Tag: Federal Funding Impact Stories

Federal Funding Impact Story #11

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Project: Archives, Astoria Public Library

This post is the 11th in the series “Federal Funding Impact Stories,” as published on the ArchivesAWARE blog. As archivists, librarians, and museum professionals, we know how our collections, institutions, and local communities have benefited from grant funding from federal agencies, such as: Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Personal impact is powerful. Submitted stories will be posted to the ArchivesAWARE blog by the SAA Committee on Public Awareness, and promoted by the Society of American Archivists through their website and social media channels. All posts will be tagged #ImpactStories, along with tags for the funding agency and the state where the home institution is located. We hope to gather stories representing all types of archival repositories, and in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, so please consider sharing your story–no impact is too small when it comes to advocating for federal support for the arts and humanities!

This Federal Funding Impact Story comes to us from Astoria Public Library, located in Astoria, Oregon. Astoria is a port city situated at the junction of the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean. It was named after John Jacob Astor, an investor from New York City whose American Fur Company founded Fort Astoria in 1811. Astoria holds the distinction of being the first, permanent, non-Native American settlement on the Pacific coast. The collection holds nearly 70,500 physical items, including historical materials unique to Astoria and the Pacific Northwest region. The City of Astoria’s earliest records are general ledgers, lien documents, general warrants, planning maps, and settler-era cemetery records. In addition, there are materials documenting Astoria’s growth specific to logging, salmon, cannery industries, and additional port-related activities.

Federal Funding Information

Background

This archive initiative began when Jimmy Pearson became the Library Director at Astoria Public Library in October 2016. For decades, archive materials dated from the present to before the founding of Astoria (1811) collected in the library basement. A previous lack of interest and resources meant the collections remained dormant and unidentified until recently: 2018. With an Oregon Heritage grant ($21,700), Director Pearson engaged a consulting historian and archivist, and put together a plan for approximately 1200 linear feet of historical materials. Under Pearson’s leadership, a team of experts and library volunteers worked to complete a collection assessment that identified needs and recommendations.  Training for handling and processing archival collections was delivered and an amazing cadre of volunteers have since processed approximately half of the collection. With an assessment performed and actionable activities identified, the next phase for the library was to find a sustainable yet effective method of publishing collections online for the community to access freely.

A note on the critical role local grants play.

It’s important to note that the Oregon Heritage grant was the first grant the library received for work on the basement archives, and it allowed the library to bring in additional expertise to help guide necessary foundation work. Upon successfully completing the grant, Director Pearson was able to seek out and secure both an Oregon Cultural Trust and an Institute for Museum and Library Services grants for FY2020 and FY2021. The work completed during the Oregon Heritage grant provided an essential underpinning to the application requests. Information gathered during the collection assessment, the adoption of a clear collection plan, and an existing base of trained volunteers helped create a compelling case for further funding. For organizations that are just starting out or are newer to grant writing, applying for local grants is a necessary first step and should be included in their funding strategy.

In March 2022, APL received a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant to digitize The Astoria Toveri. The Toveri was a newspaper produced by the Finnish community in Astoria in the early-20th century. The grant will be used to support a partnership with the University of Oregon Libraries’ Oregon Digital Newspaper Program. Digitization efforts will begin between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023

Specific to the IMLS grant, what was the need for the grant?

The archive collection was locked in the basement, unprocessed, and forgotten—for decades. No one knew what was down there, the community couldn’t access the materials, and the items remained largely unused in any regional history work. Two previous grants helped to facilitate assessment, identification, and description of the collections, but nothing was online. It was impossible to find the treasure trove of historical materials unless you knew about the basement in Astoria’s public library. The next step for the library was to shift to digital, but digitization, description creation, and cataloging projects are a massive undertaking—especially for a small, rural library. Additionally, a platform needed to be selected to facilitate the storage and presentation of the digitized collection.

What did the IMLS-funded project do to help meet this need?

With the IMLS grant, the library was able to thoughtfully research and select a platform that incorporates the following:

  • Digital preservation best practices
  • Archival descriptive standards
  • Easy to use for all user types
  • Financially sustainable
  • Facilitates online collection access  

Once a platform was in place, the team was able to move forward with describing, cataloging, and publishing 500 collection items to be available online.  

Where we found best practices meets sustainability.

Permanent.org meets a majority of the library’s identified needs for an online collection platform. In choosing Permanent.org, the library was able to use the IMLS award to cover the 1x cost for joining. (There is no annual cost). This fiscal advantage means Director Pearson doesn’t have to worry about finding money annually to cover the cost. Additionally, as Permanent.org is cloud-based with a supportive team and community, the library can benefit from Permanent.org-provided support—keeping the cost of outside technical support down.  For the library, Permanent.org offered the best balance of: easy to use, meets digital preservation best practices, and is financially sustainable. In other words, it’s permanent.

To offer a balanced perspective, it is important to note that Permanent.org wasn’t originally created for archives, and doesn’t host the usual data fields we’ve come to expect. Currently, to meet basic requirements for Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), missing data fields like “Creator” or “Identifier” have to use the tag field to capture the information. For example: “Creator:John Smith”. On a technical level this appears to meet DACS, though not in the traditional way we are used to.

For more on Permanent.org, please check out this webinar.

For more information on how Astoria Public Library is using Permanent.org, check out the Family Archiving with Permanent.org and Rachael Woody webinar that originally aired on September 20, 2021.

Abstract: Amberly Russell, Preservation Services Manager at Permanent hosts this informative talk about Preservation Services and what it is like working to create lasting legacies online. In this webinar we speak to Professional Archivist Consultant Rachael Cristine Woody about her experiences creating digital archives online for family and organizations.

Link: https://youtu.be/_hySRr2KWTg

Without volunteers, this project would not have been possible. No, seriously.

The COVID-19 pandemic altered our ability to do the project as originally envisioned. A squad of the library’s volunteers had received updated training and were meant to facilitate digitization and description work. This was no longer possible due to pandemic-related closures and limitations. Fortunately, the IMLS grant included budget lines for a consulting archivist and historian who now needed to perform the bulk of the descriptive work. But even this work wouldn’t have been possible without the thousands of volunteer hours invested prior to this project. For example, digital archivist volunteer, Eric Williams spent more than five years scanning items in the collection. When it was clear the IMLS project would need to be altered and mostly remote, the project was able to pull from the hundreds of items that had already been digitized, helpfully labeled, and available via Dropbox—thanks to Mr. Williams. Additionally, prior to the pandemic, Clatsop Community College students contributed to collection care, management, and identification while under John Goodenberger’s supervision. Their work provided insight into multiple facets of the collection and were the basis for descriptive work. Director Pearson notes that 1200 volunteer hours were contributed during this project thanks to Ove and Barbara Rasmussen, and Eric Williams.

In April 2022, Eric Williams was named an Oregon Heritage Commission Standout Heritage Volunteer as part of the Oregon Heritage Excellence Awards. Please join us in congratulation Eric on this well-deserved acknowledgement!

COVID-19 forced a reimagining of community outreach.

Available federal funding has a natural focus on how the award will benefit the community. Originally, the outreach the library intended to do involved onsite collection tours and a traveling lecture series. Neither of these were possible during 2020 and 2021. However, Director Pearson and the consultants were able to reimagine the in-person events into virtual events and recordings. There is now a YouTube playlist of collection features, an Ask Me Anything event, and showcasing the collections online. Below is a link to the playlist and a few example videos.

The Astoria Public Library playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRbHqbP8MyF0bNamQW-_RcKnjiG1RJVgW

The Astoria Public Library Archive Collections are Online, published October 28, 2021.

Abstract: This video announces the completion of an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant to digitize, describe, and publish 500 historical artifacts online via Permanent.org. Jimmy Pearson (Library Director) introduces the recorded announcement followed by Rachael Woody (archivist) and John Goodenberger (historian) who discuss the IMLS project, explain how they adapted their work due to COVID-19, and showcase the final product with Goodenberger highlighting several of the items and their interconnection. The collections can be viewed on Permanent.org here: https://https://www.permanent.org/p/archive/03pw-0000.

Link: https://youtu.be/r8cSsEO73FI

Ask Me Anything: Astoria Public Library’s Historical Collections, published December 17, 2020.

Abstract: This is an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session where City of Astoria historian John Goodenberger and consulting archivist Rachael Woody team up to answer questions related to the history of Astoria and the treasure trove of historical artifacts found in the basement of the Astoria Public Library. This webinar was made possible thanks to the Astor Library Friends Association and the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Link: https://youtu.be/wzM9bstOPcc

Featuring the August Hildebrand Collection from Astoria Public Library, published November 14, 2020.

Abstract: This video features items from the August Hildebrand collection. Listen in as city historian John Goodenberger shares highlights from the collection with consulting archivist, Rachael Woody. This project was made possible thanks to the Oregon Cultural Trust.

Link: https://youtu.be/wPnEUeAF2K4

What was the primary impact of this project?

The historical collections at Astoria Public Library are now online via Permanent.org! The immediate and obvious impact is the library was able to acquire a critically necessary tool for broader access to the historical materials. The IMLS award made it possible for the library to implement Permanent.org and upload more than 500 digitized and described collection items. Thanks to the IMLS award and previous volunteer work, the library could continue making progress on the archive in an adjusted form. Finally, reimagined outreach in the form of videos has already attracted attention and use by Astorians, historians, the Preservation Artisans Guild of Portland (OR), and the great-granddaughter of August Hildebrand (the creator of one of our featured collections)!

APL would like to thank John Goodenberger and Eric Williams for their extensive contributions toward chronicling the history of Astoria, Oregon. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services Grant: LG-27-19-0187-19.

About the Author: Rachael Cristine Woody is the owner of Rachael Cristine Consulting, a firm that provides services to archives, museums, and cultural heritage organizations. Rachael holds an MSLIS with a concentration in archives management, and more than 15 years of experience in history organizations — including the Smithsonian Institution and the Oregon Wine History Archive.

Federal Funding Impact Story #10

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dennis meissner on NHPRC’s Archival research fellowships program and “more product, less process”

Dennis Meissner

Dennis Meissner is the retired Deputy Director for Programs at the Minnesota Historical Society, a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists, and a past president of SAA. Most of his career has focused on the arrangement, description, and use of archival materials, and he has participated in a number of national and international efforts to develop standards and practices in those areas.  In 2003-2004 he collaborated with Mark Greene on the NHPRC-funded More Product, Less Process research project, which has seen broad adoption within American archives and special collections.

In this special contribution to our Federal Funding Impact Stories series, Mr. Meissner reflects on the importance of federal funding in facilitating the research project that resulted in the seminal article “More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing” in the fall/winter 2005 issue of The American Archivist.

Granting Agency: National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)
Grant Program: Archival Research Fellowships Program
Program Fellows: Mark Greene, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming; Dennis Meissner, Minnesota Historical Society
Project Title: More Product, Less Process
Grant Period: 2003-2004
Award Amount: $10,000

Project Description
There is no shortage of archivists and repositories that have benefitted materially and professionally from the largesse and strategic investments made by the NHPRC over the past half century.  My own institution, the Minnesota Historical Society, received microfilming grants beginning in the 1960s and continued to benefit from Commission funding up through the past decade with generous backlog reduction and digitization grants. These are the sort of benefits with which archivists are most familiar.  Although the NHPRC budget has usually been modest, its grants have greatly assisted countless repositories in their efforts to achieve programmatic sustainability, records preservation, and service innovation.

But NHPRC has invested in a variety of other projects over the years, less well known but equally helpful to archivists and their profession.  One of those projects, near and dear to my heart, was the Archival Research Fellowships Program that was active from 2002 through 2005.  The Research Fellowships were set up as a three-year program established with an award of $143,000 to manage a new, non-residential archival research fellowship program. The program was administered by representatives from the Massachusetts Historical Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute, and WGBH Educational Foundation.

Members of the three annual cohorts of Fellows (4-6 per year) were each required to conduct research and write about a topic of importance to the archival profession, with proposals concerning electronic records given a somewhat higher priority.  The program resulted in a number of fine projects that advanced archival thinking and produced important publications, perhaps the most widely beneficial of them being Richard Pearce-Moses’s A Glossary of Archival & Records Terminology (SAA, 2005).

The program also funded the year of research that led to the publication of the “More Product, Less Process” article.  So, it is with great fondness and deep gratitude that I think back on the crucial role that NHPRC funding played in making that project a reality for Mark Greene and me.  In short, we would probably not have attempted that significant work without the financial support provided by the Fellows Program and (equally important) without its absolute deadline and firm expectation that we would report out something of merit at the end of a year.  The stipend itself funded an important research trip to D.C. to research historical grant files, my travel to Wyoming so that we could work shoulder to shoulder in early project scoping and writing sessions, and to hire student help in capturing and analyzing a large body of survey data.  The expectation to produce results focused our thinking and forced us to work quickly and energetically toward our goal.  That compressed work and energy could not have happened without our Commission support.

MPLP was made possible by generous NHPRC support through the funding vehicle provided by its Archival Research Fellowships Program, a gift that supported important work by a number of archivists over its brief duration.  This type of strategic investment in archivists and the archival profession is carried on today though the Commission’s support of the Archives Leadership Institute, which is helping a large number of mid-level professionals prepare themselves to become senior leaders in their repositories and in their profession.  I am continually impressed with NHPRC’s ability to strategically plant modest seeds that grow innovation and resilience throughout the U.S. archives community.

Federal Funding Impact Story #9

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Project: Collections and Facility Assessment and Planning

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“The Price We Paid: An Anthology of the Desegregation of Mississippi State College for Women” was created in 2016 as part of the Those Who Dared event series commemorating the 50th anniversary of desegregation. This project is the product of a significant collaboration between the MUW Archives and the History, Political Science, and Geography Department at MUW.

Granting Agency: Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
Grant Program: Collections Assessment for Preservation Program
Institution: Mississippi University for Women
State: Mississippi
Congressional District: 1st Mississippi Congressional District
Grant Period: April 2013-March 2014
Award Amount: $7,190

Project Description
The Conservation Assessment Program funds a collections conservator and a facility conservator to visit a repository or 2-3 days, identify problem areas, and develop an action plan for the institution.

What was the need for the grant?
The archives had been dormant for several decades before hiring an archivist in 2012. It was in very poor shape, with extensive water and mold damage to the records, poor facility conditions (it was left in a vacant building with no climate or pest control), and little access for potential researchers. We were hoping to bring in some professionals to give us a sense of where to start and what to prioritize in bringing the archives back online.

What has been the primary impact of this project?
This project ultimately allowed us to preserve and provide access to our collections on the first publicly-funded women’s college in the United States. Subsequent research by students in our collections has revealed insights into subjects like racial integration at southern institutions, and early women’s education in the United States, which has led to public programming and discussion in the community.

The grant allowed us to bring two conservators to campus for several days. The priorities they developed with us served as a road map to saving the materials in the archives, which is now in a better facility, with better conditions, and is used by students every semester for class research projects.

Submission by: Derek Webb, Special Collections Librarian/University Archivist, Mississippi University for Women
Image credit to Mississippi University for Women.

Federal Funding Impact Story #8

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Project: The Cybernetics Thought Collective: A History of Science and Technology Portal Project

Heinz von Foerster, found in record series 11/6/26, box 116. The Heinz von Foerster Papers are held by the University of Illinois Archives, https://archives.library.illinois.edu/archon/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=1020.
Norbert Wiener, found in record series 11/6/26, box 34. The Norbert Wiener Papers are held by the MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections, https://libraries.mit.edu/archives/research/collections/collections-mc/mc22.html.

Granting Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Grant Program:  Humanities Collections and Reference Resources
Institutions: University of Illinois Archives, British Library, American Philosophical Society, and MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections
State: Illinois
Congressional District: 13th Illinois Congressional District
Grant Period: May 2017-2018
Award Amount: $49, 973
Institutional Match Amount: $34,976

Jobs Created:
– 1 PTE 20 hr/week position for 6 months
– 1 PTE for 20 hr/week position for 10 months.

Project Description
University of Illinois Archives, British Library, American Philosophical Society, and MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections have been awarded a grant from the NEH to develop a prototype web-portal and analysis-engine to provide access to archival material related to the development of the iconic, multi-disciplinary field of cybernetics. The grant is part of the NEH’s Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundations program.

“The Cybernetics Thought Collective: A History of Science and Technology Portal Project,” is a collaborative effort among four institutions that maintain archival records vital to the exploration of cybernetic history. In addition to supporting the development of a web-portal and analysis-engine, the award will enable the multi-institutional team to begin digitizing some of the archival records related to the pioneering work of U of I Electrical Engineering professors Heinz von Foerster and W. Ross Ashby, neurophysiologist Warren S. McCulloch, and mathematician Norbert Wiener.

Warren S. McCulloch, found in record series 11/6/26, box 116. The Warren S. McCulloch Papers are held by the American Philosophical Society, http://www.amphilsoc.org/collections/view?docId=ead/Mss.B.M139-ead.xml.
Heinz von Foerster (left) and W. Ross Ashby (right), found in record series 39/1/11, box 3. The W. Ross Ashby Papers are held by the British Library, http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?docId=IAMS032-003099590&vid=IAMS_VU2.

What was the need for the grant?
The participating institutions sought federal grant funds in order to unite the personal archives of Heinz von Foerster, W. Ross Ashby, Warren S. McCulloch, and Norbert Wiener in a digital platform and thus create broader access for an international community of scholars studying the history and legacy of cybernetics.

Cybernetics, the science of communication and control systems, is generally regarded as one of the most influential scientific movements of the 20th century. At a time when postwar science had become highly compartmentalized, cybernetics epitomized the interdisciplinarity that has become emblematic of innovative research in the modern era. This project will provide greater access to the archival materials that document the rich and complex history of the “thought collective”—the scientific community of individuals exchanging thoughts and ideas about cybernetics.

What has been the primary impact of this project?
This project will draw greater visibility to the holdings of the four participating institutions. Cybernetics has influenced the development of a variety of disciplines, such as cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and computer science; being able to create broader access to archival materials that document this foundational multi-disciplinary movement will enable scholars to better study the evolution of these disciplines. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in particular, the project has spurred local interest and related initiatives to investigate the ways in which the Midwest, and central Illinois in particular, have contributed to the modern technological era.

Nationally and internationally, the project enables the four institutions to form a partnership that unites related archival material that is geographically dispersed. We hope creating online access to these digitized materials will make them more accessible to scholars who aren’t able to travel to the repositories where these materials are held.

NEH funding for this project will enable the four institutions to digitize and create access to approximately 20 cubic feet of archival material initially. The project team will use the results from the prototype analysis-engine and prototype portal development to inform future work and hopefully a second phase of the project that includes other repositories with related archival material.

Submission by: Bethany Anderson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Federal Funding Impact Story #7

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Project: Finding Common Ground: Cooperative Training for the Cultural and Emergency Response Communities

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Granting Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Grant Program: Division of Preservation and Access, Education and Training
Institution: Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC)
State: Massachusetts
Congressional District: 8th Massachusetts Congressional District
Grant Period: January 1, 2017 – December 31, 2018
Award Amount: $196,696
Institutional Match Amount: $253,096

Jobs Created:
– Project Coordinator (1 FTE for 24 months)
– Will hire instructors from the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy (number and amount of time  has yet to be determined)

Project Description
Disasters can affect and disrupt people’s lives, severely impact continuity of functions at all levels of government, and jeopardize the very existence of our nation’s humanities collections, cultural institutions, and historic sites and properties. Until recently, there was little communication, cooperation, or collaboration between the cultural heritage community and the emergency responder community in addressing cultural heritage concerns both before and after disasters.

What do we mean by the emergency responder community? They include the fire department; the police/sheriff’s department; local, county, tribal, and state emergency management officials; emergency medical technicians; the local emergency planning committee; the public works department; the mayor or community administrator’s office; and even the National Guard and the Coast Guard. By bringing both communities together to learn from each other at the local level, we can effect the inclusion of cultural heritage in municipal risk assessment, mitigation planning, response to, and recovery from a disaster. It is time that both communities come together to recognize that once life safety has been addressed following a disaster, the health and welfare of a municipality depend on the recovery and vitality of all sectors of a community, including cultural heritage.

To address these issues at the local level and to serve as a pilot at the national level, the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC), the state library agency – in partnership with COSTEP MA (Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness in Massachusetts), the Massachusetts Archives, the New England Museum Association, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services (DFS) – proposes a two-year, statewide, preparedness-and-response training project for cultural heritage and emergency responder personnel. The training package developed will be shared nationally with other states’ fire service and cultural heritage institutions. The partners, working closely with the project director and coordinator, will adapt, create, and present a series of five workshops on the following topics: risk assessment and mitigation, disaster planning (in two parts), disaster response, and salvage. Each of the first three workshops will be presented five times at locations across the Commonwealth.  Due to the nature of the live fire demonstration and salvage exercises, the last two sessions will be held at the two Department of Fire Services campuses in eastern and western Massachusetts. A session on the basics of preservation will be offered in an asynchronous format for all participants to complete ahead of the in-person workshops.

NEH funds will be used to hire a project coordinator; adapt and develop course materials for both the face-to-face and online presentations; present the workshops; cover consultant fees, travel, and supplies; and develop and convene train-the-trainer sessions for instructors. These sessions will introduce potential instructors to the purpose – to develop the foundation for consistent message and high-quality training – the content, and the available tools for the full course.

What was the need for the grant?
We wanted to address the problem of cultural institutions being left out of responses following disasters. By obtaining federal funds we are able to work closely with the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy to coordinate training between the cultural heritage organizations and the firefighters in an 18-month training program that will enable people from both communities in the same municipality to train and work together. The eventual impact is better communication and protection for the cultural heritage organizations and the development of the workshops into an online course to be distributed nationally.

What has been the primary impact of this project?
Eventually, we hope that this will bring the cultural heritage community and the firefighting/emergency management communities together to protect our cultural and historic patrimony before, during, and after disasters. The aim is to involve at least 200 members of the two communities to work together throughout the course as trained in the five offerings of the first three workshops (risk assessment, disaster planning I and disaster planning II (tabletop exercises) and at the two final ones (a live burn and salvage).

Submission by: Gregor Trinkaus-Randall, Preservation Specialist, Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

Federal Funding Impact Story #6

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Project: Michiana Memory – Digitizing Local African American, Latinx, and LGBTQ Materials in St. Joseph County, Indiana

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Odie Mae Johnson, at graduation, 1931. Courtesy of Indiana University South Bend Archives.

Granting Agency: Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
Grant Program: LSTA Grants to States
State Library Administrator: Indiana State Library
Institutions: St. Joseph County Public Library, Indiana University South Bend Archives, IU South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center
State: Indiana
Congressional District: 2nd Indiana Congressional District
Grant Period: 2014-2017
Award Amount: $28,880
Institutional Match Amount: $6,000

Jobs Created:
3 FTE for 36 months
9 PTE 20 hr/wk positions for 36 months.

Project Description
In January 2014, the St. Joseph County Public Library reached out to the IU South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center and IU South Bend Archives to combine their collections related to African American and civil rights history. The combined archives launched within the Michiana Memory history website in February 2015. Since then, thousands of guests have accessed the materials. The renewal of the LSTA Indiana Memory Digitization Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services of the Indiana State Library in 2015 led to the inclusion of more materials than ever, including oral histories about African American and Latino history, and the first collection of LGBTQ history in the Michiana community. Guests can access the collections now by visiting http://michianamemory.sjcpl.org.

What was the need for the grant?
We saw the need to make digital content available to the public from St. Joseph County, Indiana. And specifically we wanted to make voices speak out from the primary sources from marginalized portions of our community: African Americans, Latinos, and LGBTQ communities. The Archives at Indiana University South Bend partnered with the St. Joseph County Public Library and the Civil Rights Heritage Center to make this happen.

What has been the primary impact of this project?
We have been monitoring use through Google Analytics – and seeing it in use in the thousands every month. The Archivist at IU South Bend has also been seeing many students’ bibliographies citing the site for primary source research. Further, many reference requests are spurred by people’s use of the site. The requests come in on the national – and sometimes international – level. Consistently – month by month – using Google Analytics – the Civil Rights and African American History section of Michiana Memory, funded by LSTA and IMLS, is in the 2,000 to 3,000 user area – the highest user area of all the sections on the local history site.

Submission by: Alison Stankrauff, Archivist and Associate Librarian, Indiana University South Bend
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Federal Funding Impact Story #5

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Project: Music Quest

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Granting Agency: Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
Grant Program: LSTA Grants to States
State Library Administrator: California State Library
Grant Program: Eureka! Leadership Program
Institution: Contra Costa County Library
State: California
Congressional District: 11th California Congressional District
Grant Period: 2014-2015
Award Amount: $5,000
Institutional Match Amount: $5,000

Project Description
Music Quest was created to help supplement the lack of music programs in the lower income community in Pittsburg, CA by offering free music workshops for teens, which allowed them to learn the fundamentals of playing musical instruments, improve their reading and social skills, and to help them learn how to integrate music into their
lives.

What was the need for the grant?
The objective of implementing this program at the Pittsburg Library and Oakley Library was to offer lower income youth an introduction to music at no cost, which would enhance their understanding and knowledge of music and empower them to seek out other musical opportunities. After doing extensive research it was determined that music is a highly effective motivator for teens and as I have seen first hand it can change a teens life to learn to play an instrument.  After delivering the guitar and drum workshops, it was clear that the students were learning basic skill levels in guitar and drums and would be able to continue to play on their own. After these workshops, these students began to understand the power of music lessons and wanted to continue with instruction to further their skill and knowledge.  Some of the students were at the time of the workshop sessions homeless and despite their challenged living situation they attended every single workshop.  It became clear that when the teens were learning and playing the instruments they became inspired, motivated, and wanted to learn more.  They also connected with their fellow peers, bonded, and some formed lasting friendships and are still connected even now.

What has been the primary impact of this project?
Music Quest participants were evaluated on attendance plus participation and were given a survey at the end of the workshop series in order to gauge increased skill level, opinion of the workshop content and the instruction process. By observing the workshops and evaluating the surveys, the results proved that all of the teens that participated in the guitar workshops ended up with more than a basic understanding of the different parts of the guitar, tuning, and were able to learn chord progressions and drum beats. The program definitely had an impact on the local community.  Partnerships were made with the City of Pittsburg and Pittsburg High School, Freedom High School in Oakley. Local music instructors were chosen to give the lessons and spent many hours working with the teens at the library.  Local musicians visited the sessions and a special finale concert was put together for the community to gather together to see these amazing teens play instruments.

A total of 87 students participated in the Music Quest program over a one year span at the library.  After taking the music lesson workshops, these students began to understand the power of music lessons and wanted to continue with instruction to further their skill and knowledge. In addition, through the workshop survey, it was determined that all of the students that participated in the guitar and drum workshops agreed that music is a lifelong source of enrichment and became much more interested
and aware of music opportunities available to them such as careers in music, recording, and sound management.

Submission by: Kimberli Buckley, Community Library Manager, Contra Costa County Library

 

Federal Funding Impact Story #4

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Project: Detroit Institute of Arts Archives Assessment

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Detroit Museum of Art exhibition catalog, 1886.

 

Granting Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Grant Program: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources
Institution: Detroit Institute of Arts
State: Michigan
Congressional District: 13th Michigan Congressional District
Grant Period: June 20, 2016-July 31, 2017
Award Amount: $40,000
Institutional Match Amount: $40,000

Jobs Created:
– 1 PTE 28 hr/wk position for 12 months
– 3 graduate students earning 3 credits each for 5 months of experience

Project Description
Assess and establish intellectual control over a collection of 11,000 linear feet of the museum’s administrative records, dating back to its founding, including 30 years of unprocessed artists’ correspondence, acquisition records, director’s files and curators’ exhibition papers.

What was the need for the grant?
Documents within the DIA’s Research Library and Archives detail pivotal moments in the City of Detroit’s history. Most recently, they described the DIA’s role in the resolution of the City of Detroit’s 2013 bankruptcy. It was the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history both by debt, estimated at $18 billion, and by population, over 700,000 residents. At the time, the DIA was owned by the City of Detroit. It was also the city’s most valuable asset. Following the bankruptcy filing, creditors asked for the sale of DIA art. News agencies predicted the museum would close.

During bankruptcy proceedings, the DIA’s archival records helped save the museum. During the trial, over 180,000 DIA records were digitized for court proceedings. The documents showed that most of the museum’s most important works came from non-City of Detroit support. They were used extensively during the approval of a financial agreement that would come to be known as the “Grand Bargain.”

Unfortunately, like most of the DIA’s archival records, very few of the bankruptcy documents had previously been appraised, accessioned or processed. All such activities stopped thirty years ago, following severe museum-wide budget cuts and the dissolution of the DIA’s archival team. Therefore thirty years of records, including artist correspondence, directors and curators’ papers, and acquisition documents, have not received archival treatment. Many of the museum’s earlier documents, dating back to the late 19th century, have not been processed either.

Following Detroit’s bankruptcy and its resolution, the museum has better financial stability than at any other time in its modern history. With financial stability and a bankruptcy behind it, the DIA has resumed its commitment to its archival activities.

What has been the primary impact of this project?
The holdings survey was the key to understanding the unknowns of the materials currently held in RL&A. The museum is fully committed to making its archives more available and better organized for researchers. The Project Director and DIA Archivist are now able to better strategize future use of the DIA archives upon discovering its full contents. An immediate outcome of the holdings survey is improved access to collection, in particular, those that have been “hidden.” The collections-based reports can subsequently be translated into finding aids and catalog records for better access to the local, national, and international community.

The Project Team synthesized the results of the holdings survey with the input of the Advisory Team. The combined intelligence has been used to strengthen physical and intellectual control over the collection. The holdings survey provided the evidence needed to move forward with making sound decisions for improvements in description and access, prioritizing preservation needs, informing workflows, identifying issues we were not aware of, and plan for future projects (such as a future digitizing project).
Impact 3: To date, 164 collections (approximately 8,000 cases and 4,700 cubic feet) have been identified within the Library Stacks (the library’s book storage area) Archives Stacks, the DIA’s offsite Warehouse, and various other departments within the museum including AV offices and the Photography Department. Materials in each of these locations were inventoried and compiled into a single database for ready reference with rankings to reflect housing quality, physical quality, physical access, intellectual access, and intellectual value. These rankings are to inform and prioritize for future digitization efforts.

Submission by: Danae Dracht, Project Archivist, Detroit Institute of Arts
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Federal Funding Impact Story #3

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Project: Documenting Modern Living

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Alexander Girard textile design floor plan, ca. 1956, on the IMA Archives Digital Archives Portal landing page (archive.imamuseum.org)

Granting Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities
Grant Program: Preservation and Access: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources
Institution: Indianapolis Museum of Art
State: Indiana
Congressional District: Indiana US District 7
Grant Period: April 2012 – May 2015
Award Amount: $190,000
Institutional Match Amount: $221,000

Jobs Created:
The largest portion of the award received from NEH went to the hiring of two full time employees–one for 18 months, and the other for 24 months.

Project Description
Digitization of the Miller House and Garden Collection, and creation of a Digital Archives Portal for delivery of content.

What was the need for the grant?
The Miller House and Garden Collection documents the design, construction, decoration, and maintenance of the iconic mid-century modern property for over 50 years. When the house and garden were gifted to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, this important archival collection also came to the museum. To assist the IMA in successfully stewarding the home and the many collections materials that came along with it, increased access and better preservation of the archival collection were key. Digitization would solve both needs, and a grant would allow for the purchase of digitization equipment and the hiring of staff to undertake the years-long process.

What has been the primary impact of this project?
This project has allowed for unprecedented access to an important mid-century design collection that documents the legacies of Daniel Urban Kiley, Eero Saarinen, and Alexander Girard. The easy availability of this material has made it possible for the Indianapolis Museum of Art to present the story of the home to the Columbus and broader Indiana  and national communities at a level of detail and accuracy that would not have been possible without the grant award. Perhaps the greatest impact that this project has had is on the country’s future architects, as architecture students from around the country have requested the high-resolution images of the home and landscape architectural drawings to further their studies. Students of interior design have similarly benefited, and will continue to do so for many decades to come.

This grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has also had a direct impact on the lives of the two full time, temporary employees hired with the grant funds. One has gone on to further the Columbus Indiana Architectural Archives as their archivist, and the other was offered a job at a high-profile design company immediately following the grant period as a result of their work on the Documenting Modern Living project.

Submission by: Samantha Norling, Archivist, Indianapolis Museum of Art
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Federal Funding Impact Story #2

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Project: Preservation at the Charleston County Records Center

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Granting Agency: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Grant Program: Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions
Institution: Charleston County Government
State: South Carolina
Congressional District: SC 1st Congressional District
Grant Period: January 2016 – June 2017
Award Amount: $6,000

Jobs Created:
1 contract consultant job created

Project Description
Preservation needs assessment conducted by a Lyrasis consultant, along with the purchase of preservation materials to rehouse archival collections.

What was the need for the grant?
Many of the oldest, most valuable records held at the Charleston County Records Center (CCRC) were in need of preservation. Federal grant funds from the NEH aided in beginning the process of developing a preservation program through the preservation needs assessment and provided funds for rehousing materials needed to adequately preserve archival records.

What has been the primary impact of this project?
The project impacted the local citizens of Charleston County by developing a plan to ensure their records and their ancestor’s records are in good condition and accessible in the future. At the national level, this project looked at how to ensure that historical records of research interest will be preserved for future research purposes. The grant also made it possible for CCRC to purchase 150 archival boxes to rehouse historic Clerk of Court records that date pre-1950.

Submission by: Haley Doty Vaden, Records Manager, Charleston County Government