ResourceBlog Article: University of North Texas Receives $1.6 Million Grant for Texas Rural Librarians Project

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Sunday, 20th June 2010

University of North Texas Receives $1.6 Million Grant for Texas Rural Librarians Project

From an Article:

With a nearly $1.6 million grant from the Robert and Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, the Department of Library and Information Sciences in the University of North Texas College of Information will begin a three-year project, Promoting & Enhancing the Advancement of Rural Libraries, or PEARL. The project addresses the roles of small rural libraries in Texas as community resources and gathering places.

PEARL will target staff members in approximately 105 libraries located in towns with populations of 25,000 or less. The towns are all located in 83 counties stretching from Johnson, Montague, Parker and Wise counties to the east, the New Mexico border to the west, Crockett, Kimble and Sutton counties to the south, and the Oklahoma border to the North.

The library staff members will receive training and mentoring from five UNT students and an outreach coordinator. The students will be enrolled in the College of Information’s Certificate of Advanced Study program with an emphasis in rural librarianship. The Priddy grant will pay for their tuition.

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Dr. Yunfei Du, UNT assistant professor of library and information sciences and principal investigator of PEARL, said very few librarians in small towns have library science degrees or receive continuing education training. Yet libraries in rural towns, he said, may often be more in demand from patrons than libraries in cities and suburbs, since the library may be one of the few places in a rural town where people can use a computer and access the Internet.

“Public libraries in rural communities face enormous challenges because, while experiencing increases in demand for services, they simultaneously deal with declining tax bases, lack of an educated workforce, decreasing funding and an aging population,” he said.

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Source: North Texas e-News

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