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Institute of Museum and Library Services 2020
Grants to States All States Conference May

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11, 2020 Virtual
Proceedings by: CASET Associates, Ltd. caset@caset.net

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P R O C E E D I N G S (3:00 p.m.)
MS. DEVOE: With that I am going to officially

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welcome you to the Grants to States orientation.
I want to introduce all of our program staff

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since we can’t be here with you in person
and we are doing this virtual conference for

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the first time. We wanted to at least let
you know what we look like. From left to right,

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we have got myself, Teri DeVoe, I am the Associate
Deputy Director for the Grants to States Program.

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Then we have three program officers.
The way that Grants to States is administered

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is by assigning states in a portfolio to each
of the three program officers. You probably

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have a sense of who your program officer is
at this point, but if not, (audio issue) Madison

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Bolls, then we have Deirdre Gonsalves, who
is actually our program specialist for the

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program. Deirdre and I kind of work across
all of the states in different ways, where

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the program officers are assigned to specific
states.

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Then we have Dennis Nangle, (audio issue).
He will be back with us probably in the month

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of June. Even though he is not live with us
on this conference, you will see a cameo or

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two, of Dennis. So stay tuned. He is here
with us in spirit.

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Then finally on the far right of the picture,
we have Michele Farrell, who is our third

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program officer.
This session today that we set up is targeted

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really for new state library staff who will
be administering the formula grants that we

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give to you every year. We are going to review
very basic information about the Grants to

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States Program and some of the resources that
you can use to administer the program.

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We do have a session in the full conference
that is called “IMLS Web Tools”, and that

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will go into more details on some of these
resources.

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Today we are actually going to start with
some vocabulary because as a self-respecting

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government agency we are full of acronyms.
(Call drops)

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I hope I am back. Can I get a sign that you
can hear me. Sorry about that, my call dropped,

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and that happens occasionally. We are going
to pick right back up where we were. So we

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were talking about acronyms when I got cut-off,
which maybe is a sign from the fates that

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we should not be using so many of them. But
we are going to talk a little bit about the

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acronyms at the outset and then we are going
to share with you some resources.

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If you have grants with IMLS that are not
of the Grants to States variety that will

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not be covered in this session. We do have
a whole set of grants IMLS administered directly

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by the agency, whereas this is a pass-through
program where you tend to do a lot of the

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administration of the grants. So if you have
a IMLS discretionary grant we would have you

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contact the program officer that you work
with for that program, if you have any questions.

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Again, we are going to hold questions in terms
of answering them until the end of this hour-long

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session. That doesn’t mean that you can’t
ask questions in the Q&A module. We welcome

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you to ask them, it is just that we are going
to let them queue up and then when we get

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to the end we will answer them.
So now I am going to turn it over to Deirdre,

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who is going to give us some vocabulary and
acronyms. So Deirdre, take it away.

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MS. GONSALVES: Thank you, Teri, and welcome
again. I would like to start off with the

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glossary here. Here are some acronyms of vocabulary
that are part of the program. Museum and Library

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Services Act or MLSA, is the broader IMLS
statue that encompasses LSTA, also known as

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the Library Services and Technology Act. LSTA
as currently amended, is a sub-chapter of

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the authorizing legislation for IMLS.
In 1996, Congress shifted the Library Services

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and Construction Act to the Library Services
and Technology Act, LSTA, as of chapter two

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of the Museum and Library Services Act. This
ended funding for Library Construction and

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replaced it with a focus on new information
technologies. LSTA also encompasses IMLS discretionary

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programs.
Implementing a population-based formula, the

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Grants to States Program, sometimes referred
to as G2S is the largest source of federal

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funding support for library services in the
U.S. State Library Administrative Agency,

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or SLAA, are official agencies charged by
law with the extension and development of

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library services.
The LSTA regulations require each SLAA to

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submit a five-year plan that details library
services goals. SLAAs must also conduct a

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five-year evaluation of service goals based
on that plan.

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ACO, or Authorized Certifying Official for
the grant, is the authorizing certifying official

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for the grant award. In most cases, it will
be the state librarian, but it can also be

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the administrator that the state librarian
reports to.

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And the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies
or COSLA, is an independent organization representing

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state and territorial agencies designated
as the SLAA. COSLA serves as a mechanism to

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help address challenges faced by the heads
of the state agencies, which are responsible

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for statewide library development.
On October 1, 2019, very recently as you know,

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IMLS switched our grants management system
to eGMS. eGMS is the electronic grant management

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system now used by all of the agencies. You
will learn a bit more about eGMS later in

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this presentation.
SAM.gov, SAM.gov is the official system for

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award management website of the U.S. Government.
The site allows grantees no-cost access to

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register and do business with the U.S. Government,
including updating or renewing your entity

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registration, among other tasks.
The next item, the Federal Funding Accountability

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and Transparency Act, or as we like to refer
to it, FFATA, was signed in 2006 to reduce

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wasteful spending and increase public transparency
of federal financial assistance and expenditures.

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The FFATA sub-award reporting system or FSRS,
is the recording tool that prime recipients,

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in this case SLAAs, enter information on sub-recipients
who have received grants of $25,000 or more.

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This will be covered more fully during the
Web tools session.

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The State Program Report, or SPR, is part
of an online system that is specific to the

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Grants to States reporting requirements for
grant awards.

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Next is Match. Match is the amount of money,
specifically 34 percent of total program budget,

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that our LSTA legislation requires from a
state library to contribute toward the grant

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program each year. These funds are from non-federal
resources, including state, local, corporation,

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foundation or other non-federal entities.
The SPR will automatically populate the expected

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grant match amount.
MOE or Maintenance of Effort, the Library

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Services and Technology Act helps ensure that
federal dollars enhance and do not replace

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state support for library services. To receive
the full amount allowed by the LSTA grants

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to state formula a state must maintain its
financial support for library programs and

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services at not less than average amount reported
for the prior three fiscal years.

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If a state does not meet its MOE level in
a given reporting year, its next allotment

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is reduced by the same percentage as the missed
MOE. The law provides an opportunity for states

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to request a waiver of MOE under specific
circumstances. Please refer to the Grants

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to States section online at IMLS.gov or reach
out to your program officer for more information.

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The next slide. These are a few words that
might be found on your actual grant award

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document. The federal government requires
a business, in this case the SLAA, to have

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at least one of these numbers. IMLS does not
assign any of the first three numbers: DUNS,

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TIN, or the EIN. IMLS does however, assign
the last one, FAIN. This is a unique number

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that is essential to use when you are communicating
to IMLS about your award.

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Next, Madison will share more information
on eGMS and communications.

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MS. BOLLS: Thank you so much. Welcome everybody.
Once IMLS has received word from the state

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library that they have a new LSTA coordinator,
we will send a welcome message letting that

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person know who that program officer is and
where to find information about the program.

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Your program officer will also send a message
regarding the mentor program and who your

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mentor will be. The mentors are drawn from
a voluntary group of experienced coordinators

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so you will have two experienced people to
talk to when you have questions about the

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program.
Your program officer is the person to contact

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for the official interpretation of the program
legislative requirements. Once IMLS has your

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name and contact information, we will also
add accounts for you to State Program Report

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System and the eGMS system.
Here are a few reasons to communicate with

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your program officer through email. This is
a good slide to print out and keep handy if

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you have a question. You will want to use
email for allowable costs questions, to notify

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your program officer that you have changed
any contacts in the SPR, any issues or troubleshooting

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you are having with the SPR, any general feedback
or questions that you have about the program

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in general. Finally, with the Quarterly Grant
Accrual, you will also send those through

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email to the address that is listed on this
slide.

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eGMS. eGMS Reach is used by IMLS awardees
to manage your award. If you are a chief officer,

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authorized official, LSTA coordinator, library
development or finance officer, or any associated

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contact with a current IMLS LSTA award, you
will have access to the system in order to

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administer and manage your award.
Through the eGMS Reach system you will have

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access to request payments and send official
grant communications to your LSTA coordinator.

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You will also be able to send official messages
to your program officer about official records

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pertaining to the award. You have access to
reporting schedules and previous payment requests.

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Now, in terms of using Reach messaging, as
I mentioned earlier, Reach is the official

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record keeping system for IMLS awards. You
would use Reach to communicate with IMLS for

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record-level correspondence. So official correspondence.
Again, this is a slide that you would also

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want to printout and keep. IMLS has a great
deal of information available to you on the

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website, but you can communicate with us in
terms of official records about equipment

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requests - purchases over $5,000 per item.
Submission of certifications or signed assurances.

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Official MOE waiver requests, and as mentioned,
payment requests. When in doubt, ask your

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program officer where you should submit what.
MS. FARRELL: Hello everyone, this is Michele

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Farrell. I am going to talk to you now about
the Grants to States Manual. When you go to

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the IMLS website, www.IMLS.gov, you can find
the Grants to States Manual. It is a key resource.

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So if you are new to the program, which I
know most of you are, or at least a number

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of you are judging from the sign-in here,
you are going to want to go to this site.

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So you go to the IMLS website, click on grants,
then under grants go to grants programs, then

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select Grants to States. Once you get to that
page, as you see on the navigation bar on

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the left, there is the Grants to States Manual.
Click there and it will take you to a number

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of resources. There are sections in the Grants
to States Manual on the awards cycle calendar,

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financial requirements, financial performance
reporting with the SPR, site visit information,

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IMLS guidance, the statutes and regulations,
which many people want to know what the names

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and numbers are. Presentations and conferences
that we have given in the past. Forms that

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you need to use to submit things, and of course,
our contact information.

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Here you will see under the Financial and
Performance Reporting Section of the Grants

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to States Manual, these three very valuable
guides. The first one, SPR Overview and Guide,

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gives you a full picture of the State Program
Report including how to log in, reporting

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concepts, adding projects, intents, subjects,
activities, outcomes, tags, financial reporting,

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validating and certifying the report. The
nice thing about this particular source is

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it has hyperlinks. So when you go to a page
you will see a link and it will take you directly

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to where we have full information on how to
do it.

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The next resource is the IMLS State Program
Reporting Requirements. You can look at this

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first, it is about 146 pages, and that provides
the information – it describes the SPR framework,

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including a list of all SPR questions, that
is questions that appear in the SPR report,

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and defines SPR data elements.
The third resource is the SPR Reporting System

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User Documentation – the State Library SLAA
view. This guides users through the SPR system

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with screenshots and a glossary. When you
re looking at this particular presentation,

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this is only 34 pages long, the note section,
you will see a picture of the PowerPoint presentation

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and the notes are up in the left-hand corner
in a little chat box. So you just press on

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that.
Here is what the front page of the Grants

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To States Report looks like. Your program
officer can set you up in the SPR system by

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creating an account for you. Your username
is going to be your email address and we will

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send you a password. You can change your password
by going into the account management section

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of the SPR after you have logged in. You will
note here on the left, please use Chrome or

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Firefox as recommended browsers for this system.
Issues with saving and editing can occur when

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you open two browser windows or tabs for the
Grants To States Report at the same time.

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So it is best to avoid that.
This page – this is inside the system and

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here is where you find the state info page,
which is under the accounts tab here. We look

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right up here – here is the accounts tab
in the SPR. Adding up to date content information

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in the SPR is very important. You will need
it to certify your report.

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IMLS also uses the contact listed here when
sending important communications. Please note

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that only you can update this page. So that
is very important to keep in mind. Once you

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have updated this account management section,
State Info, it is called, you click on that,

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and this page comes up. After you have updated
it, and make sure that you have all the serious

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positions filled with complete information,
after you have done that and closed out the

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SPR, then you can send your program officer
an email telling us that you have updated

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the State Program Report in the State Information
Section and 

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that you have added so and so, Mary Jones
or whoever, as a new person and what their

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position is.
The DUNS or EIN are not required to save the

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data but they are required to certify the
report. Also note that parent organizations

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should match the name associated with your
DUNS number. That is another thing to keep

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in mind.
Here we have the various user roles. There

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are four user roles in the SPR. We started
off with three but with some input from the

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states, we have added a fourth.
The LSTA coordinator and the ACO, that is

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the Authorized Certifying Official, have permission
to manage subrecipient user accounts in the

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system. They may establish user accounts as
well as update logs or forgotten passwords

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from your subrecipients.
SLAA Project Data Entry users can also add,

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view or edit all projects, but they cannot
validate the report, certify the report, or

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change state goals. It may be useful to add
someone in this role who also works at the

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state library and is running a project. Use
of many navigations to go to accounts management

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subrecipient access, click end-user and enter
the contact information. Email addresses will

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be used in logging in. Enter and confirm password,
select the assigned recipient with the affiliated

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institution. Select save user.
One thing to note about users in the system

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is that you can’t really ever delete anybody
once they have been entered into the SPR as

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a user. You can under – let me go back a
slide and show you – we are talking about

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subrecipient access. So you are in account
management subrecipient access, you can go

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in there and make them inactive. So you are
not deleting but you are making somebody inactive

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in the system.
The next point I want to make is the length

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of an LSTA grant award. The grant award covers
a 24-month period of performance. So for example,

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the FY2020 award starts October 1, 2019 and
ends September 30, 2021. We have had a number

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of years where there was a Continuing Resolution
called the CR for federal funding, as a result

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of that we have been sending out the award
notification after January. So that sometimes

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confuses new LSTA coordinators. A best practice
is to finish off the funds from your previous

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award – let’s say 2019 for example, before
you start drawing down on your most recent

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grant award, FY2020.
Here is one of the documents that you also

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may want to print out and use. This calendar
is something that you will want to keep on

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hand so that you know when items are due to
IMLS. If you look here you will see that in

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the coming dates you have got July 6, 2020
your Quarterly Grant Accrual Report is due

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for the FY2019 and the FY2020 award.
IMLS developed this worksheet that we are

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looking at now, Worksheet to Calculate Grant
Accrual Amounts, because there is not an official

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federal form to do that. Each quarter’s
accrual must represent the total expenses

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for active grant awards that a grantee has
incurred during a grant period but has not

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yet submitted to IMLS for reimbursement. Because
two federal fiscal years typically overlap

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in a grant period, quarterly accrual information
will cover those two separate active grants.

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Submit this information no later than four
business days after the last day of the quarter.

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At the end of the quarter please send an email
with the grant numbers and the total grant

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accrual amount for the current award year
in the body of the email to IMLS – it is

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LSTA-QRTAccrual@imls.gov.
What I want to point out here is if we look

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down here at the numbers here, the first box
with the numbers – LS-00-XX – that is

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the way our numbers were for our grants up
until this current year. With 2020, the grant

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numbers you will notice have a different numbering.
They will end in OLS dash, and the last two

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figures are the year. So in this case it would
be OLS-20. I just wanted to point out that

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our grant numbers have actually changed the
look.

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Here you will see a picture of the 2019 Grants
to States conference attendees, showing some

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of your colleagues that were there. Above
the picture is the web address for the listserv

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that all LSTA coordinators who are interested
can sign up for. This listserv was developed

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with LSTA coordinators who wanted to share
information of practical aspects of administering

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the LSTA grants. Coordinators can ask questions
regarding procedures, forms, software used,

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et cetera. It is maintained by Ross Fuqua
at the Oregon State Library. Questions about

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federal funds and IMLS policy should be sent
to your program officer. We are going to give

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you the official information. IMLS is not
responsible for the content of this list but

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there is a lot of good stuff there and it
is great to dialogue with your colleagues.

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It is a great group and I have found lots
of them using it, especially you can get involved

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in your legislation.
Now we would like to take some time to take

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your questions.
MS. GONSALVES: This is Deirdre. Heather has

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a question. She says that she is not a LSTA
coordinator, however she does supervise or

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provide supervision for the coordinator. She
wants to know if she can have a mentor.

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MS. FARRELL: That is a good question. I will
tell you Heather, we are set up – we like

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to support the whole state library, but the
reality is we actually have things set up

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to work with the coordinator. Most official
emails and conversations go back and forth

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with the LSTA coordinator. Most of our training
involves just the LSTA coordinators. This

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year is the first year that we have actually
opened up our conference ironically, because

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it is virtual, to other people as well. But
we will keep that in mind and I think maybe

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Teri will weigh in later or something, about
whether we can actually assign more than the

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rest of the state library staff.
It really depends on the mentoring how many

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people they have already been assigned. We
have very great mentors. They are really good

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and they are very willing to work with LSTA
coordinators. They probably might be open

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to other people, but we have to run it all
by them and see if they would be interested

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and just check in on what their workload is
because they are actually just volunteers.

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Good question.
MS. GONSALVES: Apparently that is the questions

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unless there are more.
MS. DEVOE: This is Teri. I might just toss

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out that sometimes we talk about myths within
the Grants to States Program and things you

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might not be aware of. One myth that we often
bust is that when you submit a State Program

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Report to us that you are done in December
and we are just going to review it and it

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is going to be great and you won’t hear
from us except to say congrats it is done.

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That is usually not the case because we do
have the program officer read those reports

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very carefully and probably 90 percent or
more of the times states are making edits

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to the report sometime between January and
March, before they are recertified and finalized

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for the year. So there is no shame in being
told by your program officer that we would

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like to see some edits to your SPR. So we
just toss that out as a myth that we would

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bust for the program.
If there are any listening veterans on the

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line from states and you have things that
you would have wanted to know when you were

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first starting the program, we invite you
to type those into the Q&A box and we can

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surface things like that as well. Are there
other myths out there? We will take other

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questions, too.
I’ll go ahead, while we wait to see if any

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other questions come in. Another myth that
we sometimes bust for the program is that

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we as a federal agency there is a clear divide
between feds and the states, and we don’t

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want to hear from you. We want you to manage
the program and if you have problems, work

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them out for yourself.
That is a huge myth. We definitely want to

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hear from you. It is very much a partnership
program between the feds and the states. And

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to the extent that we can help you head-off
any issues, we would love to hear from you

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upfront. We would be grateful to have your
questions at the outset. We have an assigned

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program officer, we encourage you to be in
contact with them anytime you feel like you

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might have a question to raise to IMLS. So
that is another myth that I would bust for

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the program.
Please know that we are accessible and enjoy

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and want to hear from you.
MS. GONSALVES: Okay, Teri, we do have a question

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about current grantees wondering what is going
on with site visits this year.

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MS. DEVOE: We are in a very unusual year and
to some extent I can’t speak for what is

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going to happen to all the site visits this
year. We have to figure out – at the moment,

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IMLS staff are all working remotely. We have
to follow the Federal Government guidelines

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about when we work and go back to an office
scenario and when we are able to travel.

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We are going to be checking to see what kind
of restrictions there might be on that side.

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We also want to follow your lead if in your
vicinity where you would be hosting a site

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visit, there are other kinds of restrictions
or things that would compromise the ability

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to have a site visit, then we would be happy
to talk about some alternatives and maybe

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thinking about rescheduling those. I think
for now we are going to tackle those on a

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case-by-case basis.
MS. FARRELL: This is Michele. I am bummed

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because I won’t be going on site visits
I had planned. Makes me very disappointed

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because I love going out there and meeting
with people individually and seeing what you

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are working with in leading the people in
the field who are carrying out the LSTA program.

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I have to tell you that it is an adjustment
for all of us.

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MS. GONSALVES: Okay, we have another question.
Will we be receiving five-year plan guidelines

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during the next couple of days?
MS. DEVOE: This is Teri. I can say that we

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did not this year build five-year plans content
into our conference. We were thinking that

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we would definitely be covering some of that
next year. The good news is we already have

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our Five-Year Plan Guidelines approved by
the Office of Budget and Management up on

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our website. You can look at those anytime.
They are in the Grants To States Manual area,

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that was pointed out earlier by Michele. If
you have any trouble finding them just let

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your program officer know and we will get
those to you.

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This year we are going to focus on topics
that we thought would be very pertinent for

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you to know about. Specifically, CARES Act
and COVID-19 response. We have got some great

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presentations on the data that you submitted
to the SPR for the year, as well as perspectives

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from the states because we want to be sharing
best practices in these forums.

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If you have specific five-year plan questions
that you would like to know about, let us

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know and that will help shape next year’s
program and we can certainly respond to things

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in the interim as you have individual questions.
MS. GONSALVES: Madison, we have a LSTA coordinator

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who is relatively new in the position, just
over a year, however this coordinator was

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not assigned a mentor. Is there any way that
they can get one assigned?

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MS. BOLLS: Yes, of course. Tara, I will connect
with you after the orientation and we can

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get you onboard with a mentor. Thanks for
flagging.

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MS. GONSALVES: Michele, we have someone who
would like to know if they can volunteer to

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be a mentor.
MS. FARRELL: Absolutely. We are always looking

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for new mentors and we would love to have
you onboard. Send me an email at mfarrell@imls.gov

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and we would love to add you onto the list.
Thank you.

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MS. GONSALVES: I see there are several questions
that are following up to Tara’s question

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about getting a mentor. I would definitely
advise you to reach out to your program officer

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to have a more detailed conversation about
how you 

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can move forward in trying to acquire a mentor.
MS. DEVOE: I always want to raise, this is

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Teri, in addition to the great questions we
have been getting in, we have an awesome testimonial

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from one of the LSTA coordinators about how
great her program officer has been in fielding

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00:36:02.630 --> 00:36:12.880
question and she always appreciates the willingness
to listen and provide feedback.

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00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:31.030
So you did not just hear it from us. Your
peers are here to tell you that we want to

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00:36:31.030 --> 00:36:41.740
hear from you and answer your questions.
We can stay on if there are some folks that

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00:36:41.740 --> 00:36:57.230
have lingering questions. The IMLS staff can
stay and answer those for the next few minutes.

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We have come to 
the end of our content for this session and

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we are so grateful that 

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all of 

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you were able to tune in, test out 

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00:42:47.030 --> 00:42:57.100
the 
technology platform, and be with us in person

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00:42:57.100 --> 00:43:02.940
for our first virtual kickoff of this event.
We have a great couple of days in store over

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the next few days. Tomorrow’s program is
going to get started a little earlier than

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00:43:08.210 --> 00:43:13.670
today’s orientation session did. So it is
1:00 o’clock eastern time, which may be

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00:43:13.670 --> 00:43:21.030
different for you. That will kick us off with
our welcome and IMLS updates, specifically

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around the COVID-19 response and the CARES
Act. We anticipate connecting with you again

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00:43:29.920 --> 00:43:35.850
then and we are so grateful that you were
able to tune in today.

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00:43:35.850 --> 00:43:42.290
Thanks, everyone.
MS. GONSALVES: Just a quick reminder, the

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session has been recorded and will be available
afterwards, if you 

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00:44:04.760 --> 00:44:23.170
would like 
to revisit it.

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(The conference adjourned at 3:45 p.m.)