Grant Writing for Librarians

Scheduled: Thursday, October 29, 2026, 1:00pm–2:30pm, Central Time

Grants actively expand library reach and open doors to enhance support to the communities they serve. Because libraries sit at the intersection of diverse disciplines and funding opportunities, librarians are uniquely positioned to lead grant development. Today, however, tightening budgets across public, academic, and health sciences libraries mean that information professionals must seek external funding more than ever. Yet, few librarians are formally trained in grant writing or in leading cross-disciplinary teams. Using resources from The Librarian’s Grants Handbook: Understanding the Grant Process from Start to Finish, this webinar will highlight major areas in proposal writing and utilize several tools and approaches to help you develop a proposal. 

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Align your department, institution, and other potential key players with the funding agent’s needs
• Deconstruct the components of a Request for Proposals (RFP)
• Draft briefs and concept papers that address the above components

Presenters

Abigail Mann, PhD, MSLS, the Digital Scholarship Librarian at the Ames Library at Illinois Wesleyan University, has been successful in securing multiple smaller grants to support initiatives including over $60,000 in funding, internal and external, to support building a Digital Humanities program for students, and working with other faculty members to obtain grants to fund OERs, 3D digitization, and humanities programming. She was an English Professor prior to entering librarianship and has extensive experience teaching professional writing at universities on two continents.

Tony Nguyen, MLIS, AHIP, is the Associate University Librarian for Rutgers Health Libraries at Rutgers University Libraries. He possesses extensive experience in health sciences librarianship, spanning over 15 years. He has a strong history of securing and managing federal grants, totaling over $10.5 million. His deep understanding of the grant writing process is further evidenced by his decade-long role as a grant administrator for the Network of the National Library of Medicine, as well as his service on multiple IMLS and NIH grantee advisory boards.

MLA CE credits: 1.5