Florida State University

Project PALS (Panhandle Autism Library Services) involves a partnership between the Autism Institute (College of Medicine) and the PALM Center (School of Library and Information Studies) at Florida State University focused on developing and improving information services to rural library patrons on the autism spectrum. The partners will work with the FSU Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, the Panhandle Library Access Network, the Scotch Plains (New Jersey) Public Library’s “Libraries and Autism: We’re Connected” project, Syracuse University’s Project ENABLE, and others on the development, implementation, and evaluation of four interactive, multimedia, online professional development modules for libraries and will determine the impact on patrons with autism in public, academic, and school libraries. Three students will be supported to work on the project and at least 170 librarians will participate in the development and testing of the modules, which will be freely available to the general public.