NEH: Preservation and Access Research and Development

The National Endowment for the Humanities' Preservation and Access Research and Development grants support projects that address major challenges in preserving or providing access to humanities collections and resources. These challenges include the need to find better ways to preserve materials of critical importance to the nation’s cultural heritage—from fragile artifacts and manuscripts to analog recordings and digital assets subject to technological obsolescence—and to develop advanced modes of searching, discovering, and using such materials.

Applicants should define a specific problem, devise procedures and potential solutions, and explain how they would evaluate their projects and disseminate their findings. Project results must serve the needs of a significant number of humanists.

In the last four competitions the Preservation and Access Research and Development program received an average of 21 applications per year. The program made an average of three awards per year, for a funding ratio of 14 percent.

NEH Preservation Grants for Smaller Institutions

Deadline: May 1, 2013
The National Endowment for the Humanities' (NEH) Preservation Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized institutions, such as libraries, historical societies, and archival repositories, improve their ability to preserve and care for their significant humanities collections. These may include special collections of books and journals, archives and manuscripts, prints and photographs, moving images, sound recordings, architectural and cartographic records, decorative and fine art objects, textiles, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, furniture, historical objects, and digital materials.

Applicants must draw on the knowledge of consultants whose preservation skills and experience are related to the types of collections and the nature of the activities that are the focus of their projects. Small and mid-sized institutions that have never received an NEH grant are especially encouraged to apply; over the course of the last five years, approximately 36% of applications have been funded. 

A free webinar will be held on Thursday, March 14, 2013, 2-3PM (Eastern) to provide guidance on preparing Preservation Assistance Grant applications. Seating is limited. Register online for free. 

For additional information and grant application materials, go this website. 

The deadline to submit applications is for projects beginning January 2014.

Emergency & Disaster Preparedness Workshop Series

Conservation ConneCTion is pleased to announce that it the popular Emergency & Disaster Preparedness Workshop Series will be offered one last time. 

$45 for the entire three-part series.

Conservation ConneCTion in partnership with the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) presents the Emergency & Disaster Preparedness Workshop Series which gives cultural institutions the tools and training for disaster planning and response. This three-part workshop series, led by NEDCC preservation services staff, is designed for staff and volunteers at museums, historical societies, libraries, and archives. This workshop series is funded through an Institute of Museum and Library Services Connecting to Collection’s implementation grant.

The Workshop series is presented in three parts. The first begins August 13, 2012 with Part I: Disaster Planning with dPlan™ Lite. The workshop includes a presentation on disaster planning and hands-on training using NEDCC’s online disaster-planning template, dPlan™ Lite. Participants will begin work on their disaster plans in an uninterrupted environment where they can ask questions while they become comfortable with the software. Part 1 will be held at the Middletown Library Service Center in Middletown, CT.

Part II: Disaster Response & Recovery, is a two-day workshop. Day One will provide a review of disaster planning and prevention, disaster response, drying techniques, setting priorities, and documentation. Day Twowill cover salvage priorities and a demonstration/participation in a wet-salvage exercise recovering materials commonly found in libraries, archives, and museums. Part 2 will be held at the Middletown Library Service Center on November 12 and 13, 2012.

Part III: On-site Disaster Response Trainingis the final part of the workshop series. All participants will receive a site visit from a NEDCC preservation services representative who will provide a half-day of training to the museum or library staff on using their disaster plan.

What you get – Participants will learn about disaster planning, receive instruction on how to complete dPlan™ Lite from NEDCC staff, receive hands-on training in disaster response and recovery, receive a free site visit from NEDCC staff who will conduct a half-day training session on carrying out their disaster plan, and receive resource materials including a CD-ROM of information on disaster preparedness and recovery.

What you need to do – Participants must attend Parts I, II, and III and register for and complete dPlan™ Lite.

How to get started – Register for the entire series by emailing Conservation ConneCTion director, Kathy Craughwell-Varda at CSL.ConservationConnection@ct.gov.

• Participants may use computers provided or bring their own Laptops (please let us know if you will be bringing a laptop).

• All participants will receive an emailed packet of information that will outline what information about their site they need to bring to begin filling out dPlan™ Lite at the workshop.

• Sites are encouraged to send more than one person to Part I of the workshop series.

For more information, directions and to print out a registration form please visit www.conservationct.org or email Kathy Craughwell-Varda, Project Manager for Conservation ConneCTion at CSL.ConservationConnection@ct.gov.

Connecting to Collections: Statewide Implementation Grants

Deadline: 2/1/2012

Statewide Implementation Grants, an important component of the Connecting to Collections initiative, will fund a limited number of grants to implement the plans or models created with the Statewide Planning grants, addressing issues identified in the Heritage Health Index, to:
• provide safe conditions for their collections;
• develop an emergency plan;
• assign responsibility for collections care; and work together to increase public and private support for, and raise public awareness about, collections care.

These grants are designed to encourage people and institutions in each state to collaborate on the implementation of a plan that addresses the specific and most pressing needs of its collections-holding institutions.

Applicants are expected to report what has already been done, name the organizations and people to be involved in the implementation process, and outline their plan's specific steps to improve collections care.

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) seeks proposals that use cost-effective methods to digitize nationally significant historical record collections and make the digital versions freely available online.

A grant normally is for 1 to 3 years and up to $150,000; the NHPRC expects to award 5 grants in this category.

Here is a link right to the grant announcement, or you can keep reading:

Projects must make use of existing holdings of historical repositories and consist of entire collections or series. The materials should already be available to the public at the archives and described so that projects can re-use existing information to serve as metadata for the digitized collection.

To make these projects as widely useful as possible for archives, historical repositories, and researchers, the applications must demonstrate:

1. The national significance of the collections or records series to be digitized;
2. An effective work flow that repurposes existing descriptive material, rather than creating new metadata about the records;
3. Reasonable costs and standards for the project as well as sustainable preservation plans for the resulting digital records;
4. Well-designed plans that evaluate the use of the digitized materials and the effectiveness of the methods employed in digitizing and displaying the materials.

Projects may not use grant funds to:

* create descriptive metadata
* create edited transcriptions of the digitized materials
* develop websites where people will have to pay a fee to view the images.

IMLS awards almost half a million in preservation funds to CT

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has awarded Save America’s Treasures Grants totaling $476,703 to two Connecticut institutions - out of only nine grants totaling $2 Million awarded nationwide.

Save America’s Treasures makes critical investments in the preservation of our nation’s most significant and endangered cultural treasures, which illustrate, interpret, and embody the great events, ideas, and individuals that contribute to America’s history and culture. This legacy includes the built environment as well as documents, records, artifacts, and artistic works.

“These Save America’s Treasures grants will preserve the physical fabric of our history and the rich diversity of America’s story, as told by its artists, scholars, and statesmen. These awards also honor the hundreds of volunteers, organizations, and communities whose energy and investment are ensuring that this national legacy endures for generations to come,” said First Lady Michelle Obama.

This year's nine grants will support projects that will help to save endangered museum collections. “The scope and breadth of the historical and scientific record that will be touched by these nine projects is amazing,” said Susan Hildreth, director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

“They include rare notebooks that document the construction of the Panama Canal, the only known Alutiiq warrior kayak, tree ring collections that tell the story of prehistoric times, archeological collections that reveal the story of survival of enslaved plantation workers, civil war flags that date to reconstruction, quilts that document 300 years of societal change, and historical circus posters. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is very proud of the work that the Save America’s Treasures recipients are doing to tell America’s story for future generations.”

Bridgeport Public Library: $26,703
Barnum and London Circus Posters
Two hundred years after the birth of P.T. Barnum of Barnum & Bailey Circus and Ringling Brothers, Bridgeport Public Library holds 47 “Barnum and London” circus posters in need of conservation treatment. Save America’s Treasures grant funds will be used to clean, repair, and strengthen the posters and then digitally photograph them, expanding access to the collection.

Yale University Peabody Museum, New Haven: $450,000
19th-Century Dinosaur Collections of Othniel Charles Marsh
Othniel Charles Marsh was a leading American paleontologist whose dinosaur collection proved invaluable as the fossil record Charles Darwin needed to develop his theory of evolution. America’s Treasures grant will help re-house the collection in a climate controlled environment, providing greater improve access to the collection.

Additional information on the Save America’s Treasures program can be found on the PCAH web site and the NPS web site.