it was "Likely" (42%) or "Very Likely" (17%) that they would have reached their five year career and educational goals even without the Making It REAL! scholarship. In a strong, important difference,[12] about 87% of the Teaching Library award recipients felt that it was "Unlikely" (47%) or "Very Unlikely" (40%) that they would have attained their stated career goals had they not received the scholarship. For most Teaching Library award recipients, then, the scholarship either made dreamed of goals possible, or led to goals that were otherwise unlikely to have been attained in the next five years.

[12] The Pearson Chi-Square = 11.701, df = 3, p = .008 but the result is not reliable since 5 cells (62.5%) have an expected count of less than five because of the small N. The correlation is strong, Cramer's V = .548, p = .008, but the statistical significance of the result is not reliable because it depends on the unreliable Chi-Square value.

University Award Recipients. One-quarter (6) of the 24 University award students intended to work in school libraries, including three specifically as school media specialists. Two of these felt it "unlikely" that they would have reached their school librarian or school library media specialist goals in the next five years if they had not received the scholarship. One-sixth (4) planned to work toward additional degrees after the MLIS, three considering PhDs (including one in Art History), and one in law school. One additional student planned law related work. Two others were thinking about obtaining certificates in Archives, and Special Collections and art librarianship were of interest to three. Five (21%) seemed rather vague about their plans, making comments such as "I hope to work as a librarian," "I plan to work full time," "I'm not sure," or just indicating a focus on getting the MLIS degree and gaining experience.

Teaching Library Awards Recipients. Those fifteen who received Teaching Library scholarships often had much more specific goals, including working as school librarians (two), school library media specialists (three), two public children's or young adult librarians, two public and one business librarians. One planned to become a public library director, another to start up a mobile library service. One planned work toward an eventual Ph.D. Some noted their love of learning and plans to cover learning gaps and keep improving skills, including language skills in Spanish and Russian. Two (13%) simply had goals to become professional librarians: "First to complete my masters degree and then go and work in a library as a librarian," "Continue working at same Library, as long as they can stand me." Several did intend to remain at their current libraries, but work in new or expanded roles. For thirteen out of the 15 the availability of the scholarship was a key to opening the door to their five-year goals - it was unlikely or very unlikely that they would attain those goals without this key.

Mentors and Career Plans

About 58% of the scholarship recipients (23 of 40) had mentors. There was no significant or important correlation between having a mentor, the importance of the Making It REAL! scholarship in the timing of the decision to go for a library Masters degree, or the likelihood of attaining one's career goals even if the person had not obtained a scholarship. In other words, the existence of mentors and the scholarship appeared to be independent of one another. It is apparently not as though the mentors could encourage or replace the scholarships. Having a mentor also did not correlate significantly with intending to have a library school specialization. About 87% of the students with mentors, including 93% of those with University Awards and 78% of those with Teaching Library awards (not a significant difference), maintained contact with their mentors. The importance of these findings is that while mentors are involved with half of the 40 scholarship recipients, their influence on the students does not overshadow the sheer presence and importance of the scholarships to the students' lives. Mentors might be viewed as a supplement or complement to the scholarship for those who have them. In order to preserve confidentiality, and since the students often named specific mentors, the entire list of mentors will not be provided in this report.

Mentors of University Award Recipients. Mentors of those with University awards included two Deans or Vice-Deans at partner library schools, an alumnus of one of the schools, three library Directors or former Directors (including one who is also the husband of a student), four individual colleagues or friends, and four instances of multiple librarian colleagues and friends at libraries where the student worked.

Mentors of Teaching Library Award Recipients. Of the nine Teaching Library students with mentors, three named one specific librarian colleague each, described with such works as "enthusiasm," "very patient and generous." Three of these students named two or three librarians (one of whom did specifically encourage a student to "go for it"). The remaining three mentioned several librarians or trainees in their workplace and the entire library staff of one College library.

Navigating Library School

Library Schools Attended by Scholarship Students

Chart 8 shows the library schools that Making It REAL! scholarship students are attending. Five of the 40 students, all with Teaching Library awards (of course), are attending three library schools that are not partners in the Making It REAL! program (i.e., Clarion University, Queens College, and Texas Woman's University), two of which are out of New York State (in Pennsylvania and in Texas). The scholarship program did not restrict recipients to partner library schools or even to New York State. With one-third of the Teaching Library scholarship recipients attending non-partner schools, this limits the potential for the library school - Teaching Library partnerships envisioned in the original grant proposal. Such partnerships might naturally have developed around joint organizational interest in students involved with both a partner library school and a Teaching Library.

Two of the partner library school programs (the Palmer School of Long Island University and SUNY, Buffalo) are only teaching Making It REAL! scholars to whom they have awarded scholarships. The library school programs have no Teaching Libraries with whom they might naturally partner, although SUNY, Buffalo always intended to have a stand-alone program in any case. In all, then, half of the Making It REAL! scholarship students are attending library schools in situations where one would not have much reason to expect a library school-Teaching Library partnership to develop.

The other twenty students are attending four library schools that are instructing students with both Teaching Library and University awarded Making It REAL! scholarships. Three of these library schools (Pratt, St. John's University and SUNY Albany) have more students with scholarships that they awarded than students with scholarships awarded by Teaching Libraries. In fact, each of these has only one student with a Teaching Library scholarship. Syracuse University, on the other hand, has awarded only one Making It REAL! scholarship itself but has seven students from Teaching Libraries taking its courses. These are the four library schools that one might examine later for the possible development of Teaching Library - library school partnerships expected by the grant program.

Admission before Receiving the Making It REAL! Scholarship

Over half (51%) of the students were admitted before receiving their Making It REAL! scholarships, with this being significantly more likely[13] to be the case for University award recipients (73%) than for Teaching Library award recipients (20%). As noted in the report on partner views of recruitment (Maack 2005) it is frequently the practice that universities award scholarships after, rather than before, admitting students, while the Teaching Libraries mostly chose scholarship recipients with the expectation that library schools would admit them later. The student data confirms the extent of the university practice of making awards to already admitted students in regards to this scholarship program.

[13] Fisher's Exact Test p = .003, two-sided and .002 one-sided.

Of the 19 students admitted before receiving their Making It REAL! scholarships, nearly three-quarters (74%) would have "absolutely yes" (37%) or "probably yes" (37%) have attended that library school even if they had not received this scholarship. As noted in the partner recruitment report (Maack 2005), several universities admitted and some regretted that they had not used the scholarship so much to attract new students to their universities who might not otherwise have considered that school, as awarded them to students who had already applied and been admitted. For 25% of the admitted students who answered "maybe yes, maybe no" (11%) or "probably not" (16%) the scholarship did make a difference in their final attendance decisions.

Why Scholarship Recipients Chose the Library Schools They Attend or Will Attend

Based on the number of mentions, the most important factors to select a library school were a) location, b) reputation of the School, and c) availability of online programs, and d) lower costs. This is shown in Table 2 below.

Location was important in the sense of the library school being the only one in the area where the person lived or being close to home, family, or friends. Online programs were of special interest to the Teaching Library scholarship students, who accounted for seven of the eight mentions. Those attending Clarion University and Texas Woman's University, the two programs outside New York State, are doing so through solely online programs. One person mentioned both location of the school and availability of online courses.

Syracuse has an online program that attracted four Teaching Library scholarship students, and a national reputation as well. The reputation category was based not only on national reputation, but also on statewide reputation, good reports from alumni friends or librarians that the students knew, or personal knowledge from having attended the University as an undergraduate or Masters student (four cases).

Table 2. Number of Mentions of Reasons to Attend by Library School

Students especially commented on the lower cost of the state schools, SUNY Albany and SUNY Buffalo, affordability after receipt of the scholarship, and lower housing costs in the area or from not having to move. Five people mentioned the availability of instruction in a specialty area of interest to them. Two mentioned less onerous admissions requirements, and two stated that they were required by their teaching libraries to attend that school. All responses are shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Why Making It REAL! Scholars Chose Their Library Schools

Additional Concurrent Library School Applications

Seven scholarship recipients (19%) had applied to other library schools at the same time, including five who were awarded Making It REAL! scholarships by Universities (23%), and two awarded their scholarships by Teaching Libraries (13%). Four of these applied to just one other library school program, two to two others, and one to three others.[14] Reasons for applying were similar to those noted above:

• Location ("closer to home…," "Location," "Proximity to Rochester…" - 2 mentions);
• Reputation ("Academic Reputation,""…higher ranking");
• Online program availability ("100% online program" - 2 mentions);
• Lower costs ("…cheaper cost of attending" - 2 mentions).

[14]The other library schools were the Palmer School (LIU), Rutgers University, Southern Connecticut State, Syracuse University, University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), University of Michigan, Florida State (Tallahassee), Simmons College, University of Buffalo, and University of Albany.

Students also mentioned different admissions requirements ("Didn't need to take GRE's because of my undergrand [sic] GPA," "To have a back up school"), and availability of a library specialty program of interest as reasons to apply.

Students were not admitted to the other library school program in two cases. For those who were admitted the primary and by far most frequently mentioned reasons for not attending related to cost: "I would have had to make too many loans" (at a New York private grant partner school or an out-of-state public schools as opposed to public University of Albany), "More Financial Assistance from …" (a private grant partner school cf. to an out-of-state public university), "Not enough Money" (two private grant partner schools), "not enough money," "not offered financial assistance," "not offered financial assistance." Teaching Library scholarship recipients mentioned other factors related to admissions situations ("Acceptance took too long," "withdrew application, required test for entrance") and reputation of the school finally attended combined with location ("I felt … is a better school. Also, not all classes were in Westchester County and I would have to travel way out to … for some. I'd rather just go to Queens every time").

Library School Specializations

Almost three-quarters (73%) of the Teaching Library award recipients and two-thirds of those with University scholarships planned specializations in their MLIS degrees. Seven of the 24 University award recipients said they "don't know" if they would specialize, but six of these nevertheless named specific possible specializations and gave specific reasons as to why they were interested. Two of the Teaching Library award recipients checked "don't know," but one might stick with a public library focus.

The grant will especially be producing school library media specialists (11), archivists (5) and digital archivists (2), law librarians, young adult or children's librarians, small and rural public librarians, public librarians (including reference) and assorted other specialists. The complete list is found in Appendix B.

University Award Recipients. Among those with University awards who stated definite or possible specializations, six (25%) were interested in becoming school library media specialists, four archivists (although one might specialize in children's librarianship instead of archives), two digital archivists, one in "Cultural Informatics" and one systems librarian. Two intended to specialize in law librarianship, one in medical librarianship, one in public reference librarianship, one in academic librarianship, and one possibly in children or young adult librarianship.

Teaching Library Award Recipients. Teaching Libraries sought to award scholarships to students interested in particular specialties. The 12 Teaching Library award recipients who stated a definite or possible library school specialization included 3 (25%) interested in becoming school library media specialists, two in rural and small public libraries, two in young adult or children's librarianship, and one each in business, digital libraries, cataloging/metadata, and possibly public librarianship.

Starting Dates and Degree Completion Expectations

Students were asked when they expected to graduate and how difficult it would be to graduate by their target dates. All but one student who answered expected to complete Masters degrees before the end of the grant period (December 2007), and 57% expected to graduate by the end of the Spring 2007 semester or earlier.[15] However, half of the students felt that it would be "Difficult" (42%) or "Very Difficult" (8%) to finish their degrees by their target times, while 39% indicated that it would be neither difficult nor easy.

[15] The most commonly expected Masters graduation term is Spring 2007 (33%), followed by Fall 2007 (30%), and Fall 2006 (14%).

The starting date would, of course, affect the completion date, and 18% of the students had started between Summer 2004 and Spring 2005 (although none had earned more than the maximum of 12 allowable credits before receiving their scholarships). Another 25% started in Summer 2005 and 53% began in Fall 2005, leaving only two students slated to start in Spring 2006. Given an ideal completion time of one and a half years, all but the last two students to start ideally should be able to complete the program in the one and a half years expected by faculty when they designed the curricula.

So why should half the students anticipate problems in completing on time? Analysis of a series of opinion questions provides some insights. Expectations of difficult academics in library school, of difficulties in working and attending library school, and of problems in attending school full-time correlated with anticipated problems in completion.

As one might expect, there is a positive correlation between expected difficulty of library school academics and anticipated difficulty of finishing the degree on time.[16] Overall, 42% of the students expected library school academics to be "difficult," while 8% expected them to be "very difficult" and half expected them to be "neither difficult nor easy." Two-thirds of those who expected library school academics to be "very difficult" or "difficult" also expected completing library school on time to be "very difficult" or "difficult." In contrast, two-thirds of those who rated library school academics "neither difficult nor easy" or "easy" rated finishing library school on time between "very easy" and "neither difficult nor easy."

[16] Fisher's Exact Test = .047; Phi = .333, approximate p = .046.

Second, in an even stronger correlation,[17] 81% of students who found it "very difficult" to work and attend library school felt it would be "very difficult" or "difficult" to finish in time. In contrast, 79% who found working and going to school "neither difficult nor easy" or "difficult" felt that completing library school on time would be "very easy" to "neither difficult nor easy." Overall, nearly half (49%) of all scholarship students expected it to be "difficult" "to work and go to Library School at the same time," and 46% felt it would be "very difficult," without consideration of how much paid work was being done.

[17] Fisher's Exact Test = .001; Phi = .600, approximate p < .001.

Finally, in a noticeable but not significant correlation,[18] three-quarters of students who felt it would be "very difficult" to attend school full-time rated completing library school on time "very difficult" or "difficult." Those who rated attending library school full-time as "neither difficult nor easy" to "very easy" gave those ratings as well to their prospects for finishing library school on time.

[18] Pearson Chi-Square = .05 but two cells (33.3%) have expected count less than 5, meaning the test is not valid. Phi = .433 with approx. p = .050.

Students apparently adjusted their anticipated school attendance pattern in accordance with their perceptions of difficulty of academics, and difficulty of going to school full-time. According to the terms of the scholarships "The recipient shall not take more than one semester off from coursework (excluding summers), and shall complete the MLS or MSIS program and graduate by December 2007." Indeed, 80% of the students anticipated taking no semesters off, 8% one semester, only one person (2%) checked "two semesters" and the rest didn't answer the question.

However, that still leaves part-time attendance patterns and summer school options. The most frequently checked expected attendance pattern was "part-time every semester plus summers," but Chart 9 shows an important but not statistically significant difference in responses of students who had scholarships awarded by University partners and those with scholarships awarded by the Teaching Libraries.[19] Overall, 80% of those with Teaching Library scholarships chose one of the part-time attendance patterns and 47% of those with University awarded scholarships anticipated full-time attendance in library school.

[19] Pearson Chi-Square = 10.239, df = 2, p = .006, but 50% of the cells have expected count less than 5, making the statistical test unreliable. The correlation is strong, with Phi=.549, p = .006.

About 73% of the Teaching Library scholars felt that full-time attendance at library school would be "very difficult," compared with only 19% of those with University awarded scholarships.

About 69% of those who expected library school academics to be "very difficult" or "difficult" chose one of the part-time attendance patterns, with only 25% of them going full-time (with or without summers). Students who felt that the academics were neither difficult nor easy split more evenly across the attendance patterns, with 35% choosing full-time attendance, 24% a mix of full-time and part-time, and 41% selecting only part-time attendance. There was no significant difference between University and Teaching Library scholarship students in anticipated academic difficulty, nor in correlation of difficulty and attendance patterns. The pattern is an overall one suggesting only variations among the individual students in choosing a part-time attendance solution when faced with perceived academic difficulties. The Teaching Library Making It REAL! scholars and the University award scholars have similar perceptions of academic difficulty.

Interestingly, the correlation of difficulty of working and going to library school with difficulty of completing the degree on time does not translate into any particular attendance pattern. There is no significant correlation of the difficulty of working and going to school with the attendance patterns. Expecting to work full-time outside the University to finance schooling also did not correlate significantly with either perceived difficulty of finishing library school in time, or with perceived difficulty of working and attending library school, or even with difficulty of completing library school in time.

However, full-time work while going to school does have an important impact on attendance patterns for students. Among the students who expect to have to earn money to finance their education by working full-time while in graduate school, 81% plan to attend school part-time,[20] including 60% of those with University awards, and 91% of those with Teaching Library awards. The issue of having to work full-time to earn money while in school is, however, especially the case for Teaching Library scholars. In a strong, significant finding,[21] 73% or Teaching Library scholars checked that they worked full-time to help fund their education, compared with only 20% of the University award scholars. Interpreting, working and going to school is perceived as difficult in any case, but faced with having to work full-time while in school, students will adjust their attendance patterns in order to complete their degrees at their target times. For Teaching Library students in particular, going to graduate school part-time is the primary way to get a degree in a reasonable time frame, since they almost all have to work full-time.

[20] Because of small numbers, this correlation is not statistically significant, since Pearson Chi-Square = 12.376, df = 2, and p = .002, but 3 cells (50%) have an expected count less than 5 (making the result unreliable). As shown by a Phi = .603, p = .002, however, the correlation is quite strong. When broken out by University and Teaching Library awards, the small N problem becomes worse and Chi-Squares are not statistically significant.

[21] Fisher's Exact Test = .001 (1-sided), Phi = .527, p = .001.

Online Course Taking Patterns and Reasons

Scholarship students are fairly evenly split in intentions about taking online courses, with 41% anticipating none, about one-third (32%) taking up to half of their courses online, and more than one-quarter (27%) taking more than half to almost all of their courses (22% "almost all"). There is an important, strong difference in expected online course-taking patterns between students with University awards and Teaching Library awards.[22] Over half (53%) of the Teaching Library scholars intend to take half or more (and usually "almost all," 47%) of their units online while half (50%) of the University awarded scholarship recipients expect to take no online courses at all. Only about one-quarter (27%) of the Teaching Library scholars expect no online courses, and 41% of University scholars (versus 20% of Teaching Library awardees) anticipate taking a few courses to less than half of their units online. By and large, then, there is a difference in mode of library school instruction for the two groups. The University scholarship recipients will be receiving mostly face-to-face classroom instruction, and the Teaching Library scholarship recipients will be mostly participating in online classes.

[22] Pearson Chi-Square = 8.859, df = 2, p = .012, but two cells (33.3%) have expected counts less than 5 even after collapsing the online unit taking variable from five to three categories (no online, < one-half online units, one-half to almost all online units), making this result statistically unreliable. Cramer's V = .489, p = .012, with the probability dependent on the questionable Chi-square value.

Twenty of the students who are taking at least some online classes were asked to indicate whether different reasons for taking online classes were important to them. The responses did not differ in significant or important ways according to whether the student had been awarded a scholarship by a University of a Teaching Library partner. Table 4 shows the reasons included in the survey and the proportion for each response given by those who intend to use online courses. The reasons with the highest proportions of "very important" and "important" responses are listed first. The cell in each row that has the largest proportion of responses is shown in bold.

Table 4. Importance of Reasons for Taking Online Courses

Combining "very important" and "important" responses, the top five reasons for taking online courses are time convenience (95%), the need to continue working in one's current job while going to Library School (84%), availability of courses in one's Library School specialty (75%), not being able or willing to move away from one's family to go to Library School (73%), and finally not living near any Library School (69%). The last two reasons had only 15 and 13 responses respectively, so people may simply have used the "not applicable" column (N=9 and N=11 respectively) rather than give a definite opinion. While 60% viewed the "quality of online instruction" as important in their decisions, 40% were neutral on the matter. Students were primarily neutral on the importance of interaction with other students in online programs and online programs being less expensive than regular classroom instruction.

Sources of Library School Financing

Cost was not an important consideration for online instruction, but turned out to be important in other ways and in other arts of the survey. Given the importance of costs and financial aid availability in students' library school choice decisions, it is relevant to consider what other funds students have available to cover the costs of their library school master's degrees. This is shown in Chart 10 below.

In financial aid analyses scholarships and grants are usually considered the most desirable, then low-interest rate educational loans, the work-study arrangements (or research assistant/teaching assistantships), then funds provided by the students or their relatives. Working over the summers without taking courses is generally considered more desirable than working during the school year while taking courses.

We see from Chart 10 that loans (43%), full-time work (40%) and savings (18%) are the top three sources of funding for library school expenses, outside of the Making It REAL! scholarships. This is followed by other scholarships or grants, and support from close relatives - parents or spouses (10% each). However, Chart 10 masks important differences between Making It REAL! scholarship recipients according to whether they have University or Teaching Library awards.

University Award Recipients. Scholarship students with University awards are significantly and moderately strongly more likely to be funding their education using student loans (56% compared to 20%),[23] and significantly and strongly less likely to be working full-time (20% compared to 73%)[24] than those with Teaching Library awards. Also, those with University awards are the only Making It REAL! scholarship students that have teaching or research assistantships (12%), work part-time during the school year outside of their universities (12%), work full-time over the summer (8%) or part-time over the summer (8%) without taking courses, or have other support (4% -- pursuing additional scholarships or grants). Otherwise, 16% use their savings, 12% get support from their parents, and 8% have support from spouses while attending library school.

[23] Fisher's Exact Test = .046, 2-sided test or .027, 1-sided test with Phi = -.353, p = .026.

[24] Fisher's Exact Test = .002, 2-sided test or .001, 1-sided test with Phi = .527.

Teaching Library Award Recipients. As noted above, while 73% of the Teaching Library award recipients are working full-time, only 20% of them have taken out loans to finance their education. It is not clear whether they do not know about the availability of low-interest rate student loans, or whether they have simply chosen not to take on additional loan debt. As noted above, none use teaching or research assistantships, part-time work outside the university during the school year, part-time or full-time summer work without taking courses, or have other support. However, two (13%) claim they use no other funding source for their library education than their Making It REAL! scholarships. On the other hand, one (7%) is known to have other scholarship or grant funds available, one (7%) has parental support, two receive financial assistance from their spouses (13%), and three (20%) are dipping into their savings to fund their library school education. Overall then, the Teaching Library scholarship students either have less access to or are simply using fewer of the potentially available sources of funding about which the survey inquired. We do not know from this survey why this is so.

Expected Practical Work Experiences While in Library School

The survey asked about practical work experiences that Making It REAL! scholarship students expected to have while in library school. There were two reasons for the questions. The first was to see if students who were attending library schools that are Making It REAL! partners would surface any collaborative arrangements being made between their library schools and Teaching Libraries. The second purpose was to see if and how work experiences of University scholars and Teaching Library scholars might differ.

Before discussing the findings, it is important to note that throughout this report the distinction between "University awarded scholar" and "Teaching Library scholar" has been based on New York State Library administrative records regarding the scholarship awards, rather than on student self-identification. This is because students themselves did not understand the distinction between a Making It REAL! scholar with an award made by a university and one with an award made by a Teaching Library. That there are two types of scholarships, one awarded by Teaching Libraries, and one by Universities in New York State, is clearly explained on the Making It REAL!website. However, in response to the fourth question on the survey, seven students with University awards incorrectly identified themselves as having teaching library awards, and one student with a Teaching Library award incorrectly identified a library system rather than the library council that included that system as the source of the award. The seven students with University awards who identified a Teaching Library from a pull-down list simply asking for "Teaching Library/System/Council" might have been identifying libraries in which they were working, had worked, or hoped to work. A few of the University students asked in text comment areas what a Teaching Library is or what their Teaching Library is.

What is even more confusing to the evaluators is that five students with university scholarships gave a date at which they had begun working "Before being awarded Making It REAL! scholarship." Two of those university scholarship students plus three others indicated a date when they would begin working at a Teaching Library "after being awarded Making It REAL! scholarship," and four of those five dates were in 2006 to 2008, or well after the time that students were taking the survey. This indicates that a) the survey questions meant to separate students with Teaching Library scholarships from those with University scholarships were not clear to some students, especially University awarded scholars, because they did not understand or know about the program distinction in source of scholarships, and b) there may be more past or future overlap between program partner Teaching Libraries and program partner universities than is apparent from the source of the scholarships. In particular, it is conceivable that some students awarded university scholarships may have links to Teaching Libraries that might not even be apparent to the university faculty. This deserves further probing with students and partners during interviews or focus groups to be held later in the evaluation.

At any rate, not all students have the same understanding of program distinctions as the partners awarding the scholarships and the program manager do. In fact, in response to a direct screening question well along in the survey students were asked "Do you have a Making It REAL! Scholarship from a Teaching Library" and only six students answered "Yes" - and two of those had University scholarships. Eleven of the 15 students who actually held Teaching Library awards answered "No." Only the six who correctly or wrongly answered "Yes" saw the follow-up question: "Did you also apply for a Making It REAL! Scholarship at another Teaching Library or for one of the Library School Making It REAL! Scholarships?" All six said "No" but that result is not reliable because of the misunderstanding of the screening question.

Fortunately, all 40 students were given a chance to ask four questions about types of work experience expectations and 37 of the 40 (93%) responded. The basic question was "Please indicate whether you expect to obtain practical/work experiences as part of your Making It REAL! experience (mark all that apply)." The results are shown in Table 5.

Table 5. Student Expectations of Work Experience While Attending Library School

Even though the distinction between "University Awards" and "Teaching Library Awards" is based on New York State Library records of scholarship sources, it is hard to know how much credibility to give the student responses in Table 5 because of the confusion in students' minds about the sources of their scholarships. The only statistically significant difference in Table 5, and it is a strong one,[25] is that 67% of those with Teaching Library scholarships did expect to gain experience from multiple Teaching Libraries, while 82% of University award recipients did not expect such experience. Evidence from the outcome based evaluation plans of several Teaching Library partners confirms that they do expect to expose their scholarship recipients to experiences at multiple locations within their systems.

[25] Fisher's Exact Test = .005 (2-sided) or .004 (1-sided), Phi = -.491, p = .003.

Of interest is that 68% of the scholars do expect to gain other kinds of practical/work experience while in library school. Several of the University award scholars mentioned a requirement at their library schools for a practicum. Some had specific libraries or types of libraries in mind where they hoped to work or were already working. Others were more vague but expected to gain some additional work experience while in library school, whether or not they had a student assistantship. Many of the Teaching Library scholars who answered the question specified various types of experience at multiple libraries or with multiple librarians. Others simply expected to continue working where they were, or to be placed by their university in a practicum setting. The types of additional experience expected are given in Appendix C.

Student Reactions to and Expectations of Making It REAL!

The survey asked about student opinions of several aspects of the Making It REAL! scholarship program and about their recommendations for changing the program. First, 71% of the recipients agreed that "The overall requirements of the Making It REAL! Scholarship were appropriate in relation to the opportunity to get a Library School degree," and the remainder characterized them as "very good." From a student perspective the program is on the right track in its requirements. Of interest, over half (53%) of the Teaching Library scholarship recipients viewed the overall requirements as "very good in relation to the opportunity to get a Library School degree," compared to just 13% of the University scholarship recipients. This is a moderate to strong statistically significant difference[26] and indicates that the program as a whole is especially well received by Teaching Library scholars.

[26] Fisher's Exact Test = .012 (2-sided test) or .011 (1-sided test), Phi = .434, p = .007.

Requirement for Post-Graduation Work in New York State

The survey then probed about the two-year post-graduation work requirement of the scholarship (or pro-rata payback of scholarship funds). About 92% of the respondents checked that this was "an appropriate amount of NY library employment time to expect." Only three students (all University award recipients, although this is not a statistically significant difference) indicated that it was "too much NY library employment time to expect."

The survey then probed as to whether a different amount of post-graduation work would be appropriate, measured by a hypothetical question as to whether the student felt she would have accepted a Making It REAL! scholarship if the scholarship terms had been different. The possible post-graduation work times listed started with less then two years and then moving to three, four, five, or more than five years of work after the degree. The break point turned out to be between three and four years, as shown in Table 6. Not surprisingly, less than two years of work after the degree was definitely acceptable to 95% of the scholarship recipients, and another 3% stated that acceptance would depend on the scholarship amount. At three years of post-graduation work under half (47%) of the current recipients would have accepted the scholarship, for another one-third (32%), it would have depended on the amount, and for 8% acceptance would have depended on other factors.

Table 6. Acceptance of a Making It REAL! Scholarship with Different Hypothetical Post-Graduation Requirements

Four years of post-graduation work becomes questionable, but nearly half (45%) of the scholarship recipients would have considered accepting if the amount were right (perhaps higher than that offered this time?). Another 18% would have said "yes," presumably even under current scholarship amounts. In all, then, nearly two-thirds (63%) of current scholars might have or would have accepted the scholarship if the price were right. We didn't ask what the appropriate scholarship amount might be. While 16% would have weighed other factors, 21% would have simply said "no" to the scholarship possibility or offer.

There were variations in response among University award recipients and Teaching Library recipients at both three and four years of post-graduation work, although these were not statistically significant differences. The nature of the differences was such that two-thirds of Teaching Library scholarship recipients would still have said "yes" to the scholarship at three years of post-graduation work, and one-third at four years of post-graduation work. It should be recalled that these scholars are already working in New York State libraries, by and large, and are continuing to work in them full-time while in school, so acceptance of employment in a New York State library after graduation potentially just means getting a different job (or retaining the same job only with a possible pay promotion) in the same system. The University award recipients, on the other hand, were more likely to look at the scholarship amount before deciding, with 44% doing so at three years (versus 35% "yes") and over half (57%) at four years (with only 9% "yes"). These are somewhat younger students, on average, with more years of their careers ahead of them.

At five years of post-graduation work the balance tips toward "No" (37%), although an equivalent number would still consider the scholarship if the amount was right, and 8% (three people) would still accept the scholarship anyway. With more than five years of work after graduation 37% would still just say "No," and nearly a third (32%) would need to consider factors other than scholarship amount. As shown in the comments provided below, these "other factors" are essentially outside of the control of New York State Library, and some are outside the control of the scholarship recipients.

Scholarship Amount and "Other Factors" that University Award Recipients Might Consider

• Help in finding a job: "Factors like would they help you find a job that was good for you. In this area the libraries are closing and it may become increasingly more difficult to find a good job. If I had to take a job that required me to move away just to make good on the schol…."
• Job location complicated by family considerations, including spouses' careers: "…Also personal considerations, like being close, geographically to my family and friens [sic] etc.," "THE CAREER OF MY SPOUSE," "if moving to another state is required. If the family situation changes," "The location of the library job and the salary that is being offered." "Well I have two young children so If for any reason I could not afford to live in New York anymore, or If I was to have another child and I had to be out of work for a few months, I'm not sure if that would be allowed. So for some strange reason two year…" "The location of the Library job and the salary that is being offered."
• Career advancement considerations: "Other factors would include my expectations of what I consider should be the direction that my career should take, and having the freedom to decide it." "Namely it would depend on the overall quality of work my experience [sic], as well as the apparent ability to earn advancements / raises in that position." "It would depend on the amount of the scholarship and how likely I feel that I would be able to secure empoloyment [sic] and keep that employment." "Whether a better opportunity was available to me."
• Other reasons. "It is strictly a financial issue for me. I am already commited [sic] to EDUCATIONAL JUSTICE." The last person commented after checking "depends on scholarship amount" for all possible years of work. "For qualifying students who finish the library science degree, could there be a stipend or fellowship award for continued study in underrepresdented [sic] areas of ethnic cultural awareness, multicultural creativity in the arts, shared studies of art historical…."

"Other Factors" that Teaching Library Award Recipients Might Consider

• Family situations, especially spouses' careers: "Family considerations. Spouses work requirements." "My family comes first. If by chance, my husband has to move out of the state for his job I would have to go with him."
• General uncertainty of life. "My goal is to work as a school media specialist so for the most part, a longer time committment [sic] would have been acceptable. However, you never know what life has to offer you and to be able to make such a long-term committment [sic] could have scared me off." "If I am still living in NY. It is hard to know how long I will be living where we live now. I hope to but I am unsure I could fully commit." "My life situation. Growing up ini a military family, I am accustomed to moving around and experience different parts of the country and world. More than 2 years might make me feel like Ii was 'stuck' and could not explore opportunities in other places."
• Other factors. "Other household employment and cost of living."

Requirement by Some Teaching Libraries that Recipients Work Specifically in Their Systems

Some of the Teaching Libraries required that scholarship recipients work in libraries not just anywhere in New York State, but specifically for two years in libraries in their systems. This was not a requirement imposed by the New York State Library, but was a local decision allowed under the terms of the grant. The survey asked all scholarship recipients, whether they had University awards or Teaching Library awards, what they thought of this proviso. The survey did not ask if the scholars were subject to the proviso, although it is known that most scholarships were not awarded with this proviso in place. The overwhelming choice (82%) was that the proviso was "appropriate only if jobs at the right level are available after graduation." More than twice as many students felt that it was "not appropriate (13%) as felt it was "always appropriate" (5%).

Adequacy and Use of Scholarship Funds

Without controlling for the amounts received (which would have varied depending on which organization made the award, on tuition and fees of the library school the student was attending, and on locally controlled determination of potential scholarship uses from an allowable list), the survey asked students to rate adequacy of the amount of scholarship funds available for certain expenses. Only one person, who was in an exceptional situation, said that "tuition and fees" were "not applicable" as an expense, and two students did not answer the question. Of the remaining 37 students, under half (45%) said the amount was "about right," but over one-third (38%) rated the scholarship amount "too little." In an important moderately strong but not statistically significant finding,[27] seven of ten (71%) Teaching Library students felt that the tuition amount was "about right," compared to just over one-third (35%) of the University award students. Over half (57%) of the University award students felt that the amount was "too little." Students at Pratt, a private university, and at SUNY, Buffalo, a public university, were especially likely to make this response. This could therefore simply be an artifact of how two universities packaged their scholarship awards rather than a blanket difference between University of Teaching Library scholarship awarding practices, or between public and private library schools. About one in 10 students felt that the amount was "more than enough." Again this might be university specific, since the four people who felt the tuition and fees amount was "more than enough" included those attending two private universities and one public university.

[27] Pearson Chi-Square = 6.483, df = 2, p = .039, but two cells have expected counts of less than 5, making the result not statistically reliable. Cramer's V = .419, p = .039, and Kendall's tau-b = .367, p = .009.

As shown in Table 7, large proportions of the 40 respondents said that other items were "not applicable" as scholarship expenditures, and so did not rate them. For example, this meant that 20 or only half of the students rated funds available for "computers," 18 (45% of 40) checked "not applicable" and two (5% not shown in Table 6) didn't answer the question.

Table 7. Adequacy of Amounts Available for Items Other Than Tuition and Fees

Not surprisingly, the most frequent response in all categories was "not enough." However, one begins to get a sense of needs priorities by examining Table 7. Those who rated the item especially felt that there were not enough funds made available for living expenses (75%) and computers (65%). Funds for travel to professional conferences was rated "too little" by 58% of the students. That item had slightly more "too little" ratings than "school supplies" (57%), and the latter rating had 5% "more than enough" responses to augment its 38% "about right" to 43% -- slightly more than the 42% "about right" of "school supplies." Books were most evenly split, with just over half (52%) of respondents rating fund availability to purchase books for Library School "about right" or "more than enough" and just under half (48%) rating book funds availability as "too little."

Forced Ranking of Hypothetical Making It REAL! Scholarship Funds

Students were then asked "If you could use your Making It REAL! scholarship funds for any of the items shown below, rank the importance of having scholarship funds for each of the following. A rank can only be used once, with 1 being most important and 6 being least important." This question recognizes that those who decide how scarce scholarship funds can be used have to make some hard choices, and seeks student input toward their preferences among the items. The results are shown in Table 8, which is rank ordered by modal (most common) response and consideration of additional common responses at a higher ranking (see cells that have bold percentages). The best way to interpret the table is that the top items are the ones that students as a group think most important to fund and the bottom ones are least important to fund. Of course there are differences in cost of these items and if the lower down ones could be funded without sacrificing the more important items, the findings of Table 7 above suggest that all could use some more funding if available.

Table 8. Ranking of Scholarship Expense Items by Relative Importance to Students

Almost nine out of every ten students (89%) agree on the importance of a Making It REAL! scholarship first going to cover tuition and fees. Nearly half the students (45%) rate books in second place. While about four out of ten (39%) put computers in third place in importance for funding, with two out of ten saying they should be in second place (16%) or first place (5%). The reason that computer expenses are in third place rather than second is that they have both fewer first and second place ratings than books, and fewer overall first to third place ratings (60%) than books do (65%). After that the appropriate order gets murkier. Conference travel costs appear to be fourth in importance, since even though the most common ranking is fifth (32%), over one quarter (26%) placed this expense fourth in importance and more than another quarter placed it higher - in third (21%) or even second (5%) place. School supplies should apparently rank lower than conference travel, based on the overall distribution, but should it really be ranked higher than "living expenses" which has a bifurcated distribution of very low (sixth place - 31%) and rather high (second place -- 28%) rankings? What we are seeing in Table 8 are some important disagreements among the scholarship students about the appropriate rankings of expenditure items.

In regards to conference travel, the Making It REAL! coordinator, Mary Linda Todd, located additional non-grant funds to pay the $50 conference registration fees of any scholarship students who wanted to attend the New York Library Association (NYLA) 2005 conference, but did not make travel funds available. The student survey data was collected both before and after the NYLA 2005 conference took place, and students were asked about their intentions regarding going to that conference. The results of that part of the student survey were reported in conjunction with an evaluation report on the three workshops held at NYLA 2005 (Stauffer and Maack 2006) and will not be repeated in this report. Mary Linda Todd indicates that $250 will be available per scholarship student to attend NYLA 2006, i.e., $50 for student registration and $200 for travel.

University Award Scholars Ranking of Relative Importance of Scholarship Funds Availability. Table 9 shows how University scholars view the appropriate order in which to expend scarce scholarship dollars. With 91% first place votes, tuition and fees remain the clear first choice expenditure item. However, living expenses jumps to second place, with almost half (48%) of the students placing it there - even though the next most frequent placement is sixth place (least important). As we have seen, most of the University scholars are getting the kind of classroom based education that requires them to leave within commuting distance of campus or on campus. Although location was an important factor for choice of library school, many likely had to move toward the university they are attending, and absorb additional expenses in doing so. Living expenses then makes sense as an important item, while it would be much less important for those who remained where they were and started going to library school at a local university. The third most important expenditure is books, although as many in this group of students rated that second as rated it third, because the combined first to third place rankings for books (60%) is just slightly lower than the combined first to third place rankings of living expenses (61%), and living expenses has more second place rankings.

Table 9. Ranking of Scholarship Expense Items by Relative Importance to University Scholars

Computers would be the fourth place in importance for expenditures by the scholars with university awards, with over half the students (52%) rating them fourth through sixth, a strong third place showing (30%), but 48% ranking them first to third (after adding and then rounding). Conference travel is arguably in fifth place, based on its most common placement and overall distribution toward upper rankings and 22% third place scores. School supplies are left in sixth place despite the 41% fourth-place ranking because their overall distribution shades more towards sixth place (36%) than toward higher rankings.

Teaching Library Scholars Ranking of Relative Importance of Scholarship Funds Availability. The Teaching Library scholars had different priorities for expending scholarship funds, if they had their choice. Their distribution is shown in Table 10. The first four expenditure items are clear for this group of scholars: Tuition and fees (87% first place), books (73% second place), computers (53% third place and 80% first to third place), then conference travel (40% fourth place and 67% second to fourth place).

Table 10. Ranking of Scholarship Expense Items by Relative Importance to Teaching Library
Scholars

School supplies would be in fifth place with one-third choosing that ranking, and about one-third choosing a first to fourth place ranking. With almost half (47%) of the students placing living expenses as least important for scholarship expenditures, it is in sixth or last place as an item on which to expend scarce funds. Many of the Teaching Library scholars are taking online courses, so didn't have to move, and are likely already living near where they work. Covering living expenses with the scholarship monies might be important for some, but usually less so than tuition and fees, books, computers and conference travel.

Conclusions

While students largely agree about some matters, such as the appropriateness of two years or less of service after graduation and of having scholarships cover tuition and fees, there are important differences between the scholars with University awards and Teaching Library awards. These differences are apparent even though some of the students themselves do not understand what a Teaching Library is or that there were two kinds of scholarships awarded.

Those with University awards were generally younger, more ethnically diverse, were usually already admitted at the university they are attending before being offered the scholarship, and likely would have attended that University in any case. They were more likely to be going to library school full-time and taking traditional face-to-face classes. They were more likely to have taken out loans to finance their college education, and less likely to be working full-time while going to school.

Teaching Library scholarship recipients tended to be older, were somewhat ethnically diverse, and diverse in other ways. They tended to have been admitted to library school after receiving their scholarships, rather than before. They are more likely to be attending library school online, and working full-time while going to school. An important factor in online attendance was time convenience. They were less likely to have taken out loans to attend library school and generally used a smaller set of possible library school financing sources.

These kinds of differences also helped explain different preferences for uses of scholarship funds. While all scholars agreed that it was most important for the grant to cover tuition and fees, University award recipients favored living expenses as a second choice, while for Teaching Library recipients this was their last choice for use of funds. Books, computers and conference travel expenses made up the middle group of preferences for use of scholarship funds, if the students had a choice in what to cover.

Students had some variations in start dates, but almost all expected to finish their Masters degrees within the grant period, whether going full-time or going part-time. Students were less concerned about their finishing on time than some partners were. The students appear to have adopted different anticipated class attendance patterns that would get them to the degree on time, even if not in the ideal one and a half years that the faculty developed curriculums allowed. Most agreed that it was difficult to work and go to school at the same time, especially go to school full-time. Those who felt that library school would be more difficult also tended to favor part-time attendance. Teaching Library scholars were not more likely to view library school as academically difficult even though many were working full-time and going to school part-time (and online) as a result. Most of the scholars expected to obtain some kind of practical experience in libraries before completing their education, from practicums required by library schools or from their Teaching Libraries. Students were unclear on the Teaching Library concept.

Almost all students felt that the two year work requirements of the Making It REAL! grant were fair. Many would even have been willing to perform three years of work, although more likely Teaching Library award recipients than University award recipients. Four years or more of expected work would have been too much. Even the requirement to work two years in a specific system that awarded a scholarship was acceptable to most - provided that jobs at an appropriate level were available. Other factors to consider would be help in finding a job, family and spouse's careers, and personal career advancement. Tuition and fees were definitely the first choice for scholarship expenditures with almost half considering the amounts "about right" - and one-third as "too little." Teaching Library scholarship recipients were more likely to view the amount as "about right," University award recipients as "too little." Amounts available for other expenses were "too little," although the grants were "about right" for travel to professional conferences and books for about 42% to 44% of the 25 or 26 students for whom these were allowable expenses.

References

Maack, Stephen C. October 7, 2005, Making It REAL! Student Recruitment: Library School and Teaching Library Survey Results. Los Angeles, CA: REAP Change Consultants.

Stauffer, Suzanne M. and Maack, Stephen C. 2006, NYLA 2005 Conference: Making It REAL! Programs and Student Survey Opinions. Los Angeles, CA: REAP Change Consultants.

Appendices

Last modified on March 2, 2006 -- asm
For further information, please contact Mary Linda Todd.
URL: http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/imls/survey/srvy05p1.htm