Georgetown County Wins Library Innovation Grant
Georgetown County Government has just been awarded $59,873 from ICMA, the International City/County Management Association, for a Public Library Innovation Grant. These grants enable local governments to develop new and creative ways to use their public libraries strategically in meeting community needs.
Starting now, this grant will assist an 18-month collaboration between Georgetown County’s public library and its emergency management department to stimulate citizens’ understanding of hurricane dangers and ways to prepare for them. This process will include not only traditional methods of awareness such as public lectures combined with informational materials and announcements but also inventive approaches like educational video-game simulations prepared by the United Nations, Web 2.0 communication techniques, oral-history video interviews, digital storytelling, and the creation of a digital collection of historic hurricane photographs.
This fall, Georgetown County will also acknowledge the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Hugo. This terrible event is a vivid memory to locals who survived it on September 22, 1989, when the furious storm hit the district with 135-mph winds and a 20-foot storm surge. This IMCA Grant will provide citizens with the means to revisit and to learn from this experience in very innovative ways.
This award is made possible by ICMA’s partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Recognizing the importance of the county manager/librarian relationship to create and sustain positive change for communities, the Innovation Grant will be anchored by a joint venture between the office of the chief administrative officer and the public library. In addition to local grants, ICMA will also provide the recipients – county officials and public library directors – with the means to travel to several meetings during the next eighteen months to learn about professional methods of promoting collaboration for the betterment of citizens’ interests locally and nationwide.
The application window for these awards was relatively narrow with initial word of this funding possibility occurring in late November. Competition was intense for the available $500,000. While ICMA received 515 applications covering a variety of topics from jurisdictions of all sizes in 47 states, only 9 were awarded nationally. The Georgetown County award is the only one for South Carolina. Other recipients included Buena Vista, Virginia; Dallas, Texas; Fairfax County, Virginia; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Iowa City, Iowa; Miami, Oklahoma; Pendleton, Oregon; and Santa Ana, California. The proposals were impressive in both quality and scope, and each spoke to the dedication of local government and library leaders to serve the needs of the community. Experts in the fields of libraries and local government comprised the judging panel. For details of individual awards, see this web site: http://icma.org/main/bc.asp?t=0&bcid=1080.
ICMA advances professional, local government worldwide. Its mission is to create excellence in local governance by developing and advancing professional management of local government. ICMA, the International City/County Management Association, provides member support; publications, data, and information; peer and results-oriented assistance; and training and professional development to city, town, and county experts and other individuals and organizations throughout the world. The management decisions made by ICMA’s 9,000 members affect 185 million individuals living in thousands of communities, from small villages and towns to large metropolitan areas. Georgetown County is proud to be a part of this effort.
For more information, please contact Dwight McInvaill, Georgetown County Library Director, at dmcinvaill@yahoo.com.