National Railway Heritage Grants Program

The National Railway Historical Society (NRHS) is America's largest rail preservation organization. They have a grant program for projects involving the preservation, restoration, re-use, interpretation, or stabilization of historic railroad equipment, structures and resources will be considered, as well as projects that support research, public outreach, publishing and educational goals.

The maximum grant is $10,000; the deadline is April 24, 2013.  

Use this link to go directly to guidelines and application   

Most past grants have been for preservation of:

* Rail equipment - locomotives (steam and diesel), passenger cars, freight cars, cabooses, and electric streetcar
* Railway depots and towers
* Archival documents, photographs and pictures (train pictures, railway pictures, photos of trains, etc.)

Chugga chugga? 

IMLS Call for Applications: Conservation Project Support Grants

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is accepting applications for the Conservation Project Support grant program.

Check the program site for information including guidelines and contacts; IMLS is offering two webinars conference with program staff;

Thursday, August 18, 2011, at 3:00-4:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Thursday, September 1, 2011, at 3:00-4:00 p.m. Eastern Time

Deadline: October 3, 2011
Grant Amount: $5,000 to $150,000
Grant Period: Generally up to two years; three years with strong justification
Matching Requirement: 1:1 for total project request

The purpose of the Conservation Project Support grants program is to help safeguard collections housed in the nation’s museums so that current and future generations can gain access to and learn from the rich artistic, cultural, and scientific heritage they represent. To achieve this purpose, IMLS awards grants to help agencies identify conservation needs and priorities and ensure the safekeeping of collections by implementing sound conservation practices.

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.

LEF (the Literacy Empowerment Foundation) Books’ Matching Book Grant Program recently increased the size of the matching grants available to schools. Any amount purchased from $100.00 to $20,000.00 will be matched.

Guided Reading Collections consist of 6 copies each of 24 titles (144 books total). Independent Reading Collections consist of one copy each of 144 titles. With each set of Guided Reading and/or Independent Reading Collections purchased at the regular price, an additional set of your choice will be included free of charge.

Offer expires September 30th, 2011.

NEH: Preservation and Access Research and Development

These NEH preservation grants (different from the ones that support small institutions) support projects that address major challenges in preserving or providing access to humanities collections and resources. The maximum award is $350,000 for up to three years.

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.

Eligible projects include

• the development of technical standards, best practices, and tools for preserving and creating access to humanities collections;
• the exploration of more effective scientific and technical methods of preserving humanities collections;
• the development of automated procedures and computational tools to integrate, analyze, and repurpose humanities data in disparate online resources; and
• the investigation and testing of new ways of providing digital access to humanities materials that are not easily digitized using current methods.

Deadline: May 19, 2011

Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions

Preservation Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized institutions, such as libraries, museums, historical societies, archival repositories, town and county records offices, and colleges, improve their ability to preserve and care for their 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 arts, textiles, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, furniture, and historical objects. Amounts are up to $6,000.

Deadline: May 3, 2011

CT Freedom Trail website

Explore over 130 sites that tell the story of struggle toward freedom and dignity of Connecticut’s African American citizens on the Connecticut Freedom Trail’s new website, featuring an easy to use interactive map, historic images from museums around the country, beautiful photographs of important sites to visit, a “kids only” section and resources for teachers and students of all ages.

The Connecticut Freedom Trail was established in 1995 to educate Connecticut residents about local African American History; it consists of 130 sites in 60 towns.

http://www.ctfreedomtrail.org/

Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives

Pre-Proposals due April, full proposals due in August.

The Council on Library and Information Resources is now accepting pre-proposals for the 2011 cycle of the Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant program. In 2011, CLIR is accepting requests in amounts ranging from $75,000 to $500,000. Applicants may request terms as short as 12 months or as long as 36 months, or any period in between. Projects may begin as early as January 1, 2012 or as late as March 1, 2012. All projects must be completed no later than February 28, 2015.

The Council on Library and Information Resources is an independent, nonprofit organization with a mission to expand access to information, however recorded and preserved. Their Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant program awards about $4 million in total grants ranging from $75,000 to $500,000 each.