Arizona State University

Arizona State University and SciStarter will partner with the National Girl Collaborative Project, STARnet, the Association of Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL), VolunteerMatch, the NC Council of Churches, and libraries across the country to train and activate volunteer facilitators to support libraries as community hubs for citizen science. The project reinforces the role of libraries as valuable partners in addressing the needs of their communities by training and supporting, local volunteers to engage library users in citizen science. This project will: 1) develop an online, interactive training module with badge accreditation to facilitate introductions to citizen science at libraries; 2) share evidence-based strategies to recruit, train, and support a network of Citizen Science Community Ambassadors who are prepared to support local libraries by facilitating introductions to citizen science; 3) create a searchable database of ambassador profiles on SciStarter; 4) develop a guide for librarians and library staff to understand how to connect with local ambassadors; and 5) expand and sustain the National Citizen and Community Science Library Network offering citizen science programs across the country. Project beneficiaries are local volunteers and libraries who want to support citizen science projects.