The ALA Public Programs Office and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced an increase in funding for the Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War reading and discussion program grant. Following the application process, 50 selected public, academic and community college libraries will receive a $3,000 grant to support the reading and discussion series in their library in addition to books, promotional materials and other programming support. Applications, available at www.ala.org/civilwarprograms, must be completed by April 19.
The program grant includes:
- A $3,000 grant from NEH to support program-related expenses.
- Twenty-five copies of two titles: “March” by Geraldine Brooks (Penguin, 2006) and “Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam” by James McPherson (Oxford University Press, 2002) and 50 copies of a forthcoming Civil War anthology of historical fiction, speeches, diaries, memoirs, biography, and short stories, edited by national project scholar Edward L. Ayers and co-published by NEH and ALA.
- Promotional materials, including posters, bookmarks and folders, to support local audience recruitment efforts.
- Training for the library project director at a national workshop, where they will hear from the project scholar, expert librarians and organizers and receive a program planning guide, materials and ideas. As part of the grant, NEH will pay for two nights of lodging in Chicago for the library project director.
Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War follows the popular Let’s Talk About It model, which engages participants in discussion of a set of common texts selected by a nationally known scholar for their relevance to a larger, overarching theme. More information including project guidelines and the online application are available at www.ala.org/civilwarprograms.
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ALA Public Programs Office
www.ala.org/publicprograms
publicprograms@ala.org
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