Announcement of the IMLS partnership with the Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration

American Library Association's Annual Meeting

Washington, DC
June 25, 2010

Thank you, Assistant Secretary Oates.  It is a great pleasure to join in this partnership with the Department of Labor.  Our respective staffs have worked together with enthusiasm and commitment for several months, leading us to this important moment.

During the past ten years, thanks to support from IMLS, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, state and local funding, the e-rate, and resourceful librarians, more than 99 per cent of public libraries offer free access to the Internet.  Wherever you are, large city or small town, your library and librarian will help guide you to the information resources you need.

During this same period, we have seen businesses move away from printed, hard copy employment applications; there are fewer job classifieds in our newspapers.  To find a job in the United States today, digital literacy skills and a computer are increasingly the norm, a necessity.  And, for many, this requires a trip to the library and the knowledge of a good librarian.

The world is changing, and the skills and competencies required to get and keep a job are changing. Fortunately, libraries are changing, too, to meet new workplace and workforce challenges.

Library service has been transformed by the accessibility to new technologies and by professionals trained to handle the public’s information-seeking and information-understanding needs.  And the public has responded: library visits (over the past ten years) have increased more than 20 percent—to 1.7 billion in 2008.

The recently-released National Broadband Plan recognizes the role of libraries as community anchor institutions, and stimulus funds for broadband adoption include library partners as essential to digital inclusion and digital literacy. Our current initiative, Museums, Libraries and 21st Century Skills, provides many examples of ways in which libraries support and promote access as well as the information literacy, problem solving, and other learning, innovation, and technology skills needed for our global knowledge economy.

As the nation has struggled through the recent economic downturn, we saw libraries inundated with people seeking help with employment-related issues. We heard many amazing stories about how libraries were developing resources and collaborating with other community institutions to better serve their patrons. Our agency’s web site features many links to employment-related resources developed by libraries, often in partnership with the public workforce system. It also includes a series of podcasts with state librarians who are working with public libraries to facilitate these important connections.

And now we have data as well as stories.  Opportunity for All:  How the American Public Benefits from Internet Access at U.S. Libraries, a study we supported together with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, reports that:

• More than 77 million people over the age of 14 used a library computer last year.
• 30 million people used library computers to help address career and employment needs.
• Among these users, 76 per cent reported that they searched for jobs online.
• Among job seekers, 68 per cent went on to apply for a job or submit a resume.
• 23 per cent used library computers to receive job-related training.
• 3.7 million people reported finding work using a library computer.

These data show that libraries are already in the workforce-development business, and we believe that this collaboration with the Department of Labor will benefit not only our agencies and our institutions, but, more importantly, the American people.

Libraries offer internet access, trusted and welcoming spaces, convenient hours and locations, and librarians trained as knowledgeable information navigators.

The public workforce system offers a broad national network of One-Stop Career Centers, on-line career portals, and a strong corps of dedicated professionals with the resources and expertise to help job seekers.

Now, we are sharing information and connecting our respective networks of public libraries and the public workforce system. We hope that our partnership at the Federal level will be an important catalyst to strong and solid partnership relationships at the state and local levels, relationships that will work to more effectively meet the workforce needs of the nation at this critical time.

To support libraries in their workforce development role, some months ago IMLS awarded a grant to WebJunction, an online learning community based at OCLC in Columbus, and the State Library of North Carolina for Project Compass to assess the needs of libraries and provide nationwide  workforce development training for librarians. The work includes regional workshops for state librarians and the development of curricula and resources.  Our partners at the Department of Labor are working with the project team to share data and web resources.  In late July, WebJunction will conduct a webinar with the U.S. Dept of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration to help librarians access and use the Dept of Labor’s e-tools in their own libraries. 

And IMLS just announced an additional grant for nearly $1,000,000 to gather regional information about unemployment and create and deliver a curriculum that can be tailored to meet local needs. WebJunction, OCLC’s online learning community for library staff, and the State Library of North Carolina will conduct a train-the-trainer workshop and up to 75 local workshops for public library staff – as many as 1,875 librarians -- working in the highest unemployment areas.

And, so, as Humphrey Bogart said to Claude Rains on the tarmac of the Casablanca airport, "Jane, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" and an ever-more-robust partnership.

It is now my pleasure to introduce Mary Boone, State Librarian of North Carolina, and Linda Strong, JobLink Unit Manager with the North Carolina Dept of Commerce’s Division of Workforce Development.  Their masterful work at the state level has been an inspiration to their colleagues.