2014-11-17

The Mortenson Center for International Library Programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been awarded a $521,014 three-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which will help make leadership training accessible to librarians around the world.

With the funding, the Center will work toward strengthening library training providers’ ability to deliver high-quality leadership training to public librarians in order to help them position their libraries to meet critical community needs and to offer access to information and knowledge.

“There is a need for easy-to-use, high-quality, and affordable library leadership training materials in many areas of the world. With the help of this grant, we hope to develop these materials in a multimedia format, and make them widely available and accessible,” said the Center’s Associate Director Susan Schnuer. “What an exciting opportunity.”

During the development of the training materials, the Center will pilot-test them with three different library training providers in three distinct geographical locations: Myanmar, Namibia, and Armenia. The library training providers in these countries will then train 100 public and community librarians in their respective countries. An evaluation report will capture the development process and the impact of the training materials.

The Mortenson Center for International Library Programs seeks to strengthen international ties among libraries and librarians worldwide for the promotion of international education, understanding, and peace. More than 1,200 librarians from 90 countries have participated in its professional development programs. For more information, visit www.library.illinois.edu/mortenson/ .

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