Creating Tomorrow's Leaders

A new program aims to develop librarians' leadership skills

By Eric Oatman -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2005

Over the summer, the Florida State University's College of Information got the good news that it had been awarded $159,526 to set up a graduate leadership-training program for school library media specialists. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), an independent federal grant-making agency, is providing the money.

Project LEAD—short for “School Library Media Specialists for the 21st Century: Leaders Educated to Make a Difference”—hopes to advance training techniques through research that explores specific leadership issues. A major goal of the program is the development of a four-course (12 credit) curriculum flexible enough to be integrated into a master's degree program, a 30-credit specialists degree in organizational leadership, or as the core of a stand-alone post-master's certificate.