A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

Learning and Earning - January 1997

Executive Summary

The Higher Education Act of 1965, Title II-B, Fellowship Program, was first enacted to alleviate the critical shortage of professionally trained librarians and the serious shortage of graduate library school faculty. During the ensuing years, the program's emphasis shifted variously between the recruitment of minorities or specialized training.

This document summarizes a descriptive survey of fellowships awarded under the Library Education and Human Resource Development Program (formerly the Library Career Training Program), Title II-B of the Higher Education Act of 1965. The study covers the years 1985 through 1991. It was undertaken for the purpose of determining the success of the fellows who were recruited into the training program, and to determine if this training enabled them to enter the library profession or re-enter with enhanced skills to further their careers. This report will answer the questions, "Were the grantee institutitons able to fill the fellowships awarded?", "Did these fellows complete the training program or drop out?", and "Were the fellows able to obtain employment in the library community once the training program was over?" To this end the study provides:

Statistical records of individual years as well as a summary of the sex and ethnicity of all fellows recruited, by degree level, including degree attainment status.
Detailed report and analysis of post-training employment status of all fellows recruited.
Statistical record of the awards by institution.

The study revealed a high success rate in terms of degree attainment at all training levels, and showed little difference in completion rates between males and females, or between minorities and non-minorities. The study also shows that only 11 percent of all the fellows recruited during these seven years either withdrew from the training program or no information is available for them. To be able to say that this program enabled 89 percent of the fellows recruited to (a) enter the library field with a professional degree, (b) re-enter the library profession with enhanced skills to enable them to further their careers, or (c) continue their education in library and information science to increase their opportunities in the profession, is, indeed, a success story in itself.

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