The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local institutions and organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; to enhance learning and innovation; and to support professional development.  

In the Knowledge Society of the 21st Century, digital content will be created, managed, preserved and disseminated within an infrastructure that is seamless and virtually invisible to users. The future digital environment will include digital representations of accumulated historical knowledge as well as vast amounts of new content. Future generations of users will build on this existing information and preserved digital content to create new knowledge and forms of expression. Libraries, museums, and archives are vital components of the emerging cyberinfrastructure.  

Cultural heritage institutions are developing digital repositories to manage and preserve collections converted from analog formats as well as those that are digital-only. They are also leading efforts to develop tools, standards, and best practices to improve the management, discovery, presentation, and use of digital content. IMLS provides grant opportunities to libraries, museums, archives, and institutions of higher education for research, demonstrationl, and implementation projects to enhance library and museum services and for programs to educate the next generations of library and museum professionals. IMLS grant programs that support cyberinfrastructure include:

National Leadership Grants

• Research and Demonstration Projects
• Building Digital Resources
• Library and Museum Collaborations
• Collaborative Planning Grants

Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program

NITLE is a non-profit initiative focused on advancing learning through the use of digital technology. NITLE's participating institutions represent more than 100 primarily smaller independent colleges and universities in the U.S. and world-wide.

NITLE provides professional development programs and managed information services that strengthen higher education by enabling the collaborative sharing of resources, expertise and effective practices. In addition, using collaborative technologies such as multipoint, interactive videoconferencing and open-source systems for learning and collaboration, participants in NITLE programs and services are able to engage in on-going, peer-to-peer exchange across disciplines, professions, and institutions and to build communities of practice that create and share solutions for learning that are useful and relevant to smaller, teaching-centered colleges and universities.

NITLE's programs--both face-to-face and virtual--engage faculty, instructional technologists and librarians in reflective discussion and hands-on practice focused on good teaching and the appropriate use of technology as well as effective, mission-centered strategies for adopting instructional technologies and enterprise tools on campus. NITLE's services lower institutions' risk in testing and adopting technology systems by aggregating community needs and providing managed services that meet those needs. NITLE services currently provide its participating colleges with access to multipoint, interactive videoconferencing (MIV); open-source learning management systems (Moodle and Sakai); and institutional repository services (DSpace).

In all its activities, NITLE leverages the expertise inherent in its participant community and provides a forum and resources to enable the strategic understanding and effective adoption of digital technologies.

For more information, visit www.nitle.org or subscribe to NITLE's blog, Liberal Education Today.

From the Educause web site: 

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

From the NERCOMP home page:

NERCOMP's mission: to enhance the communication and dissemination of information related to the use of computers, networks, and information technology in education, academic research and educational administration throughout the northeastern United States.

NERCOMP is an affiliate of EDUCAUSE. NERCOMP workshops and conferences offer quality, low-cost professional development geared to

From the association's brochure

Arising from a strategic initiative of the American Statistical Association, CAUSE is a national organization whose mission is to support and advance undergraduate statistics education, in four target areas: resources, professional development, outreach, and research. The overarching goals in each area are:

• Resources: Collect, review, develop, and disseminate resources for members of the undergraduate statistics education community.

• Professional Development: Coordinate, develop, and disseminate opportunities, programs, and workshops for teachers and others involved in statistics education projects and initiatives, present and future.