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IPL Educational Initiative

The Internet Public Library, founded at the University of Michigan School of Information (SI) and hosted by Drexel University's College of Information Science & Technology, began as an educational initiative designed to provide students and professionals in the library and information science (LIS) profession a place to explore and learn about the practice of librarianship in the digital age.

To date, thousands of students have been involved in designing, building, creating and maintaining the IPL and its various services. In addition, hundreds of volunteer librarians throughout the world have been involved remotely, answering reference questions in our Ask a Question service. It is through the efforts of these students and volunteers that the IPL continues to thrive to this day.

While most student activity has been by students at our home base at the University of Michigan, we are branching out. Students at several other library schools have participated in the Ask a Question reference service over the years. (Here is a list of some of our major participants over the years. We look forward to continuning our work with these schools, as well as forging relationships with more institutions in the future.

Some of our past collaborators have agreed to join with the University of Michigan School of Information and other Information schools to form the IPL Consortium and actively take part in the development and maintenance of the IPL. (Here is a complete list of the members of the IPL Consortium.)

If you are a faculty member at a Library and/or Information Science school and are interested in learning how you and/or your students can be involved with the IPL's Ask A Question service, or in having your school become part of the IPL Consortium, please inquire about this using our Contact form (select the "COMMENTS/FEEDBACK" option).