Christine Degyansky
Meghan Tucker
Kristi Tyler
Brief Description of the Project
We will be working with Dr. Olson on his study of library support of
genealogists and family historians. This study will aim to “determine the
current state of public library support for genealogists and family historians.
It would involve random visits to various places, online surveys of historians
and genealogists and telephone interviews with both” (Olson, 2013).
Organization
St. John’s University
Key Contact
Dr. Olson – olsonj@stjohns.edu
Grant Program
We are going to apply to the Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant. This
grant is “given annually to one of more librarians or library educators who
will conduct innovative research that could lead to an improvement in
services to any specified group(s) of people” (Carroll Preston Baber Research
Grant, 2013). The deadline for this grant is December 20, 2013. They give
grants of up to $3,000. The grant is distributed in halves – twice within one
month of the ALA Annual Conference and the other half six months later after
the progress has been reviewed as satisfactory by the Carroll Preston Baber
Research Grant Jury Chair. Any ALA member may apply to get this grant.
They state that “the project should aim to answer a question that is of vital
importance to the library community and the researchers should plan to
provide documentation of the results of their work” (Carroll Preston Baber
Research Grant, 2013).
There were several other grants related to historical research on this website
which can also be good options for us such as the Gale Cenage History
Research ($2,500) or the Innovation Award or the Emerald Research Grant
Award ($5,000).
Funding Source
The funding source is the American Library Association.
According to Stanley E. Portny in his book Project Management for Dummies,
he states that there are three main components that define a project. They are
having a specific scope, making a schedule, and figuring out what you will need to
complete this project (Portny, 2013). We discussed these components together as a
group and what we thought we would need to achieve and when to get our proposal
done. Since this is a pretty big project, it can seem overwhelming if you look at the
entire thing. If you can add in some stepping stones along the way it seems much
less threatening. We talked about possible meeting times and what we hoped to
accomplish on these dates. We also discussed finding books to help us expand our
knowledge on writing grant proposals. Ultimately, we decided that as long as we
stay on top of our work and make sure to work throughout the semester whether it
be when we meet in person or share documents online in some way, we will be able
to meet our deadlines.
Scope
We are going to write a grant to obtain sufficient funding for Dr. Olson’s
study, which will determine the current state of public library support for
genealogists and family historians. We will have about three months to
complete this proposal, which is due on December 3, 2013. We have figured
out a tentative schedule, which may change throughout the course of the
semester which we have attempted to align with other assignments from the
syllabus. We have also obtained several books on grant writing that we will
use to aid us in our proposal.
Schedule (Subject to Change)
October 7 – Group meeting to discuss possible Grant proposal ideas
October 8 – Present our Grant Proposal Ideas and possible funding sources in
Discussion Board on Blackboard
October 21 – Meet with group to go over concepts from Grant Proposals For
Dummies to get a better idea of how we are going to propose this grant.
November 18 – Group meeting about budget plan for grant
November 26 – Completion of rough draft of grant.
December 3 – Final Grant Proposal Due
December 16 – Submission of Revised Grant
Required Resources
The resources are our selves. We are going to have to plan to meet as a group
to work on these projects and meet these deadlines together based upon the
outlines provided for us by Dr. Olson on his needs for his study. We are also
going to be using resources such as Grant Writing For Dummies and other
books about grant writing that we will obtain from local libraries or
bookstores.
Works Cited
Browning, Beverly A. (2011). Grant Writing For Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons.
Carroll Preston Baber (2013). Research Grant in ALA American Library
Association. Retrieved October 8, 2013, from
www.ala.org/awardsgrants/awards/55/apply.
Olson, Jeffrey. Personal communication. October 7, 2013.
Portny, Stanley E. (2013). Project Management for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley Publishing.