Loyola Marymount University’s William H. Hannon Library will continue its successful training program for academic librarians for at least the next three years, thanks to another federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The Institute for Research Design in Librarianship began with a 2013 grant awarded to the Hannon Library. The program provided training to 60 librarians from around the country in the fundamentals of academic research, from designing and conducting research projects to disseminating the results. The latest grant is for nearly $400,000 over the next three years.
“The Institute has been a major success,” said Kristine Brancolini, dean of the library at LMU. “Librarian researchers from dozens of institutions have participated and taken their new skills back to their home institutions. This grant will allow us to build on those successes.”
Brancolini, along with Marie Kennedy, Serials and Electronic Resources Librarian, developed and will co-direct the project. It will include a series of workshops hosted at LMU each summer, featuring intensive in-class exercises and hands-on writing sessions led by social sciences researchers and library faculty from several institutions.
After the summer program ends, participants will return to their home libraries to continue their research, with mentorship opportunities provided by the institute. Under this model, library scholars can establish a personal learning network to support them in future research, and encourage and motivate other information professionals to engage in research work.
Kennedy, principal investigator of the project, said the library is exploring changes to the Institute, such as shorter summer workshops and a formal mentorship program to complement the peer mentors already in place. “Our goal is to make IRDL a self-sustaining project by the end of this grant,” she said.
The project is a partnership among LMU, the School of Information Science at San José State University, and the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium.
For more information regarding the project, or to learn more about how to participate in the institute, visit the project website: www.irdlonline.org.
