$255,648 Grant to School of Informatics Will Educate Minority Media Specialists for Buffalo and Rochester Schools

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded a grant for $255,648 to help the University at Buffalo School of Informatics, in partnership with the Buffalo City School District and the Rochester City School District, recruit and educate minority candidates as school media specialists.

The program will fund tuition, books and a living allowance for up to six candidates in the UB School Library Media Specialist Program. It will give them on-the-job training and potential employment in one of the two districts where minority populations are high, but there are few school media specialists from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Those interested in applying may contact Susan Janczak at 716-645-2412, ext. 1163 or .

The grant recipients are Kay Bishop, Ph.D., of Williamsville, associate professor in the Department of Information and Library Studies in the UB School of Informatics, and Janczak of Mt. Morris, senior staff assistant in the school's Department of Library and Information Studies.

Their proposal was one of 27 funded nationwide through the $10 million IMLS initiative, "Recruiting and Educating Librarians for the 21st Century." Seventy-six grant proposals were submitted.

Bishop is director and Janczak the assistant program director of UB's School Library Media Specialist Program. Bishop will head the project, which will be coordinated by Janczak.

Bishop is a widely published specialist in school media librarianship and literature for children and young adults. She has had 20 years of experience in the field of school media in Florida and overseas. Janczak has 20 years of experience in New York State.

The IMLS is an independent federal agency that fosters leadership, innovation and lifetime learning and serves as a clearinghouse for information for libraries and museums across the countries. It supports all types of the country's 15,000 museums dedicated to art, history and science, and zoos. It

supports as well the nation's 122,000 public, academic, research and school libraries and archives, and expands the educational benefit of these institutions by encouraging partnerships.