8 Grants & Awards: Apply Now

Submitted by schwarz on November 30, 2012 - 9:49am

Library Journal / Demco Paralibrarian of the Year
Deadline: January 12, 2013
Award: $1500 cash
Details and application form
Criteria:

Excellence in performing their job, including contribution(s) enabling the library to best serve its constituents and/or its community (whether town, college/university, school, or corporation)
The encouragement of reading and the use of the library’s resources
A commitment to free access to information for all
The candidate’s work to build networks, organizations, and/or groups to back excellence in library work and new career paths for support staff
Improved communication and the breaking down of barriers between support staff and the MLS librarians with whom they work

Libri Foundation Books for Children Grant
Deadline: January 23, 2013
Award: new, quality, hardcover children's books
Details and application form
Overview: The Libri Foundation is a nationwide non-profit organization which donates new, quality, hardcover children's books to small, rural public libraries throughout the United States. The Foundation will match any amount of money raised by your local sponsors from $50 to $350 on a 2-to-1 ratio. Thus, your library could receive up to $1,050 worth of new children's books (about 70 books).
Criteria:

Libraries should serve a population under 10,000 (usually under 5,000)
Libraries should be in a rural area (usually considered to be at least 30 miles from a city with a population over 40,000)
Have a limited operating budget • Have an active children's department

Coretta Scott King Book Donation Grant
Deadline: Jan. 31, 2013
Award: books submitted for consideration for the Coretta Scott King Book Awards
Details and application form
Overview: Created to help build collections and bring books into the lives of children in latchkey, preschool programs, faith-based reading projects, homeless shelters, charter schools and underfunded libraries.
Criteria: Applicants must demonstrate:

Why the collection is needed in their community
Why the collection is needed in their institution
How acquiring the collection will help them better serve the children and youth of their community
That the materials will be made freely available to children and youth without censorship

Wisconsin Library Association (WLA) Paralibrarian of the Year
Deadline: February 1, 2013
Award: scholarship, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee School of Information Studies
Details and application form
Criteria:

Excellence in job performance, including contribution(s) enabling their library to best serve its patrons and/or its community (whether public, college/university, school, corporation, etc.)
The encouragement of reading and the use of the library's resources
A commitment to free access to information for all
The candidate's work to build networks, organizations, and/or groups to support excellence in library work and new career paths for library support staff
The candidate's efforts to improve communication and the breaking down of barriers between support staff and the MLIS librarians with whom they work.

LibraryAware Community Award
Deadline: February 1, 2013
Award: $10,000 to the winning library; $7500 2nd place; $5000 3rd place
Details and application form
Overview: Emphasizes the library’s engagement with the community, and will recognize a library or library system that has demonstrated its ability to make its community “aware” of what the library can do for it—and has delivered on that promise.
Criteria: The LibraryAware Award will go to a library whose community is aware of and recognizes the library’s role:

In areas that are documented priorities in the community served by the library, such as digital access, adoption, and/or literacy; economic and workforce development; education; health care; public safety and emergency services; civic engagement.
As a place of transformation and change
As an organization whose activities ensure outcomes that are essential to the vitality of the community.

Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries and Museums
Deadline: February 1, 2013
Grant amount: $10,000 to $25,000
Details and application form
Overview: Sparks Grants support the deployment, testing, and evaluation of promising and groundbreaking new tools, products, services, or organizational practices. You may propose activities or approaches that involve risk, as long as the risk is balanced by significant potential for improvement in the ways libraries and museums serve their communities.
Criteria: To maximize the public benefit from federal investments in these grants, the Sparks Grants will fund only projects with the following characteristics:

Broad Potential Impact — You should identify a specific problem or need that is relevant to many libraries, archives, and/or museums, and propose a testable and measurable solution. Proposals must demonstrate a thorough understanding of current issues and practices in the project’s focus area and discuss its potential impact within libraries, archives, and/or museums. Proposed innovations should be widely adoptable or adaptable.
Significant Innovation — The proposed solution to the identified problem must offer strong potential for non-incremental, significant advancement in the operation of libraries, archives, and/or museums. You must explain how the proposed activity differs from current practices or takes advantage of an unexplored opportunity, and the potential benefit to be gained by this innovation

National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award
Deadline: February 4, 2013
Award: $10,000 and an invitation to accept their award from the President’s Committee’s Honorary Chairman, First Lady Michelle Obama at a ceremony at the White House
Details and application form Criteria

The Big Read
Deadline: February 5, 2013
Award: $2,500 to $20,000
Details and application form
Overview: Presented by NEA in cooperation with Arts Midwest, The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment. Seventy-five organizations in communities of varying sizes across the country will be selected to participate.
Criteria: Programming for The Big Read must include the following: