The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) provides LSTA funds to Minnesota through the Grants to States Program. A five-year strategic plan, approved by IMLS, identifies Minnesota libraries' current needs and goals. Minnesota's LSTA Five-Year Plan (2018-2022) identifies five overarching goals and twelve sub-goals directed at ensuring that all Minnesotans have access to quality library services. All Minnesota LSTA funds, including all competitive grant projects, address one or more of the five goals in the five-year plan:
- Goal A: Library services and policies promote barrier-free access
- Goal B: Libraries contribute to the World's Best Workforce
- Goal C: Libraries respond to diverse community needs
- Goal D: Library value is measured and demonstrated
- Goal E: Libraries facilitate digital equity and literacy
The Minnesota Department of Education makes this funding available to libraries as defined above for the purpose of helping to achieve Minnesota's LSTA Five-Year Plan (2018-2022), Goals A, C, D and E, in order to reduce barriers to access, promote equity, and advance digital literacy for residents of the state of Minnesota.
For this 2018 LSTA competitive grant opportunity, applicants will select one of the following LSTA subgoals:
Goal A: Library services and policies promote barrier-free access.
- Sub-goal A2: Reducing Barriers to Access Grant Making Reducing Barriers to Access Grant Making will provide opportunities for local communities to identify barriers to access and develop innovative responses that improve access to library services, programs, and/or materials
Goal C: Libraries respond to diverse community needs.
- Sub-goal C3: Promoting Equity through Grant Making Local libraries have a tremendous opportunity to address issues of equity and inclusion in services, programs, and staffing. Promoting Equity through Grant Making provides resources for local, regional, or statewide projects that address concerns about equity in library services, programs, staffing, and/or operations. The intent is to increase equity and inclusion in libraries and to contribute to the diversification of library staff.
Goal E: Libraries facilitate digital equity and literacy.
- Sub-goal E2: Advancing Digital Literacy through Grant Making Advancing Digital Literacy through Grant Making is designed to provide local libraries an opportunity to identify and address the need for digital literacy in the community. Knowing that baseline digital literacy is a key to academic and workforce success, and that advanced skills, such as coding, are becoming common place, this project will spur innovative ideas for helping people of any age to gain fluency in this new area of literacy. Grant opportunities will support innovative approaches to digital inclusion, particularly those targeting tribal, rural, and other underserved communities.
While LSTA funds are primarily intended to support new projects that can serve as models or pilots, applications for new phases of a project that is underway may be submitted. Libraries may also apply for funding of an ongoing project if it reaches new audiences, incorporates new methods or significantly expands the reach of the project.
Applicants (including benefitting public libraries) that have not received a competitive LSTA award with federal fiscal year 2016 or 2017 funds and since July 1, 2016, will receive an additional 10 priority competitive priority points.
Minnesota's Five-Year Strategic Plan can be viewed at https://education.mn.gov/mdeprod/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dDocName=MDE072618&RevisionSelectionMethod=latestReleased&Rendition=primary.
For additional information, go to the grants website and search for "COMPETITIVE - FEDERAL LIBRARY SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGY ACT (LSTA) FEDERAL 2018 - STATE FISCAL YEAR 2019" in the table of grants. Application instructions can be downloaded from there.