Illinois - Funding

$10,000 Grants from Better World Books and NCFL

2009-07-10T21:11:58Z

Better World Books and National Center for Family Literacy Create National Award for Libraries

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (July 10, 2009) - Better World Books and the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) announce today the creation of The Better World Books/NCFL Libraries and Families Award, which will recognize exceptional family programming in libraries around the country. Each year, three winning libraries will be awarded $10,000 in grants.

"Local libraries serve a critical role in promoting lifelong learning and literacy in their communities," said David Murphy, president and CEO of Better World Books. "We are proud to partner with the NCFL to specifically promote the new and innovative ways libraries are working to bring families together over books and learning."

Funding for the program will come from Better World Books' Libraries Discards & Donations program, a free service that helps libraries manage their unwanted books. Better World Books sells those books online, sharing the revenues with the libraries and one of its nonprofit literacy programs. Since the inception of the BWB/NCFL library fund, 747 libraries across the United States have shipped 1.7 million books to be sold online to generate funding for libraries and their literacy partner, NCFL.

The competition will be conducted through an online Request-for-Proposals process. NCFL will manage the grant competition, assess applicants and award the winning programs.

NCFL anticipates awarding three $10,000 grant awards each year - one in each of the following three categories:

1) Local Friends of the Library programs

2) Public/academic libraries

3) Urban libraries

In addition, award recipients each year will receive scholarships to attend that year's NCFL Annual National Conference on Family Literacy.

The specific award criteria and application will be available online by Oct. 1, 2009. In the meantime, organizations can visit www.famlit.org as soon as Saturday, July 11, to submit their contact information and be notified when the application is available.

"Parents are not only their children's first teacher, but also their most effective and important one," said Sharon Darling, NCFL president & founder. "Libraries provide important access for families to read together, explore technology and take other critical steps that lead to success. This new award program will spur the innovative programming that is fundamental to that success."

The Better World Books/NCFL Libraries and Families Award is the latest partnership between the two organizations, which together have raised more than $400,000 for NCFL's programming since 2005.

Hundreds of thousands of books have been donated and sold to support family literacy since the partnership began. Books come from college campus book drives, library discards and donations, and corporate book drives. These efforts have funded the purchase of more than 10,000 books to restock family libraries after Hurricane Katrina and the development of resources to reach wide audiences with literacy tools and materials.

ABOUT NCFL

The National Center for Family Literacy is the worldwide leader in family literacy. More than 1 million families have made positive educational and economic gains as a result of NCFL's work, which includes training more than 150,000 teachers and thousands of volunteers. For more information, visit www.famlit.org.

ABOUT BETTER WORLD BOOKS

Better World Books (http://www.betterworldbooks.com) is a for-profit social enterprise that collects and sells books online with each sale generating funds for literacy initiatives in the U.S. and around the world. With more than three million new and used titles in stock, Better World Books is a self-sustaining company that balances the social, economic and environmental values of its stakeholders. Better World Books diverts books from landfills by conducting book drives on 1,800 college campuses, and by collecting discards from over 1,800 libraries nationwide. Since its founding in 2003, the Mishawaka, Ind.-based company has raised $6.5 million for its non-profit literacy, library and college partners; donated over 1.3 million college textbooks; diverted more than 25 million pounds of books from landfills; achieved over 9,000 tons of carbon offsets through carbon-neutral shipping, and created more than 200 full-time jobs with meaningful benefits.

Submissions Wanted: Library Grant Success Stories!

2009-05-05T19:17:39Z

See Your Grant Success Story in a Neal-Schuman Book by Stephanie Gerding and Pam MacKellar!

Your library could be highlighted in an upcoming Neal-Schuman book, Winning Grants: A Multimedia How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians! 16 library grant success stories were highlighted in our last Neal-Schuman book, Grants for Libraries: A How-To-Do-It Manual. Now is your chance to be included in our next book! Readers would love to learn about a successful grant your library has received.

Tell us of your accomplishments, both planned and unexpected. Please complete a brief online template by May 31, 2009 at http://home.comcast.net/~winninggrants. We'll let you know if your library is chosen to be showcased.

Also, if you don't know about our free library grant opportunity website, visit http://librarygrants.blogspot.com for new grant listings every month.

Thank you!
Stephanie Gerding & Pam MacKellar
http://stephaniegerding.com

Submissions Requested: Library Grant Success Stories

2009-04-09T16:47:59Z

See Your Grant Success Story in a Neal-Schuman Book by Stephanie Gerding and Pam MacKellar!

Your library could be highlighted in an upcoming Neal-Schuman book, Winning Grants: A Multimedia How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians! 16 library grant success stories were highlighted in our last Neal-Schuman book, Grants for Libraries: A How-To-Do-It Manual. Now is your chance to be included in our next book! Readers would love to learn about a successful grant your library has received.

Tell us of your accomplishments, both planned and unexpected. Please complete a brief online template by May 31, 2009 at http://home.comcast.net/~winninggrants. We'll let you know if your library is chosen to be showcased.

Thank you!
Stephanie Gerding & Pam MacKellar
http://stephaniegerding.com

Webinar discussion: Using Wimba to Train Librarians on LSTA

2009-02-26T22:53:03Z

View the archive and related resources, and continue the discussion here!

How are you training librarians in your state to apply for LSTA grants? What would it take for you to provide that training?

And if you a librarian who would like training, what help do you need?

RE: free art books for your library

2009-01-28T18:00:31Z

Just wanted to note that this program is still active, according to their website.

Sharon

free art books for your library

2007-10-23T18:35:55Z

This was brought to my attention:

The Distribution to Underserved Communities Library Program (DUC) announces the launch of its 2007-08 inventory of brand-new art books!

The DUC is a nationwide program that distributes books on contemporary art to rural and inner-city schools, libraries, and alternative reading centers completely free of charge. If you are a public institution in an underserved community, you are eligible to receive these free materials.

You may learn more about the program, browse the selection of titles from new and returning publishers, and place an order for books on our website, [url http://www.ducprogram.org/]www.ducprogram.org[/url]. All orders
are shipped completely free of charge!

With the intention of serving as many schools and libraries as
possible, we restrict participants to one order per year. If you have received books from us in recent months, we kindly request you wait to place a new order until an appropriate period has passed. In order to ensure we reach the nation's most underserved communities, we are unable to fill orders from private or religious institutions. Please note that due to the large volume of orders we receive, it may take up to three months to process and ship the books you request.

If you have questions about the program or the ordering process, feel free to contact us at info@ducprogram.org or (212) 255-2919.

Re: GrantStation?

2007-05-13T04:40:09Z

Hey Linda,

I know that the sale didn't last (back up to $300 or something, right?) but did you guys end up buying this? What do you think? I saw an article recently that Alliance Library System was really pleased w/ GrantStation (and remembered this question; thought I'd come back and see if it was still here - yep!). Anyway, let us know if it worked out for you.

Re: Grant for a New Catalog Server?

2007-04-09T14:23:26Z

Thanks for the tips. Actually, we have been looking seriously at both Koha and Evergreen. It seems they can run on a less expensive server, or a collection of cheap servers, where our current ILS wouldn't be able to. And since both are open source, we aren't locked into a support contract. Instead we can pay whoever we want for only the support we actually need and get. Or do it ourself. Sounds pretty good to me.

Re: Grant for a New Catalog Server?

2007-04-07T00:29:27Z

Hi Karen,

Have you looked at TechSoup for discounted hard/software? I wonder if there would be something on there that would help. Check this <a href="http://www.techsoup.org/stock/category.asp?catalog%5Fname=TechSoupMain&category%5Fname=All+Refurbished+Windows+Computer+Systems&Page=1&Cat1=Hardware&Cat2=Refurbished+Windows+Computer+Systems&CatCount=2">link</a> but I think these are only for desktops and notebooks. There are ways to also buy a computer, install server software on it and you are set though it is time consuming for sure. Do you have a tech person that you could contact for any assistance with that? Here is a <a href="http://oss4lib.org/node/506">story</a> about a library that migrated to Koha, an open source ILS - just to give you some ideas for the future. I'll keep looking and see what else I can find.
Max

Grant for a New Catalog Server?

2007-03-09T21:17:08Z

I'm from a rural library in Maryland and wondering if anyone knows of a grant that we might qualify for. Our catalog server is well past its prime and returns needlessly slow results. As we're about to upgrade to Horizon 8, the need for a new server becomes more critical. But unlike a standard computer, a new server is costly enough to be somewhat prohibitive. Any ideas where funding for this sort of project might come from?

Thanks in advance for any tips that might help,
Karen

GrantStation?

2007-02-28T14:09:29Z

Does anyone know anything about GrantStation? One of my librarians asked about it but I don't know if she should purchase it or not. TechSoup has it on sale for $90.
Thanks.
Linda Gens

Re: Friends Groups Help with Fundraising

2007-02-17T21:28:48Z

Wow that is so impressive - I want to show this at a workshop I'm doing in March 2007 - it's a great model for other libraries to follow.
Max

Re: 501(c)(3) for public libraries

2007-02-12T22:01:54Z

> To try to get a funder to do what
> you want ... while it would be nice, is just a waste
> of their time (and yours).

I wholeheartedly agree with Rebekah (not to be confused with me, Rebekkah!).

What I've found is that the IRS considers public libraries to be "governmental entities" which by virtue of definition are tax exempt, however, getting a foundation to buy that is another story. We encourage all of our libraries to either have their own or to build up their friends groups to a level that can sustain the paperwork needed to be a 501C3 - we started a support area on our web site for tax exemption: http://midhudson.org/funding/fundraising/501c3.htm

-Rebekkah Smith Aldrich
Mid-Hudson Library System
Poughkeepsie, NY
http://midhudson.org

Re: Friends Groups Help with Fundraising

2007-02-12T21:47:03Z

We just updated our Friends Group Resources page at the Mid-Hudson Library System: http://midhudson.org/funding/fundraising/friends/main.php

We have 66 autonomous libraries in our system and over half of them have a Friends Group. So about 2 years ago we started providing support for Friends as well as our libraries - it's been great.

We've even started a Friends Support Group that meets quarterly so that Friends can learn from other Friends how they do things - notes from our first two meetings are on our web site: http://midhudson.org/funding/fundraising/friends/fsg.php

-Rebekkah

Re: Funding Opportunities through Connections for All

2006-12-22T02:42:41Z

Thanks for posting about this - it's worth looking in to!
Max

Funding Opportunities through Connections for All

2006-12-21T16:27:39Z

Tap into CTCNet's Connections for All (C4All) funding opportunities to enhance the capacity of the community technology center at your library serve people with a broad range of abilities!

In order to be eligible for the grants listed below, you must attend a C4All training institute. Institutes scheduled for January will be held in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, Nashville, and Boston.

Twenty $1000 AccessNow Awards will be given to randomly selected participants at each C4All Accessibility Institute (2 per Institute). Recipients can use the award to purchase assistive technology that will help increase their CTC's accessibility to community members with learning, visual, hearing, cognitive, and/or physical impairments.

Fourteen $20,000 Accessibility Grants will be awarded through a competitive grant application process, open only to CTCs that attended a full-day Accessibility Institute. This grant can be used toward staff training, staff time dedicated to addressing access issues, and the purchase of assistive and accessible tools designed to help users overcome difficulties presented by standard equipment.

For more information about these funding opportunities, visit http://www.ctcnet.org/what/initiatives/C4All/.

Re: Materials budget for rural library

2006-11-28T00:00:57Z

That's interesting that you have few "library bound" materials. I'm not sure that, as a patron, I would even notice the difference. I would agree that what's important is to have a variety of books, no matter where they come from.

Thanks for sharing from the rural library perspective!

Re: Materials budget for rural library

2006-11-08T20:15:10Z

I'm also a small public library and as impossible as it sounds we go with the 'at least' 12% of the operating budget that the library standards book requires in our state. For us that means making use of sites such as bookdepot.com, ebay, and teacher's scholastic clubs...we have very few library bound materials in our branches---but we find that in a low economic rural library that doesn't seem to be a necessity.

Re: Materials budget for rural library

2006-10-17T03:13:36Z

I would suggest this tool from NCES - Public Library Peer Comparison Tool -
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/libraries/compare/index.asp?LibraryType=Public

Basically, this would allow you to see what other peer libraries in your region, state, or nationally are spending on materials. You could limit it on a variety of variables to fit the search to a pretty specific profile that matches your library (size of population served, budget variables, etc.)

This data is from FY2004, but most likely your state library has more up to date data if you need it.

Also, if you find any libraries that you would like to get more infomation about NCES has a "trend" snapshot for library systems but it is tricky to find.

Here are the steps - go here - http://nces.ed.gov/globallocator/ - look up the library you are interested in - say Hoyt Lake Minnesota (make sure you check the "public library" selection on the right hand side) . Once you find the Hoyt Lakes SYSTEM (not branch or central library - it will have that squiggly set of orange boxes icon next to it to indicate a system), you can click on this link which will launch a pop-up window. Contained in this window is a summary of how many volumes and total circulation from 2000-2004. You could quickly see how much peer libraries have added over the past several years to give you some idea as to whether your library is keeping up and also what to think about for the future.

Hope this helps and good luck augmenting your collection - chris

Re: Materials budget for rural library

2006-10-16T20:51:08Z

Hello and welcome to the forums!

This is a good question that doesn't apply only to small libraries. I can't give you any firtshand knowledge, but a [url http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22friends+of+the+library%22+materials+budget&btnG=Google+Search ]quick search[/url] informed me that many libraries get help with materials budgets from their Friends.

[url http://www.yorkcountyva.org/index.cfm?action=c10&id=1584 ]Friends of the York County Public Library[/url] in VA call themselves "Enhancers who raise money for library materials, equipment, facilities and programs beyond the level of the library's tax-supported budget."

Take a look at Table 1 in this [url http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6298437.html ]Library Journal article[/url]. It has some budget figures for a range of population sizes.

Can anyone give some ballpark figures for budget amounts?