DENTON (UNT), Texas — While public libraries in urban areas often have multiple staff members to handle specialized services, like reference and children and youth services, public libraries in rural areas may have only one full-time staff member, or one part-time staff member and a few volunteers, to provide all services — including keeping the library clean if there’s no janitor.

With a nearly $1.6 million grant from the Robert and Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, the Department of Library and Information Sciences in the University of North Texas College of Information will begin a three-year project, Promoting & Enhancing the Advancement of Rural Libraries, or PEARL. The project addresses the roles of small rural libraries in Texas as community resources and gathering places.

PEARL will target staff members in approximately 105 libraries located in towns with populations of 25,000 or less. The towns are all located in 83 counties stretching from Johnson, Montague, Parker and Wise counties to the east, the New Mexico border to the west, Crockett, Kimble and Sutton counties to the south, and the Oklahoma border to the North.   

The library staff members will receive training and mentoring from five UNT students and an outreach coordinator. The students will be enrolled in the College of Information’s Certificate of Advanced Study program with an emphasis in rural librarianship. The Priddy grant will pay for their tuition.

As mentors, the students will work directly with the library staff members to create customized community outreach plans for forming partnerships with local governing agencies, civic organizations, community leaders and others. Each student will be assigned to liaison with the staff of seven libraries each year, working with a total of 21 libraries over three academic years.

Dr. Yunfei Du, UNT assistant professor of library and information sciences and principal investigator of PEARL, said very few librarians in small towns have library science degrees or receive continuing education training. Yet libraries in rural towns, he said, may often be more in demand from patrons than libraries in cities and suburbs, since the library may be one of the few places in a rural town where people can use a computer and access the Internet.

“Public libraries in rural communities face enormous challenges because, while experiencing increases in demand for services, they simultaneously deal with declining tax bases, lack of an educated workforce, decreasing funding and an aging population,” he said.

In addition, in rural towns, public libraries are often underused and underappreciated as a resource for local businesses, said Dr. Herman Totten, College of Information dean and PEARL director.

“A library needs to show how it functions as a community retrieval and information center, with the staff showing business owners, teachers and other professionals what the library can do for them. Libraries must also take leadership roles in creating effective partnerships with local organizations, government agencies and social institutions to meet the demands of the range of library users they serve,” Totten said. “By doing this, the librarians develop advocates in the community, who can support them when they ask for funding from the town officials.”   

PEARL will also:

• Provide educational, networking and peer interaction opportunities for the rural librarians, including two workshops and two forums each year. Funds will also pay for the librarians to join the Texas Library Association and attend TLA’s annual conference.

• Offer a website with a social networking component so the librarians can form a virtual community. The website will also include a list of resources for rural librarians. 

The funding for PEARL is the second major gift that UNT has received from the Priddy Charitable Trust during the last five years. A $2.5 million grant led to the creation of the Priddy Charitable Trust Fellowships in Arts Leadership, which provides visual arts and music students each year with tuition and fees for graduate school at UNT, health insurance, stipends and travel allowances to attend professional meetings and conferences.

For more information about PEARL go to http://pearl.unt.edu.