IMLS National Leadership Grant #LG-01-03-0071-03

Interim Performance Report

September 2005 through February 2006
Karen Strege, Project Director
206-723-2464. kstrege@msn.com

Background:
The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded a Leadership Grant in 2003 to the Western Council of State Libraries (Council) to support "The Continuum of Library Education" project. This project seeks to develop a multi-state approach to address the universal need for trained library personnel in rural and underserved communities.

The project began in November 2003 with the hiring of Catherine Helmick as Project Director. Ms. Helmick focused on developing a set of core competencies, with Western Council's State Library Directors and their staffs. The competencies represent a consensus opinion about what is the essential knowledge, skills and ability for public library practitioners, defined by the project as, "an individual who is a library director or manager and has no library science degree and requires additional formal library training to improve job performance and/or to achieve certification".

Ms. Helmick resigned in March 2005 and Karen Strege replaced her as Project Director the same month.

Status of Project Goals and Objectives:

Goal 1: Westco and higher education institutions will collaborate to enhance learning opportunities that are needed for library practitioners.

Objective A. All participating SLAs will accept a set of core competencies for library practitioners.

Status: Council members approved the core competencies at their September 2004 meeting. To enhance the competencies and promote their use, the Implementation Committee (IC) and the Project Director drafted a subset of the Core Competencies to use a basis for the Certification Program. This set, called the Certification Competencies, was then sent to selected newly hired library practitioners and library board members to determine their validity. The survey asked recipients to review the draft Certification Competencies to determine which competencies were extraneous and which ones were missing from the list. The IC and the Project Director reviewed the survey results and drafted a final set.

Objective B. All library practitioners in each state will be able to select from local, on-site and/or distance education opportunities that address the core competencies.

Status: Webjunction, a project of OCLC, received an IMLS grant to investigate establishing an E-learning Clearinghouse. This clearinghouse may provide the vehicle needed to offer a catalog of courses to library workers in Council states.

Marilyn Gell-Mason, Executive Director, Webjunction, and Sarah Chesemore, Learning Manager, joined the IC at their September 2005 meeting to discuss the Clearinghouse and other project endeavors. The Project Director has monitored the status of Clearinghouse development and has contacted project personnel to insure that the database meets Council needs.

The Project Director also formed a committee to help plan an E-Learning Workshop for Council members. This committee, composed of representatives from the State Libraries of Arizona, New Mexico, and California, and a representative from Webjunction, developed a brief, online needs assessment, which was sent to all state libraries. After receiving 48 responses, the committee reviewed the results and determined learning objectives for the workshop, which will be held in September 2006. The purpose of the workshop is to train state library agency continuing education consultants in current E-Learning theory and practice so that states might form cooperative training endeavors to benefit library practitioners in rural and underserved areas. Specific workshop objectives include learning which types of E-Learning experiences to use to achieve learning objectives and how to identify the best planning and evaluation tools for E-Learning.

Objective C. All state library agencies participating will recognize the certification of all other participating states.

Status: The State Librarians of Iowa, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Washington and the Assistant State Librarian of Texas formed a Task Force that advised the Project Director on methods to encourage reciprocity. To date, the State Libraries in Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Montana have adopted new or reappraised old policies to allow reciprocity. Iowa and Utah are considering such.

Objective D. Council will develop and adopt a region-wide certification program that is coordinated with other states' programs.

Status: Council established a task force, composed of members from Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oklahoma, Nevada, and Texas to, to develop models for a Council certification program for consideration by the Council. This task force met on July 26, 2005 and again on January 23, 2006. Its work includes reviewing the Certification Competencies, establishing requirements for certification, reviewing certification procedures, and recommending policy decisions to the Implementation Committee. To date, the Task Force has recommended the minimum experience, formal education, and training required for certification. They are currently reviewing forms for continuing education providers to use to receive Council approved provider status and the certification application Form. The IC will consider these recommendations at their April, 2006 meeting.

Goal 2: Library practitioners can receive formal and informal library education leading to certification or credit to enhance their ability to serve their communities.

Objectives:

1. A minimum of 15% of practitioners in each state or 20% of library practitioners from within the region will participate in a Westco certificate program.
2. 70% of practitioners participating in the project will report that the training helped them achieve a core competency.
3. 50% of practitioners will report that learning a core competency improved their job performance.
4. 75% of practitioners will report the certification process as successful in the realization of their career goals.

Status: As reported to the project's Grants Officer, Western Council canceled its contract with the project evaluators, Charles McClure and John Bertot. During the evaluation planning, it became clear that the project's scope and outcomes did not support an outcome-based evaluation, as the contract specified. Instead, the project will require a summative evaluation. The Project Director has drafted a RFP for evaluation services for the IC's consideration at their April meeting. After this review, the RFP process will begin and result in an evaluation, beginning in fall 2006.

Goal 3. Westco will design an infrastructure to support multi-state recruitment and training efforts that can be sustained at the conclusion of the project

Objective A. At least 25 SLAs and 10 higher education institutions will participate in the project and commit to ongoing participation, as other entitles are recruited to the project.

Objective B. Infrastructure and agreements will support the continuation of the project.

Status: Council and the Project Director consider sustainability within the context of each project objective and activity. The Project Director is paying close attention to developing partnerships that will enable project continuation. Examples of these endeavors are discussions with Webjunction and ALA's leadership regarding the association's projects regarding certification.

Project schedule:

IMLS granted a year extension to the project until June 30, 2007. The Project Director anticipates that all approved activities will be completed at that time.

Certification:

In submitting this report, I certify that all of the information is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.

Karen Strege, Project Director
March 3, 2006