The American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office is now accepting nominations for the 2011 Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming. School libraries, public or private, that served children in any combination of grades K-8 and conducted humanities programs during the 2010-2011 school year are eligible. Applications and award guidelines are available at www.ala.org/jaffarianaward. To be considered, nominations must be received by the ALA Public Programs Office by Dec. 15.  The award consists of a $4,000 honorarium and a plaque, to be presented at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, Calif. and the winning program will be promoted as a model program for other school libraries on www.ProgrammingLibrarian.org, a library programming resource center.

Commonwealth Libraries offers continuing education scholarships for up to $600.  Registration and related travel expenses will qualify.  Professional conferences are not eligible.
Access the application

The program reduces barriers to achieving affordable, economically vital, and sustainable communities. Such efforts may include amending or replacing local master plans, zoning codes, and building codes, either on a jurisdiction-wide basis or in a specific neighborhood, district, corridor, or sector to promote mixed-use development, affordable housing, the reuse of older buildings and structures for new purposes, and similar activities. This Program also supports the development of affordable housing through the development and adoption of inclusionary zoning ordinances and other activities to support planning implementation. 
Estimated funds: Total is $28 million; Range is $100,000-$3 million per single award
The deadline is September 9th.  More information is available.

The program seeks to develop or expand projects designed to support the development of literacy skills for adult primary care givers and their children. 
The organization must: 1.  Have current nonprofit or public status and have been in existence for two or more years as of the date of the application; 2. Have maintained fiscal accountability; 3. Operate an instructional literacy program that has been in existence for at least 2 years,and includes one or more of the following components:  literacy for adults; parent education; pre-literacy or literacy instruction for children pre-k to grade 3; intergenerational literacy activities.  The estimated funds available are $650,000; award requests must not exceed $65,000.  The deadline is September 9th.  Click here for additional information

Through two grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, WebJunction and the State Library of North Carolina (SLNC) launched Project Compass in support of public libraries’ efforts to meet the urgent and growing needs of communities impacted by the economic downturn.  As part of this project, representatives from Project Compass will be presenting a workshop at the PaLA Annual Conference on Sunday, October 2, from 3:15 PM to 5:30 PM.

Project Compass is making available five scholarships for librarians from counties with high unemployment rates to attend this workshop.  The scholarship will reimburse attendees to the conference for registration fee and related expenses in an amount up to $500.00. 
Access the brief application form here.  If you are from a library in one of the counties listed below that has a program or initiative related to workforce recovery, or that is otherwise engaged with assisting people to re-enter the workforce, please consider completing an application and sending it to Jim Hollinger by Friday, September 2. 
The application can be faxed to 717-787-2117 or e-mailed to jhollinger@pa.gov. 
Here is a list of the counties that would qualify:

Armstrong  Bedford  Berks  Cambria  Cameron  Carbon  Clarion  Clearfield  Clinton Columbia       Crawford  Elk  Erie  Fayette  Forest  Fulton  Huntingdon  Jefferson  Lawrence  Lehigh Luzerne  Lycoming  McKean  Mercer  Mifflin  Monroe  Northampton  Northumberland  Pike Potter Schuylkill  Snyder  Somerset  Tioga  Union  Venango

Several grants, ranging from $100 – $500, are available for PaLA members attending the conference, which will be held October 2-5 at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center in State College.  Boyds Mills Press will offer three grants for youth services librarians to attend the conference for the first time.  Brodart Co. is providing grants for library support staff to attend the conference, and an anonymous donor is sponsoring a grant for a returning youth service librarian to attend the conference.   

Check it out on the Conference Scholarship web page, for more information and for links to the registration forms.

 Let your patrons know that nominations are open for the 2011 Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award!

The award invites library users nationwide to recognize the accomplishments of librarians in public, school, college, community college and university libraries for their efforts to improve the lives of people in their community.  Nominations are being accepted online at 

www.atyourlibrary.org/ilovemylibrarian through Sept. 12.   
Up to 10 librarians will be selected.  Each will receive a $5,000 cash award, a plaque and will be honored at an awards ceremony and reception in New York, hosted by The New York Times, in December.   

Over the past three years, 30 librarians from across the country have won the I Love My Librarian Award.  Last year, more than 2,000 library users nationwide nominated a librarian.  Previous winners have been lauded for starting community gardens, helping students with severe disabilities read classic works of literature, for helping non-traditional students learn new technology to get better jobs and more.  For more information on previous winners, visit atyourlibrary.org/ilovemylibrarian.

Each nominee must be a librarian with a master’s degree from a program accredited by the ALA in library and information studies or a master’s degree with a specialty in school library media from an educational unit accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education.  Nominees must be currently working in the United States in a public library, a library at an accredited two- or four-year college or university or at an accredited K-12 school.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award is administered by the Campaign for America’s Libraries, ALA’s public awareness campaign that promotes the value of libraries and librarians. The Campaign is made possible by ALA’s Library Champions, corporations and foundations.

Help Attack
Patrons can set up a twitter hashtag donation on Twitter with HelpAttack.

This program is designed to fund the implementation of innovative digital-humanities projects that have successfully completed a start-up phase. Such projects might enhance understanding of central problems in the humanities, raise new questions in the humanities, or develop new digital applications and approaches for use in the humanities. The program can support innovative digital-humanities projects that address multiple audiences, including scholars, teachers, librarians, and the public. Applications from recipients of NEH’s Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants are welcome. Unlike NEH’s start-up grant program, which emphasizes basic research, prototyping, experimentation, and potential impact, the Digital Humanities Implementation Grants program seeks to identify projects that have successfully completed their start-up phase and are well positioned to have a major impact. Proposals are welcome for digital initiatives in any area of the humanities. Digital Humanities Implementation Grants may involve implementation of computationally-based methods or techniques for humanities research; implementation of new digital tools for use in humanities research, public programming, or educational settings; efforts to ensure the completion and long-term sustainability of existing digital resources (typically in conjunction with a library or archive); studies that examine the philosophical or practical implications of the use of emerging technologies in specific fields or disciplines of the humanities, or in interdisciplinary collaborations involving several fields or disciplines; or implementation of new digital modes of scholarly communication that facilitate peer review, collaboration, or the dissemination of humanities scholarship for various audiences.  The deadline is January 24, 2012.  Read more.

The deadline for this grant is October 14, or when they have received 1500 application, whichever comes first.