LSTA GRANT WRITING BASICS
AGENDA
Fundamentals of Grant Writing (9:00 – 12:00)
aka Grant Writing Tips and Techniques
 Understanding your funder
 Grant categories available for 2014-2015
 Examples of common mistakes
 Tips for Success
Raye Oldham
Federal Programs Consultant
State Library of North Carolina
919-807-7423
raye.oldham@ncdcr.gov
Lunch on your own
LSTA Grants for Your Library (1:30 – 4:30)
aka LSTA Evaluation & Outcome Measures
 Inputs, outputs, and outcomes
 Understanding outcome measures
 How to plan evaluation for an LSTA grant
 Examples of common mistakes
 Using what you’ve measured to describe the impact of your project
Joyce Chapman
Communications and Data Analysis Consultant
State Library of North Carolina
919-807-7421
joyce.chapman@ncdcr.gov
Wireless Password
User ID: embassy
Password: conference
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 1 of 13
Activity #1
It’s all about the library
Read the brief description below and look for who this project is for and who it’s going to
benefit. What would make the description better?
The library will provide faculty, students, scholars, sociologists, historians, and other users with
online access to digitized special materials from some of North Carolina’s prominent authors.
The library will make available digitized and descriptive images for at least 30,000 manuscript
pages and 5,000 illustrations.
To support the teaching, learning, and research of the university’s faculty and students this
literature collection is one of the primary collecting areas of the library. We have been
developing this area for the past two decades, and now hold nearly 100 collections that include
the papers of some of the most prolific and distinguished authors of the twentieth century.
Because the library’s special collections are so frequently requested and used, providing online
access will facilitate research use. The varied size and fragile nature of many of these items
make their digitization the most practical means of access. Historians, faculty, and students
often need to access these materials. These special collections materials are frequently
accessed by users. The papers of Mr. X, Ms. Y, and Ms. Z are among the most requested
collections in the research center. We have seen growing research interest and would like to
continue to digitize additional collections.
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 2 of 13
Activity #2
No data to support the need
Read the Statement of Need, discuss with your neighbor the kind of data that would make a
stronger or more compelling need, and make a list of your suggestions for improvement.
The Project Abstract is below in case you need it for additional context.
Statement of Need
There is increased demand for library services among our county’s older residents. The existing
outreach program is robust; last year, library staff made visits to homebound patrons and
patrons in elder care facilities, circulated items via bookmobile outreach, and offered an array
of special programs for older people. However, many of our older patrons – even those who in
younger years were enthusiastic library users – cannot take full advantage of the library’s
services.
The most common problem among our older patrons is vision loss and weakness in their hands
and arms, which makes it frustrating or painful for them to hold heavy large print books, turn
pages, or use book magnifiers. Though these patrons have access to talking books through the
state’s Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, many enjoy the simplicity and social
engagement of requesting and receiving books through their local library rather than by mail,
and some older patrons just prefer the printed word over audiobooks.
Project Abstract
This project will serve elderly citizens whose age-related disabilities make it difficult for them to
read traditional print books. Many elders have lost the strength or visual acuity necessary to
hold or read traditional books, but could still read with the help of an e-reader, since e-readers
are small and light and can display very large type. The library will provide e-readers to older
people who want to read but struggle with regular books. The library will also provide
thorough training and ongoing support to these patrons to ensure that they feel comfortable
using the e-readers, know how to take full advantage of e-readers’ assistive technology
features, and have access to e-book titles they enjoy. Since many of these patrons reside in
elder care facilities, the library will coordinate with local care facilities and elder service
agencies to identify elders with the greatest need for this special service, integrate the ereaders into care facilities’ existing recreational activity schedules, and teach care facility staff
how to assist elders with the e-readers.
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 3 of 13
Activity #3a
Identifying a project goal
Read over the list of goals and circle a couple of the goals that are a good fit for your library.
1. The goal of this collaborative effort is to improve reading levels of students, encourage a
lifelong love of literature and reading, and encourage use of the Public Library resources
available to county residents.
2. This project is designed to provide an opportunity for our citizens to read and discuss a
single book together for pleasure and enlightenment and to participate in related activities.
3. This project will provide the teens in our area with engaging, educational, and enlightening
programs.
4. The goal of this project is to extend the library’s capacity to improve the early literacy and
digital literacy skills of young children through literacy training provided to their parents and
caregivers.
5. This project will make off-campus students’ experiences more academically robust through
enhanced and revolutionized library services.
6. This project will provide access to the latest interactive whiteboard technology to preservice teachers, teaching faculty, teaching librarians, and instructional developers; and will
provide professional development to teaching librarians and teaching faculty who, will
model more sophisticated uses of interactive whiteboard technology for students.
7. The primary goal of the Literacy Springboard project is to provide increased library
resources, trained tutors, and easier access to both to adults in our county who have
trouble with basic reading.
8. The library will improve library users’ digital literacy and accessibility to online resources by
providing PC skill instruction with a focus on job searching and business incubation.
9. The goals of this project are making technology and digital information readily available to
the citizens of our county and assisting them with the effective use of both.
10. The Laptops for Literacy project will bring training, job readiness, and microenterprise
opportunities to survivors of domestic violence.
11. The Public Library will create a Storytelling Maker Space, equipped with cutting edge
technology and manipulatives, for parents to explore with their children while creating
stories.
12. The college library will conduct a planning project that will assess current space and user
needs for each of the seven campus libraries.
13. The county library will develop a strategic plan for the next three years to expand programs
and services to its service community.
14. The goal of this project is to develop a plan for services and resources that will attract
current and future users to the library for support, for opportunities for self-expression, and
to fulfill their informational needs.
15. The university library will take the lead to comprehensively plan for the libraries’
technology-mediated services and replacement of the consortium’s shared integrated
library system (ILS).
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 4 of 13
16. This planning project will assess the existing spaces in the college library and determine how
they can be repurposed and reconfigured to maximize their usage without conducting any
physical renovations.
17. The project will provide Domestic Violence victims with public access computers and digital/
information literacy learning on site.
18. The purpose of this RFID project is to strengthen patron services by providing more
convenience, a more accurate inventory, increased privacy and efficiency, and to increase
personal service.
19. The university library will digitize and create an online exhibit of the James G. Peeler
photographs.
20. The project will build a collection of 6,000 digital items through collaboration among three
of the region’s most appropriate partners.
21. The Laptop Lab+ project will enrich the lives of adults in the county by increasing their
ability to access and successfully use computer and internet resources.
22. The public library will partner with community agencies to improve library services to
homeless individuals and to raise awareness of the issues of homelessness in the
community.
23. The public library and literacy council will work together to provide computer and
technology classes for the public, literacy students and literacy tutors.
Activity #3b
Identifying outcomes
Form groups of 4 then agree on a goal from the list, or make one of your own, and create a list
of outcomes that might result from that goal.
Outcome 1:
Outcome 2:
Outcome 3:
Outcome 4:
Outcome 5:
Outcome 6:
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 5 of 13
Activity #3c
Project activities
Create a list of key tasks/activities required to achieve your outcomes.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 6 of 13
LSTA Evaluation and Outcome Measures
Tuesday October 15th 1:30-4:30
Inputs The resources that you put into a project or program. For example, personnel, time,
money, venue, or equipment contributed by the library or its partners to support a project.
Outputs The activities conducted or products created by a project or program. For example, the
number of items digitized, the number of visits to a project website, the number of participants
in a workshop, the number of programs given.
Outcomes The changes or benefits that result to target audiences from a project or program.
Outcomes answer the question “So what?” and include changes in attitude, learning, behavior,
skills, or life conditions. For example, participants’ increased knowledge of digital literacy skills
due to courses taught by the library, or participants in career building workshops who get jobs
using the skills learned.
Indicators: Measurable conditions or behaviors that show an outcome was achieved. Example:
Outcome
Library staff will improve their
knowledge of how to search and
use electronic genealogy resources
Indicators (fill in target numbers for # and %)



# and % staff who can describe how to conduct an
effective electronic search for genealogy information
# and % of staff score 80 or better on 3 searches
prescribed in a quiz
# and % staff can identify 3 effective search engines
Quantitative research gathers data in numerical form. This data can be put in categories,
ranked in order, measured in units, etc. Quantitative data can be used to construct graphs,
charts, and tables of raw data. Surveys, transactions, counting (people, things, events, etc.).
Qualitative research gathers information that is not numerical in form. For example, open
ended questionnaires, interviews with patrons, focus groups, photographic journals, etc.
Qualitative research often delves into the way that people think or feel. This data is descriptive
in nature and as such is harder to analyze than quantitative data. Qualitative research is by
nature exploratory.
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 7 of 13
Activity #4
Input, output, or outcome?
For each of the items in the list below, use a check mark to categorize it as an input, output, or
outcome.
Input
Output
Outcome
240 volunteer hours contributed
16,000 e-book circulations
Increased digital literacy skills
75 workshops taught
LSTA grant funding for a mobile computing lab
Improved understanding of nutrition and health
Change in target audience attitude toward library
Activity #5
Write your own
Based on the scenario provided below, work in groups to brainstorm two inputs, two outputs,
and two outcomes that could be measured for this project.
Scenario: Amount requested: $10,000. Southern County’s youngest children need a boost
toward future reading success. Toward this goal we wish to expand our current Bouncing
Babies program which serves children ages 0 to 2. The Bouncing Babies program demonstrates
and teaches pre-literacy skills while entertaining and providing socialization. These pre-literacy
skills include print motivation, book and print awareness, sound awareness, vocabulary,
alphabet knowledge and language development. The program teaches through the use of
rhythm, rhyme, reading, storytelling, and flannels, puppets. Parents and caregivers learn how
to expand on this instruction when they interact with their children at home.
Input 1:
Input 2:
Output 1:
Output 2:
Outcome 1:
Outcome 2:
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 8 of 13
Activity #6
Setting up indicators for outcome measures
Work either alone or in groups. Choose one of the outcome measures that you developed in
activity #2 or #5, or choose a new outcome. Develop 2-3 indicators that you might use to
evaluate your success in meeting the outcome.
Outcome:
Condition
Example: Given a digital
resource at the library
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
Observable behaviour
Students will be able to
find it using the library’s
website
Standard
Within a period of 3
minutes
October 2013
Page 9 of 13
Activity #7
Qualitative versus quantitative
Read the project abstract below and brainstorm qualitative and quantitative measures that
might help you evaluate the program. How would each method help with evaluation?
The Library's "Laptops for Literacy" project will bring training, job readiness, and
microenterprise opportunities to survivors of domestic violence. Staff will work with women
from the local home for abused women and children to provide laptop computers for one-onone tutoring and hands-on classes at the library. Job Link and the NC Small Business and
Technology Development Center will collaborate with the library to provide further resources
and training for the women. The project aims to be a path to employment and economic
security for these women. Survivors of domestic violence will increase their digital literacy
skills, job readiness, and awareness of microenterprise opportunities, improving their chances
of long term security.
Quantitative:
Quantitative:
Qualitative:
Qualitative
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 10 of 13
Activity #8
Critiquing an evaluation plan
Work together in small groups. Read the project goals, outcomes, and evaluation plan below for
a multi-year architectural digitization grant. Critique both the outcomes and the evaluation
plan. What areas do you see for improvement? How would you change it? What specifically
would you change or add to the evaluation plan? Group work: 15 minutes.
PROJECT GOALS
The project will create for users an unparalleled resource for the study of architecture in North
Carolina through primary resources. Through the project the Libraries will make information on
North Carolina’s architectural heritage more accessible to scholars, researchers, and the
broader public by systematically digitizing and hosting on the web at least 5,000 architectural
drawings and up to 32,000 manuscript pages. Providing online access will facilitate the
teaching, learning, and research by faculty, students, architectural historians, architects, and
preservationists, as well as the large public interested in architecture. An end product of this
grant will also be the creation of instructor-based learning resources that will help educators
promote the use of primary sources pertaining to architectural history. This will in turn launch
further discovery of other resources at the Libraries.
OUTCOMES
1. Enhance the teaching, learning, and awareness of the development of architectural
practices and their economic impact across North Carolina by university faculty, other
educators, and students.
2. We would like our audiences be able to employ primary sources as a key means of
studying, understanding, and interpreting architecture by the end of the project.
3. Enrich the work of academic researchers.
4. Develop a deeper understanding of how researchers search for digitized special
collections and use digital collections discovery platforms.
5. Deliver project assets to reach a wide and diverse audience of staff, faculty, and
students; North Carolina educators; architectural historians, scholars of urban planning
and studies, sociologists, and cultural historians; and the general public through the
display of drawings and manuscript materials with informative metadata.
EVALUATION PLAN
A number of outputs from the project will be measured to monitor progress. These include:
 Total number of items scanned and digital objects created, metadata records created
and additional learning resources created will be obtained through monitoring digital
production. Digital production outputs will be assessed on a weekly basis when
production begins and a monthly basis afterwards. Digital production of manuscript
pages will indicate the success of the planned workflows and equipment. The number of
learning resources created will be determined at the end of each project year.
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 11 of 13

Total number of people using the digital resources and web site; effectiveness and ease
of use of digital collections discovery platform. The number of people using the digital
resources and project site can be obtained through web statistical software, i.e., Google
Analytics. Project staff will solicit feedback regarding ease of use during advisory group
meetings and the usability studies, to be conducted in Year Two of the project, will
provide measurable evidence. We also expect unsolicited feedback, in the form of
patron duplication orders and email and phone inquiries, once materials begin
appearing online. Staff will analyze patron queries (including type, level, and nature) and
evaluate how well the resource answers researcher questions and meets user needs.
The Libraries is committed to tracking use of its online resources. The Digital Program
and other units in the Libraries use Google Analytics for tracking visits to web-based
resources

The Libraries is also committed to collecting data on the usability of the digital resources
and platforms. In Year Two of the project, staff will conduct two usability studies to
gather information about user interaction with the web site and discovery platform in
order to evaluate how successful the project end products are in providing users with
information.

Total number of people using physical collections related to project materials
It is expected that the digital resources will, in effect, promote the existing of the
physical collection. During the course of the grant we will measure use of the physical
collections from which resources are drawn, and we will attempt to determine the
extent to which the existence of digital materials are related to patron requests for
physical materials.
Critique of evaluation plan:
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 12 of 13
Activity #9
Creating context for data
Work together in small groups. Given the data and scenario below, brainstorm what additional
pieces of data you would want to know in order to create a well-contextualized narrative to give
meaning to these outputs, including more detail, longitudinal data, or new information.
Abstract: The library at Downtown University is currently going through a renovation to bring in
new technologies and use the library's space effectively. The library and the writing center are
planning a collaborative effort called Mobile Reference to help with noise and space concerns
of both students and faculty and to enhance the reference services and writing services that
both departments already provide separately. Mobile Reference involves setting up work space
in different, non-library locations on campus a few days a week so that students can receive
help from both the writing center and library. With this service, both departments will be able
to give students writing and reference help in one location, away from the noise of the current
renovations happening at the library and around campus. This will provide students with
consistent help and a pleasant environment that will encourage learning and teamwork. The
regular reference desk will remain open, but will be near the construction zone.
Outputs:
 3 mobile locations
 5,000 customers
 8,000 reference transactions
 Mobile Reference customer survey:
o 240 people were happy with the service
o 260 said they would use the service again
Additional data needed to provide a well-contextualized report of the data:
NCLA Pre-Conference Handout
State Library of North Carolina
October 2013
Page 13 of 13