NEH 20240111-PG: 2023 Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions

Limit: 1*  // PI: B. Carter (Center for Digital Humanities)  

*UArizona may submit only one application. However, the University’s library and museums may each apply separately. 

Preservation Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized organizations preserve and manage humanities collections, ensuring their significance for a variety of users, including source communities, humanities researchers, students, and the public, by building their capacity to identify and address physical and intellectual preservation risks. The program encourages applications from institutions that have never received an NEH grant as well as community colleges, minority serving institutions (Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities), Native American tribes and tribal organizations, and Native Alaskan and Native Hawaiian organizations. Furthermore, NEH encourages applicants whose organizations or collections represent the contributions of historically excluded communities.

The Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions program focuses on foundational activities in preservation and management of collections. Collections may include archives and manuscripts, prints and photographs, moving images, sound recordings, architectural and cartographic records, decorative and fine art objects, textiles, archaeological and ethnographic items, tribal collections, material culture, historical objects, special collections of books and journals, and digitized and born-digital materials. Supported activities should fall into the following general categories, though the lists of possible activities are not exhaustive:

Preservation Assessments and Planning

• General preservation assessments

• Digital preservation assessments

• Conservation assessments

• Assessing environmental impacts of lighting systems or aging mechanical systems

• Assessing collection documentation needs to identify an appropriate collection management system

• Foundational conversations and/or consultations with source communities represented in collections to determine culturally appropriate preventive conservation practices and/or initiate or develop accurate vocabularies and/or descriptions of collection items resulting in a processing guide or written report with actionable recommendations

• Consultations with scholars and subject matter experts to initiate or develop accurate vocabularies and/or descriptions of collection items resulting in a processing guide or written report with actionable recommendations

• Development and revision of written plans, policies, and procedures such as emergency/disaster preparedness and response plans, digitization plans, storage plans, collection management plans, collecting plans, loan policies, and processing manuals

Preventive Care

• Purchase, shipping, and installation costs of storage and preservation supplies, including durable furniture and supplies (e.g., cabinetry, shelving units, storage containers, boxes, folders, and sleeves) for the purpose of rehousing collections for long-term storage or display, digital storage (e.g., external hard drives, RAID, NAS, LTO systems, and cloud- based storage), and discrete and reversible units to improve the environment (e.g., portable dehumidifiers, air conditioning units, UV filtering shades, and HEPA vacuums). Project expenses such as storage furniture, UV filters, or discrete units for air conditioning must demonstrate that they will not make irreversible changes to buildings.

• Implementing and improving environmental monitoring and/or integrated pest management programs, including the purchase of necessary monitoring supplies and related tracking software

• Implementing and/or piloting environmentally sustainable preventive care strategies, which may have been recommended in previous preservation assessments or by a consultant, such as addressing water runoff systems to prevent moisture impacts on collections spaces or creating preservation microclimates for vulnerable collections

• Workshops and/or training for staff and volunteers that address preservation topics, which might include preservation and care of specific material types, care and handling of collections during rehousing and/or digitization, preservation standards for digital collections, disaster preparedness and response, integrated pest management, or an overview of the agents of deterioration

  Collections Management

  • Initial steps that improve the management of collections and knowledge of the contents of collections, such as location and format surveys, inventories, updating condition reports, and/or other preparatory steps toward description of collections

  • Workshops and/or training courses for staff and volunteers that address intellectual control topics such as best practices for arrangement, description, and cataloging of collections

    We encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to hire a consultant to support and further develop your organization’s capacity. Staff can also lead project activities, especially if they are implementing recommendations from a previous assessment or established frameworks. In all cases, you must demonstrate that project staff and consultants have the necessary background, skills, and training to perform the requested activities. For more information on how to select a preservation or information consultant, applicants may wish to consult the FAQs and resources included in H. Other Information.

    Applications can focus on discrete activities, such as an assessment or the development of a written plan, or a combination of connected activities, such as rehousing and updating collection inventory. If you have previously received a Preservation Assistance Grant, you may apply for another one to support the next phase of your preservation efforts. For example, after completing a preservation assessment, you might apply to purchase storage supplies and cabinets to rehouse a collection identified as a high priority for improved storage. NEH will not give these proposals special consideration and will judge them by the same criteria as others in the competition.