Grow your own librarians!

Your public library can grow its own librarians with a little help from PLA’s pilot program, the “Grow Your Own @ your library” Institutional Scholarship.

PLA will award nine public libraries with a lump sum of $8,000 each to be distributed to as many of their employees as they choose for the purpose of working toward obtaining an MLS– $6,500 is to be used directly for payment of tuition at an ALA-accredited library school; $1,500 is to be used to support attendance for one or more of the selected scholarship recipients to attend a PLA-sponsored continuing education event such as the 2009 PLA Spring Symposium.

One library from each of the nine PLDS size categories will be selected. The categories are:

• Group 1 Service population of 1 million and over
• Group 2 Service population of 500,000-999,999
• Group 3 Service population of 250,000-499,999
• Group 4 Service population of 100,000-249,999
• Group 5 Service population of 50,000-99,999
• Group 6 Service population of 25,000-49,999
• Group 7 Service population of 10,000-24,999
• Group 8 Service population of 5,000-9,999
• Group 9 Service population under 5,000

The deadline for applications is December 3, 2007 at 5:00 CST. All applications must be submitted through an online application form available at www.pla.org.