From Foundation to Federal Funding: The Impact of Grants on Education for Library and Information Science

Abstract

Funding, first from foundations and later also from government agencies, has been a factor in shaping the development of education for library (and information) science in the U.S. for more than 80 years. Educational programs experienced substantial investments in three periods: (1) from the Carnegie Corporation in the 1920s and 1930s; (2) from the U.S. Office of Education in the 1960s and 1970s; and (3) from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the first decade of the 21st century. This chapter documents the impacts of the first two and argues for the need to analyze the impact of the third. Other, more modest, investments from both foundations and government agencies have had less lasting impact. This chapter identifies the major sources of funding and projects funded, assesses the level and type of impact, and concludes with implications for the future. The focus is on funding for research, development, and resource enhancement in library (and information) science education, not research conducted by library and information science (LIS) faculty on other topics (e.g., as funded by the OCLC/ALISE library and information science research grant program) (Connaway, 2005).

Citation

Smith, L.C. (2008), "From Foundation to Federal Funding: The Impact of Grants on Education for Library and Information Science", Nitecki, D.A. and Abels, E.G. (Ed.) Influence of Funding on Advances in Librarianship (Advances in Librarianship, Vol. 31), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 141-165. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2830(08)31005-8