$1 Million Gates Grant to Fund Chicago, Aarhus Libraries’ Innovation Partnership. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel On June 30, at the Chicago Public Library’s YouMedia wing, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a $1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The grant will allow the Chicago Public Library (CPL) and Aarhus Public Libraries in Denmark to work together to create a new model for innovation, experimentation and decision-making within libraries. The grant is the largest of its kind ever given, according to Deborah Jacobs, director, Global Libraries, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who said it will help the two libraries “continue pioneering new models of collaboration.”
The grant itself was actually made to the Chicago Public Library Foundation, and will fund the commission of a partnership with design firm IDEO to facilitate “re-thinking [of libraries’] traditional mix of services and programs, identifying fundamental questions about their roles in an evolving world,” said Library Commissioner Brian Bannon, a 2009 LJ Mover & Shaker. Rural Libraries as Innovation Incubators: Notes from a Session at ALA. Tags: On Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend a session at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Chicago: "The Future is Now: Rural Library as Innovation Incubator".
Thank you to the presenters, Tameca Beckett, Youth Services Librarian at the Laurel Public Library (DE), and Andrea Berstler, Director at the Wicomico Public Library (MD), for the ideas and inspiration.