Deadline: 15 July 2020
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Preservation and Access is accepting applications for the Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program.
The purpose of this program is to supports projects that provide an essential underpinning for scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities. Thousands of libraries, archives, museums, and historical organizations across the country maintain important collections of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art and material culture, and digital objects. This program strengthens efforts to extend the life of such materials and make their intellectual content widely accessible, often through the use of digital technology. Awards are also made to create various reference resources that facilitate use of cultural materials, from works that provide basic information quickly to tools that synthesize and codify knowledge of a subject for in-depth investigation.
Applications may be submitted for projects that address one or more of the following humanities activities:
- arranging and describing archival and manuscriptcollections;
- cataloging collections of printed works, photographs, recorded sound, moving images, art, and material culture;
- providing conservation treatment for collections, leading to enhancedaccess;
- digitizing collections;
- preserving and improving access to born-digital sources, including the updating of existing digital resources;
- creating oral history interview collections about war and military service in conjunction with NEH’s Standing Together initiative, or about imperiled cultural heritage in conjunction with the agency’s Protecting their Cultural Heritage encouragement);
- developing databases, virtual collections, other digital resources, or projectspecific tools, to codify information on a subject or to provide integrated access to selected humanities materials;
- creating encyclopedias;
- preparing linguistic resources, such as historical and etymological dictionaries, corpora, and reference grammars (separate funding is available for endangered language projects in partnership with the National Science Foundation);
- producing resources for spatial analysis and representation of humanities data, such as atlases and geographic information systems (GIS).
Grant Information
- Approximately $7,500,000 is expected to be available to fund 35 recipients. You may apply for a ceiling amount of up to $350,000 for Implementation awards and $50,000 for Foundation awards. In order to enhance access to humanities collections held by smaller institutions, Foundations applicants may request an additional $10,000 (above the $50,000 ceiling) to support inter-institutional planning and pilot activities.
- The period of performance is three years for Implementation projects and two years for Foundations projects. Projects may start as early as June 1, 2021.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants include U.S. nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, public and 501(c)(3) accredited institutions of higher education, state and local governmental agencies, and federally recognized Native American tribal governments.
- Foundations applicants requesting an additional $10,000 (above the $50,000 ceiling) may be either smaller institutions proposing to work with a larger repository or larger institutions proposing to collaborate with one or more smaller partners.
- An eligible entity may apply on behalf of a consortium of collaborating organizations. The lead applicant would be programmatically, legally and fiscally responsible for the award. Participating organizations would be considered subrecipients under the award.
- Individuals, foreign and for-profit entities are not eligible to apply.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=326604