 Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am Krista Burns at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the commission's weekly online event where we cover all sorts of NLC activities and any sort of topics that may be of interest to Nebraska library staff. We have presenters from the commission that do our Encompass Lives and we do sometimes bring in guest speakers. We do these every, normally every Wednesday at 10 a.m. central time. They're free sessions last for an hour. This week we are doing it on a special day on a Thursday because we were closed yesterday on Wednesday for Veteran's Day. So we will get started here. This morning we are going to be hearing about continuing education, training, library improvement grants, all that are offered via the Nebraska Library Commission. So I am going to pass the microphone over to a group of staff from here and they can get started. Good morning. My name is Katherine Brockmeyer. I am a research analyst here at the Nebraska Library Commission and I will be bringing us through the majority of this PowerPoint presentation and information. I am joined today by Laura Johnson, the Continuing Education Coordinator and also Richard Miller, the Library Development Director and they will be available to answer specific questions that you might have that I would not be able to answer because they might be specific to the grant that you are applying for or thinking about applying for. So welcome and just a little bit, okay, just a moment here, okay. So welcome to this webinar. So good to have you here. Perhaps your role in your library is as a library director or maybe library staff. You may be a trustee or a member of your friends or foundation board and the biggest part of your credentials to writing a grant should be courage. That's why I have the badge of courage up there because it does take courage to tackle writing a grant, especially if it's your first time. So I hope you are able to hang in there with me for this presentation and then if you do have questions at the end we will do our best to answer them. If time does not allow, then you can also send emails specifically to either Richard or Laura or to me and we'll do our best to help you out. I tried to star all of the cities where the people had registered. So if your star is not on there, apologize and I tried to get it as accurate as possible for the geography of Nebraska. So there you are. Let's start with the online information. Sorry, one moment. We're going to start with the online information. And these are the website addresses. And so you can look at the general. The first one is the grants for library development. The second one is the continuing education grants. And the third one is the LSTA grant, but that has been renamed to library improvement grant. So you see those three addresses there. And be sure that you read very carefully for the information presented on these pages to be in compliance with the requirements for each of the grants. In general, we're going to talk a little bit about NLC grant guidelines. There are various libraries that are eligible and there are some libraries that are not eligible. The ones, we'll talk about those in a second. And each of these two grants, you might be here to learn about one or the other and I'll try to address both of them or you might be here to learn about both of them. But they have purposes and activities or priorities. And then they talk about the type of support that they offer and they have separate deadlines and you need to pay attention to those. Please note that the unicameral will be meeting in a special session in November and it is expected to approve budget cuts to our state agencies. So the amount of money available for grants is likely to be less but we will inform the community of any such reductions as the information becomes available. So eligible entities for CE training grants, accredited public libraries, and you may be in conjunction with a recognized community organization or agency but the accredited public library must be the lead on the grant application. It also may be a group or consortia of public libraries. It may be a regional library system or state-run institutions and you can get the complete list of state-run institutions on the website. For library improvement grants, again accredited Nebraska Public Libraries, identified institutional libraries, Nebraska Regional Library Systems, and again other organizations can partner with an eligible entity for purposes of submitting a grant application for a collaborative project. Let's talk about the priorities of each of the grants. For the continuing education and training grant, the primary priority is to assist Nebraska libraries to provide improved library services to their communities through continuing education and training for their library personnel and supporters. Please keep that in mind as you are thinking about the program that you wish to have, the program or activity that you wish to have funded. Library board members, volunteers and advocates and other supporters may be included in the training as appropriate so you do see the eligibility there as well. For library improvement grants, the priority or purpose is to facilitate growth and development of library programs and services in Nebraska Public and institutional libraries by supplementing local funding with federal funds designated for these purposes. Additional priorities for the CE and training grant applications from libraries cooperating with other libraries or entities will be given first consideration and also applications from libraries which have never received a continuing education and training grant will also be given preference. That is under the continuing education and training grant. What types of support are available for each of these grants? For the CE and training grant projects which develop the knowledge and skills of Nebraska library personnel in furtherance of the institution's mission. And by institution I mean the library's mission. Yes. Not our mission but the library's mission. And a range of awards from $250 to $5,000. Please note that this, you cannot request the cost of academic education for individuals or the cost of attending statewide professional conferences. Please note that statewide. For the library improvement grants, you must address one or more of the six LSTA purposes and that is available at this web address. And the minimum grant award is $500. Right now there's no cap on it because we're still waiting to hear about funding. Deadlines, please note that these are separate deadlines. The continuing education and training grant is available already. It is due in about a month and the recipients will be announced about a month later. The library improvement grant is already available. It is due January 6th of 2010. The recipients will be announced about a month later. Because these are two different grants with various distinct requirements for each of the applications, I'm going to talk about three major principles of writing a grant application that you should be able to apply to your specific grant. And the three organizing principles that I'm going to talk about today are program marketing and the financial. So the first one that we're going to look at, the first component, is the program component. And if you look at this, there are six parts to this principle. And if you address each one of these, you should be able to plug them into the requirements or the questions that are asked of you for either the continuing education and training grant or for the library improvement grant. And they are the problem statement or need statement, your goals and objectives, your methodology, how you're going to carry out your goals and objectives, a publicity plan, an evaluation plan, and an impact statement. So the first thing that you might consider writing or thinking about is your rationale. Why are you doing this? Not why are you asking for the money? Why do you want to do what you need to do to get funding? And you need to be able to substantiate that. So you're showing a need. You may talk about the community's needs or the patron's needs or even the staff's needs. Not we need the money. You want to describe the target audience. If you're providing funding for staff to do something, that's your target audience. If you're providing a program for your patrons or for the community, that is your target audience. Be sure that you can tell your story through your need statement or your problem statement. This should come through very clearly. And in this area, you want to stay focused on your need and not the solution. Goals and objectives, your goals are based on the vision of where you want the program or target population to be when the grant period is over. And you ought to be able to look at this that you can write it in one sentence. And goals tend to start out with the word to or will. And it does include the target population. So we are going to do something for somebody. And you might also put in, yeah, we'll leave it at that. Objectives, this is where your measurements or timelines go. These are specific, measurable outcomes of your program. And this is where you're going to deliver on what you said your problem was. So these are your promised improvements in the situation you described in your problem statement. So you might reduce, you might increase, or you might provide. So for increase, you might increase the capacity of your staff to address a certain issue in your library. That would be maybe a CE training grant. Or you might be providing a service to improve whatever it is that your community needs, whatever the issue is in your community. Another section that will be asked of you in various ways in the two grants. And again, they might be asked in a slightly different way, but if you prepare this, you will be able to figure out where to plug it in. Or if you go ahead and look at the grant applications, I did ask that you might print some of these out so that you can take a look. The first thing you want to do is clearly tell the reader what you will do. So this is your solution to the problem from your need statement. And then you state the reasons for selection of activities. So there are different ways that you can go about solving a problem or addressing an issue, but you've chosen a path and you need to describe why. Also you need to describe who's going to perform the tasks and what they're responsible for. So you have staff that are committed or volunteers that are committed already, that they're going to commit a certain number of hours or they're going to be responsible for a particular task. You also want to describe your sequence of activities. And you can include a timeline. This way it demonstrates you've thought your program through. There's a beginning and an end and a middle. And toward the end or even in the middle, don't forget to include part of this as evaluation and reporting. You may want to go halfway through and take a look at what you're doing and how things are going, but also at the end reports are required for these two grants. And so you want to include that you recognize that part of what you're going to do as your project will be evaluation and reporting. So basically to just condense it, you're going to talk about what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, who's going to do it and when. A publicity plan, it's also might be called communications, how you're going to communicate, depending on which question you're answering, whether it's for the CE grant or for the library improvement grant. So one thing is how will you communicate with your target audience? Also, how will you promote your program or service to your target audience? And that might be marketing or promotion. And then another part of publicizing is how will you let others know about this program or project? Are you going to advertise? Are you going to send out press releases? Are you going to present at Kiwanis? These sorts of things. Because the community needs to know that you're improving something at your library. So those are three components that you might address in your publicity plan. And then what I've already talked about before, which is definitely asked for in each of the grants, is evaluation. So how are you going to know if your program or the training that was provided was effective? And this covers outputs, outcomes and process. Outputs are numbers. So how many participated or how many classes were offered? This sort of thing. Outcomes is more of an impact. How did this affect the community? How did this affect the library? And then also the process. How did it go for you? What are your lessons learned from doing this? You might talk about how you were going to gather your information. Are you going to get testimonials? Observations? You might even look at if you're providing computer classes. Does your usage of the computer lab increase? So that might be pre- and post-testing as well. So you might, if you're offering a class, give them a baseline. And then at the end of their class, find out how much they learned by doing another post-test. Interviews, activity logs and performance reports. And so one way to look at what you're going to say you're going to do is to see what is required of you for your final report. And each of these grants does require a final report and they do give you guidelines. So you might just follow those guidelines and address them in your grant application. That is one way to easily outline the evaluation section of your grant application. An impact statement. This illustrates the impact your program will have on your staff, on your library patients, on your community. And how is this project significant or unique? What makes your project stand out? And how is this addressing issues in your library or community? Again, this is where you look back at your needs or problems statement. And can the funder's money make a difference beyond the library? This is where outcomes come in, impact is, we'd like to know beyond the life of, I shouldn't say we, funders like to know that beyond the life of the program that something is going to continue past the duration of what they're funding. And you might look at your own mission statement or what the goals are of your Board of Trustees or your foundation. How is that helping you further your mission? And then also, if you come up with a great idea for a program, can others replicate your program? And, you know, is there a way that you can make that available to other libraries, for example? Okay, the second organizing principle is marketing. And this is where introduction comes in, your formatting and presentation of your grant application, learning a little bit more about your funder, and then the items that you're going to attach past what is required in the narrative. So the first thing is an introduction. And I looked at the grant, each of the grant applications for the CE grants and for the library improvement grants. And they don't exactly ask for an introduction. In each of the paragraphs they ask for some description of what you're going to do. But if you want to do something like include a cover letter, this is my suggestion. This is not what they have recommended. This is just something that I want for you to think about because it helps you focus what you're going to write about in the body of the application. You might introduce your library. Of course, the library commission ought to know a little bit about every library. But this is where you can kind of toot your own horn. You might talk about your organizational background. You might share if you have a mission or vision or purpose and the goals of your organization. I describe some of the relative library programs that you offer or previous training that your staff have received. You might talk about your patrons or your staff in general. This is where you might talk some about your collaboration. There is a place where you can talk about partners if you do have partners in the application. But this is a place where you might introduce your collaboration and you want to include your volunteer core there. If this is a cover letter, you want to make it short, interesting and free of jargon. So make sure that you're using terminology that is straightforward. And then I wrote in here that you may add a summary here and we're going to talk about summary in the third section. And I'll allude to that again. But again, a cover letter is perhaps a great way to, you can add it as an attachment, but it is a great way to basically like an abstract, you summarize everything that you put in your grant application. You may want to write your cover letter last. That's, or at least the part on this part right here, the introduction you may be able to write toward the beginning of preparing your application. But the summary you're going to want to do last. Okay, funder research. So the Nebraska Library Commission is offering funding and they have clearly stated what their priorities and their goals are. And so you want to make sure that this funding is a good match for what you're trying to accomplish. So check out their missions and their goals, their priorities, and you want to be able to clearly show that you are trying to match their funding with what you're trying to accomplish. This is again, see under marketing. See we are, this is still under the organizing principle of marketing. Also part of the organizational principle of marketing. Again, there's your cover letter where you can shine through your letters of support or your partnership letters if you're collaborating. There might be a certification statement and again that's where you need to clearly read through the requirements for your grant. I know that there is a certification statement that is required for the library improvement grant if you are seeking funding for computers. That are attached to the internet. So you need to read all the fine prints on the requirements for your grant application. There may be a signature page if required. Again, read that carefully, especially I think on one of them if you submit it online, you need to print out a signature page, fill it out and have it signed and mail it in. If you're looking for supplies, if you can, because you're going to be creating a budget, you need to show where you got your numbers. So you may try to get estimates from your suppliers so that you show justification for your budget. You may also want to list the materials that you hope to purchase. So perhaps I should have listed that above the estimate. And then if you're contracting with personnel, say somebody who's going to come in and do training for your staff, you may want to give a resume or background of them. Or if you're bringing somebody in to provide a program in your library, you may want to talk about their background as well. If somebody is going to a workshop and you might want to include the course descriptions or what they're going to concentrate on, if it is a workshop or conference that hasn't been published yet, please do look at previous conferences so that you have an idea of what's been offered, what they're going to be looking for when they do attend the conference. Okay, that was marketing. Now we're moving on to the third component, which is financial. And in the financial section, it is asked different ways in both of the grant applications. But one of the things that you want to look at is the project budget, which is where you've condensed all the numbers and you either put them into a table or you outline them very specifically. You give the number and then you briefly describe it. But then you have the budget justification or narrative. And this is where you write the story. You say we need X amount of dollars to provide this and Y. And then you talk about sustainability. So for example, if you are purchasing something and how are you going to maintain it for the life of whatever it is, or how are you going to continue a program after the funding runs out? Also dissemination, how are you going to share what you have accomplished with other people? Maybe you would like to give a workshop at NLA, NEMA, or you might submit an article for your regional library systems newsletter. Or you might be writing an article in the newspaper, your local newspaper. So how are you going to disseminate what you've accomplished or what you have completed? So the first component of this financial principle is the project budget. And again, this is where you link your dollar amounts to the components. So what and who that show up in your actions, tasks, and activities that you already wrote out. And so how much is that going to cost? So for example, salaries and wages, your staff and personnel, your volunteers. And don't discount the volunteers. Be sure you're including them if you're planning on using them. And then contracted services. You can also include your benefits. And you'll see that in the components of the two grant applications that are dedicated to this project. And please note, I mean dedicated to this project. You have somebody specific in mind, or you have maybe not a person, but you have a job that needs to be filled and that it is specific to this project. Another thing that some people ask for or use as match is travel and per diem. And by per diem, I mean if somebody's on the road, there's daily allowance for perhaps meals or lodging. Are there training costs or registration fees for the person who's participating in the training or the conference? And materials, supplies and equipment. If something is to be purchased, how much is it? If there's going to be some communication that's going to be done, letters that are going to be sent out. You might count in how much it costs to print or make copies. How much the postage is. If you're promoting a program or a class, you may place an ad in your newspaper. And so how much would that cost approximately? Please note that the grant funds can be no more than 75% of the total budget. So whatever your total budget is for this, it can be no more than 75%. And then the local funds, what you're going to pony up needs to be at least 25%. And please note that the combination of your in kind and your cash match. Now, your cash match must be a minimum of 10% of your total budget. Which includes what you're asking from your funder and what you are putting up toward the budget. If you have any questions about that, you need to talk with Laura and Richard. Once you get into your specific budget, if it's difficult to crunch the numbers, they can help you. So don't let that be a deterrent. You just need to please feel free to talk with somebody about it. So that you make sure you're really clear about what that 10% means. Because that tends to be one of the biggest questions when it comes to preparing the project budget. So here's an example, let me see. Here's an example of a budget. Perhaps you want to provide job search assistance to your patrons and your community. And so there's somebody on staff who is going to help prepare this class, get this class set up, work with a contractor. They also might be in charge of placing the ads or writing the newspaper articles or the newsletter articles. And they might also be taking care of the evaluation at the end. They might ask at their rate what they're making and what they think they are going to commit to this project is 20 hours. And let's say you make $18 an hour. What you're going to ask for from the grantor, from the Nebraska Library Commission is $300. And what you are also contributing is $60 of your own salary. And then let's say you're going to hire somebody who's going to come into the computer lab for, let's say, 20. They said they'll come in for 20 weeks and they'll be open two hours, they'll be available two hours a week, so that's 40 hours. And what they charge is $20 an hour. That comes to $800 and you are asking the Nebraska Library Commission for that. And then perhaps you have volunteers who will come in for half an hour for each session and help get people signed in and set up on their computers. That sort of thing. So that's 10 hours and there is a standard for Nebraska and it's approximately volunteer hours or worth $16 an hour. And if you need the specific link for that you can contact me. So that turns out to $160 and that does count as your match because it's worth something. It's worth $160. It is in kind. Please note that. Okay, so printing, maybe you want to make 25 posters that you are going to put around town or in your region. And you've talked with the person who is going to do your printing for you. Maybe it'll be professionally done and they charge a dollar each or maybe they give you a discount and it's going to come to a dollar each. And you have found somebody who is willing to write you a check for $25 to help cover the cost of your printing. There's your cash match. And then say that these classes, maybe it's a two or this is a class of two ten week sessions or something to that effect. You need 20 workbooks because you estimate that you're going to have 20 participants and they're $7 each. Perhaps you're friends or foundation or you're honest or somebody writes the check for $140 or you're able to find it in your own library budget. And so that is also considered cash match. So when you add up all of the cash and the in kind, it comes to $1,485. That is your total budget. What you're requesting from the funder is $300 plus $800 which is $1,100. And you see that that's 74% of your total budget which is under the 75% that you can request. Your total match is 25 plus 140 plus 60 plus 160. So those last two columns that comes to $385 or 26% of your total budget. So you have to have a minimum of 25% be your match and you made it because you're at 26%. Your cash match, the far right column, sorry, the middle column, $25 plus $140. That's what's been given to you. That's a check that's been written or allocated for your project. That comes to $165 and 165 divided by 1485 is 11% of your total budget. Which means you've met the requirement for a minimum of 10% cash match. Here's another one. You're going to send one of your staff to a leadership institute. They're going to MPLA and it's in Colorado. So they need to drive out there and because they might be staying overnight or see they're taking a private car, something to that effect. I estimated how much it is to get out there and back at 160 miles. You'd have to figure out what your mileage would be at 55 cents a mile. And the total is somewhere over $400. So $473, let's say. And of that you're going to ask about half or a little over half from the NLT. And then somewhere you're finding $205 either from your foundation or your friends. Or someone in town is graciously, or maybe you wrote a little grant to your community foundation, asking for this money to send one of your staff to MPLA. So they've got to drive out and they've got to drive back. And that's the per diem, which is the daily allowance. So they're not staying overnight in a hotel but you estimate how much the meals are going to cost on their way out and on the way back. At $30 a day, that's $60, you're requesting that from the Nebraska Library Commission. Then the institute that you're going to has a registration fee. And the registration fee for MPLA members is $450. And so you're asking for that from the NLT. And then to belong to MPLA, it's $55. And so this person will have a one year membership in MPLA. And perhaps you found the funding from a grant or you found some funding from your budget or from the foundation. Somehow the money you're providing is the $55 for the membership. So your total budget is a little over $1,000. What you're asking from the funder is your first column, 268 plus 60 plus 450. Your total match is cash, actually it's $260. And that makes 25% of your total budget. And your cash match is all of that. That's about $260 or 25% of your total budget, which is over the 10% required. And you can move some things around. As you see, I split up the mileage. When I first looked at this, I tried to figure out what is 25% of the total budget. And then I figured out that the commission would be able to provide some of that and that your library would be able to provide some of that. So again, if numbers are not your thing, this is where your phone call comes in. This is where you call Richard or Laura. The budget justification or narrative, there is a place for each of these applications that ask you to write out the amount you're requesting, what percentage of the total budget you're requesting. So it needs to be 75% or less. And then detail behind the budget line items. Talk specifically about what you're planning to do with each of these. And by that I mean, whether you're asking from them or providing it yourself, you need to address everything on this budget. You need to talk about the mileage, the per diem, the institute registration fee, and the dues. And on the previous one, you need to talk about your staff, your contractor, your volunteers, your printing and your workbooks. And I would recommend that you narrate your line items in the same order as your budget or in the same order that they're requested on the grant application. So they are asked in different orders for the CE grant versus the library improvement grant. But if you can match that up, it makes it a lot easier for the grant reviewer. Sustainability, we're still under financial principle. The funding sources want to know how you're going to continue, maintain, or support your program after the funding runs out. So after the training is over, what's going to happen? Your staff is going to come back and what are they going to do? After you've offered 20 sessions of job search, how might you continue to support this program even though you're not providing the class? Or are you going to be able to find some funding somewhere else? You've talked to somebody who said that they might be able to help you continue what you're going to do. Or are you going to rather than use the contract or find a volunteer? So another thing that you might look at is can this program be replicated? So it wasn't such a good idea that you'd like to share it with other libraries that they might be able to use the same idea. And then another part of sustainability can be dissemination. So how are you going to share your information about the activities and results? Maybe you'll present at NLA or NEMA. Perhaps you will share this with your Chamber of Commerce. You might write an article up for the Regional Library System newsletter. Or you might try to run a series in your local newspaper. So those are just ideas. Those don't have to be the only ideas. Perhaps you have something else in mind. So you have completed all of these components. You've plugged them into the different places on your grant application. You found where those matched up for you. And you're at the end. And congratulations. You've done it all. You've done all of the components that you could. And so this is where you really know what you're talking about. You really can describe this in a nutshell. So I recommend this is not required of the grant. But if you're going to write a cover letter and you've already introduced your organization, your population, all those sorts of things, I would recommend that you kind of create an abstract and summarize everything that is in your grant application narrative. So you write it last. You be brief. You grab the most significant sentences from each section of your narrative. And if you can write this, you know you have made your point. Because in each section of the narrative, they should be able to get to the end of that paragraph and say, I get it. This is where you talk about your proposed initiative, your program design, plan of action, your problem statement, your goals, your measurable objectives, and your impact on your problem. So basically this is a condensation of each section of your earlier part of your application. You should be able to make your point on each of these sections and summarize. Okay. Here we are at the end of my portion of the presentation. And this is the time we have about 10 minutes that we can open up the floor or a little over 10 minutes if it takes us a little bit longer. And we started a little bit late. So this is where you can ask me specific questions or you can ask Laura or Richard specific questions. I didn't mute them, but they've been here the whole time. And I'm going to hand the mouse over to Krista, who's going to take a look at any questions that you may have already entered into the questions section. What I'm going to do also is for anyone who does have a microphone, I'm going to unmute all of you guys who are attending. So if you do have a microphone in a second, just feel free to use that. If you don't, just use the questions section of your go-to-webinar interface and type in any question you have there if you don't have fun of your own. I'm going to go ahead and start talking because I skipped a slide. Are we unmuted? Click on that. Is it going to go? Here we go. This is under marketing and presentation. Some of these are online applications, but you want to make sure you provide what is requested and you follow the directions. And you want to be sure that you're coherent and logical. So if it helps, have somebody else on staff read it. Pay attention to your grammar and spelling. What's recommended for the online applications is that you go ahead and do this in Word or Works in some sort of computer application and then you copy and paste some of that. You use bullet points. You can do that in your cover letter or in your attachments. However, you can't do bullet points in the online and so what I recommend is that you do asterisks possibly to bring out your important points. And then be sure, no, Richard and Laura, just close your ears here, but speak their language. If they say they have a priority, you compare it that back because then they know that you get it. You understand that what they're offering matches your mission of this project. So use the funder's vocabulary. Go back to their priorities. Go to those six goals, those six LSTA goals, if what you're asking for is a library improvement grant. Look specifically at what those goals are and how they're worded. And if you find a perfect match, go ahead and use it. Say how you're going to do it, but this way it is very, very clear to them because you're speaking their language. Okay. And then I did overhear a gentleman's couple little bit too, but... Are we unmuted? Yes, you are. Oh, okay, hi. I'm Dennis Norris. I'm with Nancy Sherwood at the All Public Library in Red Cloud. How is everyone today? Can you guys hear me? Yeah. Yes, we can. Go ahead. Okay, I have a question about the library improvement grants. I have a couple questions about them. One, the way I understand it, this is federal money through the IMLS that comes to the state and then you guys administer the grant process. And because of that, would that not be affected by the current budget talks that are going on? This is Richard Miller. What Rod Weidner has said is that depending on what kind of cuts we get in terms of state money, we may have to use some of the federal money that normally would go out in aid to help the operation here. And we just don't know that at this point. There's not a definite line between those two depending on what kind of cuts come down during the special session. So that's all we know at this point. And it is really open. We have no idea what's going to happen with that session at this point. Okay. Okay, thank you. Well, the other question with the same grant opportunity is, is there, well, I don't even know if you could answer this at this point, but is there a maximum amount we can request or a cap from the library improvement grants? That's correct. Yes, that is correct. Just remember, I know a little bit of something about your situation. Just remember that we no longer have any federal money for library construction projects. So just keep that in mind. That was a separate part of LSTA Title II some years ago, which the Congress saw fit not to refund. Would that apply to functional changes for people with, or I should say construction changes for people with disabilities? Construction money can be used even for ADA reconstruction. That's unfortunate, but that's in the guidelines. So we, so that means, so you're saying we do not qualify, correct? The funds may be used for that, right? I'm sorry. The answers are cutting out. I just want to make sure that we heard correctly that there are no more federal funds available for construction, even if it applies to those with handicaps. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, thank you. Does anyone have any other questions open? The floor is open. All of your microphones are unmuted, or if you don't have one, as I said, just type into your questions section in your interface, and we can read it off of there and answer you. Is there anything about my presentation that I can clarify for you? For those of you who printed out your applications in advance, were you able to see the crosswalk between the sections that I talked about and the sections that are requested of the application? Sure. I can run you through the websites real quickly. For example, this is the Continuing Education and Training Grants page. Again, you want to read from beginning to end. You can see where some of the limitations are. You see the grant deadlines, and then you see the forms. Be sure you look through all of the forms. Here you have an application. There are application instructions. There's criteria for selection. There's room for frequently asked questions. And then the evaluation form, you can see how they grade along what dimensions they grade your application. There are some extra tips there for you. Again, I was talking about planning your evaluation if you use the final report form that might inform how you plan your evaluation. For example, on the long form, be sure you read all of this. For example, faxes will not be accepted. What time exactly you must submit or mail in. Here you see, describe the program you wish to implement that staff, volunteers, board need training to do. This is your goal. You're talking about your target population. Or the situation that needs training to improve. You're talking about your need. So there it is. Or the need that training will fulfill. Here it does specifically ask about your goals. I think also your objectives would fit in here quite well, because you're talking about quantitatively, that you're going to provide something to so many people, or that library user satisfaction will increase by a certain amount or by a certain percentage. Background information. Again, this is where you might talk a little bit about your organization or your needs in your community. Description of training or educational activities. Again, this is your tasks and activities section. I mentioned the timeline for completion of the project. I mentioned talking about who's going to be involved, if you're contracting, if you're bringing in somebody. This might be the space where you can give their qualifications. That sort of thing. Here's your impact statement. And this should, I think, say users, target number of library users, who will be impacted by this project. So a little typo. Here's your budget narrative. There is your budget. I'm scrolling down because I want to show you your budget first. And I would discuss your budget narrative in the order that these are requested right here to help them match those up. So be pretty specific about what you're asking for. And you can always talk with Laura about what you can ask for, as well. She might say, well, you say you're going to do this. Well, how are you going to pay for this other section? You might describe something else as well, something that you just didn't think of. She might be able to help you think of that. Also, there's your means of evaluation, your measures of success with both outputs and outcomes. And this is defined for you here. And this is where you meet your objectives. After you've written your objectives, this is how you're meeting your objectives. And here's your dissemination. Would you make a presentation at a state or system event or via teleconference? You're letting them know that you're willing to disseminate your results past to other libraries or to the general public. Real quickly, I just want to look at the library improvement grant. Laura, did you have a comment on this? I wanted people to understand that, number one, we really want to get the money. We want you to have this money. We want these programs to be a success. But because we're responsible for the money and because sometimes this is a competitive situation where we have many people vying for the same dollar, we have to make a determination of what projects we think are going to work the best. And what tells us that is if you have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve and that you can tell us what you want to do and give us enough details that we really understand what's going on, and we want enough description of your project to know that you've thought it through and that you seem to have a good enough grasp on the situation that you will be successful. Part of this is knowing the budget. Part of this is your description. And then is it a good idea? But mostly we want to know you have a situation that you have a plan to either ameliorate or improve or take care of or whatever, and you know how you're going to do it, you know how much it's going to cost you, and that's what we want to know. So it doesn't have to be scary, really, and we do want you to succeed. So if you have any questions, let us know. We're happy to talk about these applications with you before you send them in. Thank you, Laura. Let's see. We do have a question. We have a couple of questions that we can address here real quickly. This is a question for Richard. The question is, if you're applying for a library improvement grant, what are the restrictions on money for computers? I guess understanding the question, is that from you, Kathy Brechenauer? There are no restrictions on the amount you can ask for for computers. It's simply how much money will happen, what decisions we make about who gets what. Does that clarify your question? Well, you can let us know in the question section if that clarified for you, Kathy. We'll go on to the next question. The question is, our county of four small libraries is interested in starting a countywide website with links to each of our individual libraries. Would all four of these libraries have to be accredited? Or would just one of them complete the application for everyone? This is a question from Melissa. From Clarkson Public Library. What would happen is, this is Richard again, what would happen is that the lead entity, the lead library that's applying for this would at least have to be accredited. It'd be nice if they all were, but I understand the situation. So at least the lead library must be an accredited public library in order to qualify for the grant. And then this is where you would say that you've got three other partners that you're collaborating. And this is where you do want to give a little bit of information about each one of them so you can talk about this need. This is Catherine talking. I'm just talking in general about grant writing in general and not wanting to say anything specific about either of the applications. So to discuss the very last question, no, each one of them does not fill out an application. It's the lead library that fills out the application, the accredited public library. Okay, we have a question from Lauren Lofgren for the library improvement grant. If we are purchasing computers as part of a larger program and ask for funding for the other aspects of the program, paying for the actual computers ourselves as our match, do we still need to meet the SEPA requirements? It's a really good question, Lauren, and I think what we have found out is that you still have to meet the SEPA requirements if the money that is being used is doing that to sort of allow the library to have internet access. I'm afraid we could get a readout on that. If your grant is one of the ones approved, or at least being considered for approval, we could get a readout from IMLS, but my guess is that's the answer they're going to come up with. Unfortunately. Michael Sowers for Lauren. Michael Sowers has actually, this is in reference to the previous question about the libraries having a group website. Plinkett is a program that Michael Sowers is working on here at the commission, helping libraries to get websites set up for themselves. So call the commission 800 number, ask for Michael Sowers, and he can explain what that's all about, and he might be able to work with you on doing that website possibly. As he said, there are no promises, but give him a call and explain to him what you're up to, and he might be able to help you out with some of that. We have another question from Kathy. It says, I am wondering about the e-rate relationship involved with getting computers now. We don't apply for e-rate anymore, and what are the rules on having blocking software on all computers? Well, Chris and I are both here. Chris is now doing e-rate, so I'll let her comment. Yeah, the rule has been, and it's still the same, that if you do want to receive e-rate funding for any of your internet costs, you do have to have some sort of blocking software to meet the severe requirements on the computers. Yeah, so that's still... And that would count for these funds as well, because it's all government, federal money, they all do the same requirements. Now, there is also e-rate, you said you don't apply for e-rate at all anymore. There is separate e-rate just for your reference that is just for telephone access, just for your phone, and that doesn't have anything to do with the computers, has nothing to do with the CPU, you don't have to worry about that, of course, at all. So you can just apply for e-rate just for your phone service, you don't have to worry about blocking software to computers or anything because it's two separate things. It's just if you want to apply for e-rate for internet, then you do have to have that on there. Okay, it's 10 after 11, and so you don't want to keep this too long, and we are so grateful for your attendance. Again, this is Catherine. I highly recommend that if you're able to come up with an outline for your grant proposal that you contact either Laura or Richard if you have any questions whatsoever because that's why they're there. They are there to help clarify the requirements for the grant application, and so please do not hesitate to contact them if you have questions about writing, how to write objectives, how to write goals, what any of the components that I presented in the PowerPoint presentation, if you have any questions about that, please also feel free to contact me as well. I'd be certainly happy to help you out with the concept of grant writing. Okay, so we'll wrap it up here. If you do have any other questions that we couldn't get to today, that's fine. You know where we are. There's no one here who you need to and they can answer your questions. So thank you for attending. I think it was very useful, very interesting getting all those details about how to write these grants. I know that's a big scary thing for some people, and I'm sure this would be a good way for them to just track what I need to do step one, step two, step three kind of thing. I hope you join us next week. It will be back to our regular Wednesday morning where we will have our, and so I will be a conversation with Sally Reed, who's the new association of library trustees, advocates, friends, and foundations. This is a merger of the Friends of the Libraries USA and the Association of Library Trustees and Advocates, has now become one organization. And she's going to talk about what's going on with that group and what they're all about and how they can help out libraries in Nebraska. So sign up for that on our website and I hope we'll see you for that next week. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.