NCDD Partners with American Library Association to Support Small & Rural Library Accessibility Efforts

NCDD is excited to announce our continued partnership with the American Library Association to support library workers through the Libraries Transforming Communities project. This latest effort will provide small and rural libraries with grants to facilitate community conversations which will identify services or facility improvements the library can take on to better address accessibility needs in their communities. 

NCDD will support grantees by providing materials and guidance for facilitating accessible community conversations. Over the next three years of this initiative, NCDD will provide coaching to libraries and support to the project. NCDD will be reaching out to our network to help support this effort with co-creation of facilitation materials which identify best practices and models for accessible conversations. 

Starting this November, ALA will begin accepting applications for the grants, which will be distributed in several rounds over the next three years. Grants will range from $10,000 to $20,000. Libraries will identify the audience they are hoping to reach (e.g., homebound seniors, children with autism, Deaf community members) and facilitate a community conversation with the impacted populations.  Grantees will then use the funds to create services or improve their facilities based on the needs identified by their audience.

Please share this opportunity with your local library! Have you designed and/or facilitated accessible conversations? Let NCDD know about it! Email [email protected] to share your experience and explore whether you might be able to help support the libraries in this next endeavor.

This initiative is funded through a private grant to ALA. Review the recent ALA press release here.