Every five years, the State Library Administrative Agencies in each U.S. state and territory evaluate how they used IMLS Grants to States library funds to benefit the communities of our nation.
The newly released Five-Year Evaluations assess IMLS-funded activities from 2013–2017, when the agency distributed over $770 million to the 56 SLAAs. The evaluation provides states with an opportunity to measure progress in meeting the goals from their Five-Year Plans — and IMLS with a story about our largest program.
Together with the Office of Digital and Information Strategy, the Grants to States team prepared a preliminary analysis of the most recent evaluations, based on:
- Beneficiary groups highlighted in the IMLS legislation;
- IMLS focal areas, the six broad conceptual categories that structure Grants to States annual reporting, which include areas such as information access and lifelong learning; and
- State goals from the Five-Year Plans that address identified needs.
Beneficiary Groups
The beneficiary group category helps SLAAs convey the nature of IMLS federal funds in a comparable way across 56 states and territories, offering an inroad for those less familiar with the Grants to States program.
We asked SLAAs to identify groups highlighted in the IMLS legislation that were a substantial focus of their 2013–2017 Five-Year Plan. To be considered as having a substantial focus, these beneficiary groups represented at least 10 percent of the total amount of resources committed by the overall plan across multiple years.
We found that the library workforce beneficiary group was a substantial focus for the highest number of states, and this group isn’t limited to SLAA staff. Librarians from public and other types of libraries benefited from in-person workshops, webinars, conference attendance, and a host of other federally-funded training opportunities to help them stay current in a fast-changing information field. For a profession that does not require continuing education credits on the national level, this represents a promising investment in the future of librarianship.
Individuals with disabilities were another beneficiary group of substantial focus across multiple states. Many state libraries fund Libraries for the Blind and Physically Handicapped or Talking Book services, which provide access to reading materials in alternate formats. We often hear about how life-changing these services can be, and although there is federal coordination behind some of these offerings, there are no dedicated federal funding streams for them at the local and state level. IMLS Grants to States funding often fills that gap.
State Goals
Together with their independent third-party evaluators, states also evaluated progress toward each goal of their 2013–2017 Five-Year Plan, categorizing it as either achieved, partly achieved, or not achieved. Out of 221 goals across all states, the majority (132 or 60 percent) were categorized as achieved.
States provided explanations in their evaluations for goals that were not achieved; among these few cases in the 2013–2017 period, funding categories had often shifted. Our analysis also showed that as the number of goals within a plan increased, the likelihood of achieving goals decreased. For the 2013–2017 period, states set between two and nine goals in their Five-Year Plans, and the average number of goals across all states was 3.9.
In practice, we’ve seen that states with fewer goals tend to set broader goals, which enables flexibility and the ability for plans to stay relevant over five years’ time.
IMLS Focal Areas
We also asked states to align their goals with one or more of the six IMLS focal areas, which are broad categories that help describe the impact of library services. States tended to select a subset of these six categories, with an average of 4.2 focal areas per state.
We found that nearly every one of the 56 states and territories aligned their goals with three IMLS focal areas: information access, institutional capacity, and lifelong learning. Fewer than half the states aligned their goals with the remaining three focal areas: employment and economic development, civic engagement, and human services, which encompasses areas such as household finances, health and wellness, and parenting and family skills.
The Five-Year Evaluations represent a major reporting effort for the Grants to States program, and we’re excited to have comparable data that paint a picture of the program across all states and territories. The evaluation process also helps states shape their next Five-Year Plan for library services, and we look forward to reporting out on this data in the coming months as well.
In the meantime, we invite you to check out your state’s Five-Year Evaluation for more information about statewide impact, since the evaluations are rich with additional details. We’re pleased that even at a 30,000-foot view, we can see that IMLS funds have benefited priority populations and aligned with impact areas that help us talk broadly about the value of federally-funded library services.
About the Author
Teri DeVoe, Associate Deputy Director of State Programs, leads the Office of Library Services Grants to States program at IMLS. She can be reached at tdevoe@imls.gov.
