Source: http://www.ala.org/tools/readytocode

On Thursday, June 22, 2017, the American Library Association announced a competitive grant program sponsored by Google that will fund a cohort of school and public libraries to develop resources to help get U.S. libraries "Ready to Code.” The $500,000 pilot program is part of Phase III of Libraries Ready to Code, an ongoing collaboration between ALA and Google to ensure expert library professionals are prepared to develop and deliver programming that promotes computer science and computational thinking among youth, two skills that will be required for challenges and jobs of the future.

25 to 50 participating libraries will receive funding from ALA, along with consulting expertise and operational support from Google. Individual libraries may use funding for devices, staffing, marketing and other costs associated with piloting an educational toolkit developed in partnership, by libraries, for libraries.

The toolkit, set to release in conjunction with National Library Week in April 2018, will consist of computer science resources that libraries find most useful for designing and implementing youth computer science programming. This cohort of libraries will also initiate a community of practice to sustain momentum and build expertise across thousands of school and public U.S. libraries.

Applications Open Soon

YALSA, in partnership with ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy as well as AASL and ALSC, is administering the $500,000 sponsorship from Google. The program will run from July 2017 through June 2018. Sign up for updates here. We will email you when the application is open in mid-to-late July.

In preparation for applying, check out our list of resources to learn more about Ready to Code concepts, computational thinking, and successful programs that highlight computational thinking and coding through libraries.

Libraries Ready to Code is a project of the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy. Through research, continuing education and resource development the Libraries Ready to Code project aims to empower library staff working with youth and families to design computational thinking activities for informal learning settings.