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The Humanities Collections and Reference Resources (HCRR) program 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.

The Foundation will consider requests to support museums, cultural, and performing arts programs; schools, hospitals, educational and skills training programs, programs for youth, seniors, and the handicapped; environmental and wildlife protection activities; and other community-based organizations and their programs. Grants typically range from $1,000 to $20,000.

The Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, aims to restore reading to the center of American culture. Managed by Arts Midwest, the program provides organizations with grants and comprehensive resources that support efforts to inspire their community to read and discuss a single book or the work of a poet. Community organizations participating in the Big Read develop and produce reading programs that encourage reading and participation by diverse local audiences. These programs include activities such as author readings, book discussions, art exhibits, lectures, film series, music or dance events, theatrical performances, panel discussions, and other events and activities related to the community's chosen book or poet. Activities must focus on a book or poet from the Big Read Library. Previous grantees must select a different reading choice from their previous programming. The program is accepting applications from nonprofit organizations to develop reading programs between September 1, 2018, and June 30, 2019. Organizations selected to participate receive a grant, educational and promotional materials, and access to online training resources and opportunities. Approximately seventy-five organizations will be selected from communities of varying size in the United States. Eligible organizations may apply for grants ranging between $5,000 and $15,000. Grants must be matched on a one-to-one basis with non-federal funds. Grant funds may be used for such expenses as book purchases, speaker fees and travel, salaries, advertising, and venue rental.

The NHPRC seeks projects that will significantly improve online public discovery and use of historical records collections. The Commission encourages projects centered on collections of America's early legal records, such as the records of colonial, territorial, county, and early statehood and tribal proceedings that document the evolution of the nation's legal history. Additionally, the Commission is especially interested in projects to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. We encourage applications that use collections to examine the ideals behind the founding of the United States and the continual interpretation and debate over those ideals over the past 250 years. We welcome projects that engage the public, expand civic education, and promote understanding of the nation's history, democracy, and culture from the founding era to the present day. Projects may preserve and process historical records to: * Convert existing description for online access * Create new online finding aids to collections * Digitize historical records collections and make them freely available online All types of historical records are eligible, including documents, photographs, born-digital records, and analog audio and moving images. The successful application will demonstrate the value of the contents of the collections, will outline a project that addresses best practices for the work and that is appropriately staffed, will propose a budget that accomplishes the project in a cost-effective manner, and will outline activities that bring researchers to the collections included in the project as well as the rest of the repository's holdings.

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 support projects that provide an essential underpinning for scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities. This program strengthens efforts to extend the life of humanities collections 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.

Museums Empowered: Professional Development Opportunities for Museum Staff is a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program with the goal of strengthening the ability of an individual museum to serve its public through professional development activities that cut across various departments to generate systemic change within the museum. Museums Empowered has four project categories: Digital Technology: To empower museum staff to fully explore, understand, adopt, and optimize the use of digital technology in museums Diversity and Inclusion: To empower museum staff to develop cultural competency and support museum relevancy in their communities Evaluation: To empower museum staff to use formative and summative evaluation of programs, practices, and products that can help the museum yield indicators and measurable outcomes Organizational Management: To empower museum staff to learn best practices in organizational management, strategic thinking, innovation, and managing change

Preservation Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized institutions-such as libraries, museums, historical societies, archival repositories, cultural organizations, town and county records offices, and colleges and universities-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.

Recordings at Risk is a national regranting program, administered by Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), to support the preservation of rare and unique audio and audiovisual content of high scholarly value through digital reformatting. Recordings nominated for reformatting through this program may be valuable for research or education in any field, not just fields normally considered as humanities disciplines. The program aims to help institutions identify priorities and develop practical strategies for digital reformatting, build relationships with partners, and raise awareness of best practices. Grants will range from $10,000 to $50,000. Applicants must be U.S. nonprofit academic, research, or cultural heritage institutions. The current application deadline is February 9, 2018.