THE JANE COLLABORATIVE: SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

The 2006 National Science Foundation biennial report to Congress presented Americans as strongly supportive of science but lacking basic knowledge necessary for making fundamental scientific decisions regarding public policy and the environment. Currently the main source of scientific knowledge for the American public is the television with the internet second having increased from 44% in 2002 to 52% in 2004. In spite of this increase, the American public's understanding of science has not increased since the 1990's. Under these circumstances, Burpee Museum of Natural History of Rockford, Illinois completed a two year Institute for Museum and Library Services grant, the Jane Collaborative, which served 64 libraries in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin. The Jane Collaborative created a learning community and serves as a model for small, rural libraries/ museum partnerships, utilizing a high impact specimen to develop public interest in and understanding of science. Prior to the Jane Collaborative 45% of the libraries had sponsored scientific or technology programming in the past year, mostly computer classes. Burpee provided two training programs at the museum for library staff and a series of four outreach paleontology programs centered on Jane, their juvenile T rex. Libraries also received $400 of paleontology materials and a bus trip to the museum. After participating in the Jane Collaborative, library staff increased their comfort level in assisting patrons with science questions in general from an average of 6.3 to 7.0 (on a scale of 0 no comfort to 10 very comfortable) and dinosaurs particularly from 5.7 to 7.6 and their perceived knowledge of dinosaurs from 4.6 to 6.1. Two thirds of the participants believed their experiences in the collaborative will help them develop future programs. They rated their publics' reaction to Burpee's outreach programs a 9 on a 0 not at all interested-10 very interested scale. This presentation reports the results of this model collaborative between a museum and libraries for organizing and distributing scientific information to the public of small, rural communities.