Grants talk

We had a meeting with a rep from a DC area grant organization today about the new stimulus grants. Some interesting general thoughts:
-- your abstract is key, not too short, not too long, just right is best. Be clear about your research target, your hypothesis, and your quantitative and qualitative evaluation strategy (need sound, reasonable measures for the impact)
-- don't use passive voice
-- after the abstract, the most important section is the budget
-- Obama is serious about accountability and follow up, your money could be taken back if you don't do this

Some ideas that I would like to develop, if anyone is interested in working with me and/or others across campus:
-- one thing mentioned was "graduate research fellowships", is this something we could work on with SJSU library students to do work in our library?
-- a perennial idea with me: work with local high school librarians on information literacy needs for college level work (possibly could partner with Freshman programs to assess against a control group?)
-- work with Troy Tech interns for Information & Learning Commons jobs: are there projects they could do with the various components of the ILC, and could we have a cohort so that we get biggest bang for training?
-- another idea we've toyed with before: work with our student assistants on job/career readiness, turn our jobs into training grounds for specific skills needed by employers
-- something for the CSU virtual library infrastructure OR to fund projects that could help CSU libraries really work together on some key jobs we all do (I want to try "federated staffing"-- ask me!)