Grants for Libraries: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Libraries and CD-ROM for Librarians (review)

The failure to get funding most often is caused by the lack of planning and careful research, both of which are necessary if applicants are to make the best case possible to a funding organization and find the perfect match between grant seeker and grant maker. This work focuses on grant project planning and proposal writing, with sound advice throughout on the various considerations and requirements to be met in the entire grant writing process. The authors place their emphases on putting in place a good team, developing a viable project, understanding the importance of making a commitment, forming partnerships and collaborations, and knowing the resources available—all necessary even before the proposal writing stage.

The strength of this work lies in the careful compilation of what it takes to be organized and have in place for the grant research to begin and the eventual proposal to be written. The text is helpfully accompanied by various templates, worksheets, outlines, and checklists provided in both the printed work and its accompanying CD. The elements of the toolkit that is provided cover topics such as partnership agreements, budget and budget request outlines, worksheets for finding funding prospects, developing a start-to-finish timeline, and more. Added to this are success stories, proposal templates, and examples of hard-to-find library program proposals.

Grants for Libraries is written as a manual, and as such, is quite versatile for most types of libraries. It requires more time to read and digest than a grants-for-dummies type manual for those who would prefer a more easily dissected, step-by-step approach. However, for those who wish for advice given by two librarians with years of managerial, fundraising, and grant writing experience, it is all there.

There are concerns with the timeliness, accuracy, and completeness of some of the information provided. For example, the section entitled "Understanding the Sources and Resources" is a bit outdated and repetitive. A suggested database, Prospector's Choice, has not been updated since 2000, and Corporate Foundation Profiles has been discontinued since the last edition in 2002. In addition, the Foundation Center's funding guides series has, for the most part, been discontinued, including the National Guide to Funding for Libraries and Information Services last published in May 2005.

It would also have been helpful to see more than the small paragraph on page 96 about the Foundation Center's cooperating libraries network. The directories and databases produced by the Foundation Center and listed throughout the resources chapter are available and accessible free to the public at these libraries, which are located in numerous areas throughout each state in the United States. Knowing this information could save librarians valuable time and money, especially those librarians considering purchasing recommended individual titles.

Finally, this reviewer would have liked the authors to provide full bibliographic information for a number of resources mentioned in the text. For instance, on page 109 for the titles National Directory of Foundation Grants for Native Americans and Directory of Building and Equipment Grants, no author or publisher information is given. Also in the bibliography on page 237 in the manual and in the CD there is at least one entry for an excellent and well-known Web site at Michigan State University Libraries, which is inaccurate.

To sum up on a more positive note, however, this work does fit well as a companion to others on general library fundraising such as James Swan's Fundraising for Libraries: 25 Proven Ways to Get More Money for Your Library(New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc., 2002). It is very thorough and may increase the likelihood of success for those librarians who need the advice of professionals and could use the helpful tools herein to plan a major program or project requiring a grant.