Questions for: Susan Hildreth, Institute of Museum and Library Services Director

SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: Mar 8, 2013, 3:00am PST
BUSINESS JOURNAL PHOTO | Marcus R. Donner

Susan Hildreth, director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, visits the Pacific Science Center to give it an award.

Staff Writer- Puget Sound Business Journal
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Former Seattle City Librarian Susan Hildreth returned to Seattle this week to recognize the Pacific Science Center as one of five museums to receive a 2012 National Medal for innovative approaches to public service. As the current director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Hildreth works in Washington, D.C., and advocates for libraries and museums across the country.

In addition to providing grant opportunities for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums, What types of research do you conduct and what is the data used for? We collect data annually on all the public libraries in the United States, and that data talks about funding sources, program activities and staffing levels. We’re also just in the process of launching the first census or data collection on museums. There’s not a national census of all the museums in the country. We’ve been working with this number of 17,500 (museums), but from research IMLS has done, we think it’s more like 35,000 museums.

Part of the goal of the institute is to help contribute to a competitive work force. How do libraries and museums do this? We all have to have content knowledge, but that changes so fast. In the 21st century, it’s more important to be able to think creatively and analytically to be able to handle that rapidly changing information. IMLS recently had a great partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, and they worked with us to fund 25 different digital media labs all across the country. Those digital media labs are really focusing on helping teens develop the kinds of media skills that they need to really enrich their own lives and also find some jobs.

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