May I put in my 2 cents on applying for a research grant? I applied and
received one a couple of years ago (for a briefs digitizing project).
There are so many benefits to even thinking about applying (and given how
close it is to the deadline, you have plenty of time before next year :-).
Don't think that just because you have a small staff you can't request a
grant for that special project (there are 2.5 of us here in my library).
Yes, there is extra work, meetings, writing, and long hours, but the grant
gave us a chance in our library to think and do something we might not
ordinarily have been brave enough to attempt - and we had a lot of fun in
the process. And don't think that just because your project is very small,
or very large, that one of these grants won't help out with some aspect of
it. We all have some project that just needs a bit of a jump start or a
trial run and most of us have several.
The time you take to look at all the grant application materials on AALLnet
and the time spent either with pen and paper or just musing on which project
might be suitable, is invaluable and lessons will be learned. We did a lot
of kooky, not to mention overly-ambitious, things while planning our
research project, but all the right stuff came out of it. We did finish our
pilot project and, more to the point, it laid the groundwork for a later
digital briefs that went incredibly smoothly due primarily to all we had
learned during the pilot project that had been funded by the Lexis research
grant.
Keep in mind too that you will not be alone. The Research Committee members
are supportive, encouraging, and their regular feedback through the process
kept our project on topic and relevant. My library staff and I still talk
about the things we learned during the grant application process and all the
way to project completion.
Go for it!
Laura
Laura Orr
Law Librarian
Washington County Law Library
111 NE Lincoln Street
Hillsboro, OR 97124
Phone: 503-846-8870
Fax: 503-846-3515
Email: laura_orr@co.washington.or.us
Blog: http://oregonlegalresearch.blogspot.com/
<http://oregonlegalresearch.blogspot.com/>
-----Original Message-----
From: Eloise Vondruska [mailto:e-vondruska@law.northwestern.edu]
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 11:40 AM
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: AALL LexisNexis Research Grants available
(cross-posted; please excuse duplication)
The Research Committee of the American Association of Law Libraries is
accepting applications through April 1, 2006 for research grants from the
AALL/LexisNexis Research Fund Grants Program, totaling up to $5,000.
The committee will award one or more grants to library professionals who
wish to conduct research that supports the research/scholarly agenda of the
profession of librarianship. The grants program funds small or large
research projects that create, disseminate, or otherwise use legal and
law-related information as its focus. Projects may range from the historical
(indexes, legislative histories, bibliographies, biographies, directories)
to the theoretical (trends in cataloging, publishing or new service models
in libraries) to the practical (implementation models for collection,
personnel or infrastructure management). The AALL Research Agenda offers
suggestions for possible research projects. To review AALL's Research
Agenda, please go to http://www.aallnet.org/committee/research/agenda.asp
<http://www.aallnet.org/committee/research/agenda.asp>
The AALL/LexisNexis Publishers Research Fund Grant Program was established
in 2000 with a generous contribution of $100,000 from LexisNexis. The
Research Fund will provide grants to library professionals who seek to
conduct research that is critical to the profession. The Research Fund
provides a secure financial base, enabling the AALL Research Committee to
carry out the Association's Research Agenda.
The submission deadline for applications is postmarked by April 1, 2006.
Grants will be awarded and announced in May. Allocation of the research
grants will be at the sole discretion of the AALL Research Committee. For
more information about the grants, please contact Eloise Vondruska, Chair of
the AALL Research Committee, at
e-vondruska@law.northwestern.edu <mailto:e-vondruska@law.northwestern.edu>
The grant application and complete guidelines are available at
http://www.aallnet.org/about/grant_application.asp
<http://www.aallnet.org/about/grant_application.asp>
Eloise Vondruska
AALL Research Committee 2005-2006, Chair
Pritzker Legal Research Center
Northwestern University School of Law
357 E. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60611
312/503-7369 (voice)
312/503-9230 (fax)
e-vondruska@law.northwestern.edu
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawlibrary/
<http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawlibrary/>
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