Impact & Value

Our grant creates value for different sizes of farming communities, farming communities involved in the production of poultry, beef, catfish, soybean, etc., farming communities in different geographies of Tennessee, and farmworkers with different types and levels of ICT needs.

The symbiotic partnership among the rural youth, farming communities, 4-H agents, and rural public libraries leads to (a) building a community of practice with the help of youths for generating and sharing ICT-related challenges and local solutions for rural communities, (b) helping farmers make decisions by accessing the right information at the right time using technology solutions, (c) better utilization of library resources including space, (d) elevate the perceived value and utility of public libraries for rural America, (e) a template of collaboration between public libraries and 4-H to help farming communities, and (f) help rural libraries better articulate their significance and value for local communities.

The certificate program strengthens the partnership between public libraries and the 4-H network to benefit public libraries, local farming communities, the 4-H network, and rural youth. Thus, this grant helped us design a certificate program for training public librarians to strengthen rural libraries’ engagement with farming communities where youth trained by 4-H agents would help along with public librarians to meet the ICT, especially information and broadband-related needs of farming communities, thereby meeting Goal #2 and objective #2.1 of the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.