ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

From Inside the DLSEF

By Dr. Katharine M. Stokes

College and University Library Specialists, Library Planning and Development Branch, Division of Library Services and Educational Facilities, U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C. 20202.

Evaluators from various sizes and types of academic libraries throughout the country visited our staff in Washington early in May. Three evaluators read each special purpose application and resolved any differences in scoring.

Our Library Training and Resources Branch staff, aided by as much help as the other branches could spare, has been reading supplemental applications, while the Grants Management Section has checked the mathematical data for all grants, and has checked eligibility, including accreditation and Civil Rights compliance. Now and then we’ve had to call one of you, or the officer responsible for the application from your institution, to obtain data that failed to appear. Some of you know we’ve been working!

Some of you may be disappointed at the grants you were awarded in late June under Title II-A of the Higher Education Act. The appropriation of $24,500,000 was not enough to cover the applications requesting more than $88,000,000.

The basic grants awarded totaled more than $10,000,000, almost as much as the requested amount. According to the Act, special purpose grants awarded had to be covered by 15 per cent of the appropriation; that amount was $3,750,000. The limit of $100,000 for a special purpose grant to any institution was continued this year. Only 19 institutions out of the 493 that applied received Type A grants, and only nine of the 52 that applied for Type B grants were successful. There were 173 applications which represented 88 combinations of institutions of higher education competing for Type C grants; only 32 Type C grants, representing 11 combinations and involving the efforts of 62 institutions, were awarded.

Supplementary grants, like the basic ones, were awarded to almost all the libraries which applied for them; that is, more than 1,500. The total amount applied for was almost $32,- 000,000; however, an amount of less than $11,000,000 was left for this purpose after the basic and special purpose grants were awarded. The supplementary grants, therefore, had to be funded at only 43.814 per cent of the amounts earned in dollar points. Many of you stated that the special circumstances impeding your development were rising enrollments and increasing book prices; unfortunately, those circumstances were universal, not special.