OARS funding Libraries & Museums

Grants from the National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund are designed to advance ongoing preservation activities for historic places such as sites, museums, and landscapes representing African American cultural heritage. The fund supports work in four primary areas: Capital Projects, Organizational Capacity Building, Project Planning, and Programming and Interpretation.

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.

The SAA Foundation Board awards grants that meet the mission and goals of the Foundation and/or the strategic planning priorities of the Society of American Archivists. Applicants must make direct and substantive reference to the way(s) in which an award of funds will advance one or more of the strategic goals of the SAA Foundation and/or the Society of American Archivists. To set reasonable expectations for applicants, the Board endeavors to publicize special concerns within the SAA Foundation funding priorities and invite applications in those areas.

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.

A. Noam Chomsky Global Connections Awards celebrate the power of human connections. The awards recognize distinguished service to the global mission of the STAR Scholars Network. Several individuals with a deep impact on advancing global, social mobility are recognized every year. We live in a time when innovation and creativity in support of humanity are of great importance. The Star Scholars Network recognizes the commitment of concerned people able and willing to make a difference in the lives of others. Nominations for this award are solicited from around the world. The nominee can be from any field. Beginning in 2020, the Star Scholars Network is committed to promoting transnational research, or collaborative research between scholars of two or more countries (e.g., joint publications, research partnerships, etc.). The Global Connections Awards recognize STAR Scholars for their achievements and distinctive contributions to translational research that demonstrates the very best of scholarly collaboration among scholars around the world. In December 2020, the Star Scholars Network will provide awards in three categories: North Star Medal of Lifetime Achievement, Shining Star Achievement in Research Award, Rising Star Emerging Scholar Certificate

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

The Museums for America program supports projects that strengthen the ability of an individual museum to serve its public. Museums for America has three project categories: Lifelong Learning Community Anchors Collections Stewardship and Access

National Leadership Grants for Museums support projects that address critical needs of the museum field and that have the potential to advance practice in the profession so that museums can improve services for the American public. This program has five project categories: Collections Stewardship and Access Data and Evaluation Digital Platforms and Applications Diversity and Inclusion Professional Development

"The Public Humanities Projects program supports projects that bring the ideas and insights of the humanities to life for general audiences through in-person programming.  Projects must engage humanities scholarship to analyze significant themes in disciplines such as history, literature, ethics, and art history. Public Humanities Projects supports projects in three program categories (Exhibitions, Historic Places, and Humanities Discussions), and at two funding levels (Planning and Implementation). Regardless of proposed activity, NEH encourages applicants to explore humanities ideas through multiple formats.  Proposed projects may include complementary components: for example, a museum exhibition might be accompanied by a website or mobile app. Small and mid-sized organizations are especially encouraged to apply.  We likewise welcome humanities projects tailored to particular groups, such as families, youth (including K-12 students in informal educational settings), underserved communities, and veterans. Applicants are advised to consider developing partnerships with other institutions, particularly organizations such as cultural alliances, broadcast media stations, cultural heritage centers, state humanities councils, veterans' centers, and libraries."

The Conservation program supports the professional practice of art conservation, especially as it relates to European art of the pre-modern era. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, exhibitions and publications focusing on art conservation, scholarly publications, and technical and scientific studies.  Grants are also awarded for activities that permit conservators and conservation scientists to share their expertise with both professional colleagues and a broad audience through international exchanges, professional meetings, conferences, symposia, consultations, the presentation of research, exhibitions that include a prominent focus on materials and techniques, and other professional events.

The History of Art program supports scholarly projects that will enhance the appreciation and understanding of European art and architecture. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, museum exhibitions and publications, photographic campaigns, scholarly catalogues and publications, and technical and scientific studies. Grants are also awarded for activities that permit art historians to share their expertise through international exchanges, professional meetings, conferences, symposia, consultations, the presentation of research, and other professional events.

The Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program (LB21) supports developing a diverse workforce of librarians to better meet the changing learning and information needs of the American public by: enhancing the training and professional development of librarians, developing faculty and library leaders, and recruiting and educating the next generation of librarians.

The purpose of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process by supporting cultural organizations that, in turn, support artists and their work. Grants are provided to curatorial programs at museums, artists' organizations, and other cultural institutions to originate innovative and scholarly presentations of contemporary visual arts. Projects may include exhibitions, catalogues, and other relevant activities. Proposals that highlight women, artists of color, and under-represented practitioners are encouraged. The Foundation has designated one of its grants, The Wynn Kramarsky Freedom of Artistic Expression Award, to recognize the work of organizations with a deep-seated commitment to defending the First Amendment rights of artists. The next postmark deadline for proposals to the Foundation is September 1, 2018. Visit the Foundation's website to review the grant guidelines.

The Laura Bassi Scholarship was established by Editing Press in 2018 with the aim of providing editorial assistance to postgraduates and junior academics whose research focuses on neglected topics of study, broadly construed, within their disciplines.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation invites community-based archives in the United States and its territories to submit applications for its 2020 Call for Proposals to Community-Based Archives.  These grants will provide support to archives in one or more of the following areas of need: - Operational costs, including staff, space, and utilities. - Collections care, including the acquisition of new materials, physical and digital storage fees, and access and preservation efforts. - Programming activities, including events, exhibitions, and publications. This funding opportunity is overseen by the Foundation's Scholarly Communications program. For the purposes of this call, community-based archives are defined as collections of materials gathered, collected, and shared primarily by members of a marginalized community to document their collective histories.  These archives play an important role in combatting what UCLA Assistant Professor of Archival Studies Michelle Caswell calls the "symbolic annihilation" of marginalized communities from mainstream memory institutions, and in recognizing that they are essential to the creation of a more inclusive and polyvocal American story. 

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 United States' National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the United Kingdom's Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), a component body of U.K. Research and Innovation (UKRI), are accepting applications for the NEH/AHRC New Directions for Digital Scholarship in Cultural Institutions program. Awards made through this program will fund teams of researchers and cultural institution professionals in the U.S. and U.K. working collaboratively to deliver transformational impact on digital methods and digital research in cultural institutions. Applications must be submitted by teams composed of at least one organization from the U.S. and one from the U.K., in which each country is represented by at least one cultural institution. An eligible U.S. organization must submit the application with a U.S.-specific budget under this announcement. The lead U.K. organization must submit the same application with a U.K.-specific budget to AHRC. NEH will fund the participating U.S. organization(s), and AHRC will fund the participating U.K. organization(s).

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.

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission seeks projects that will significantly improve public discovery and use of major historical records collections. The Commission is especially interested in 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. All types of historical records are eligible, including documents, photographs, born-digital records, and analog audio and moving images. Projects may:* Digitize historical records collections, or related collections, held by a single institution and make them freely available online* Provide access to born-digital records* Create new freely-available virtual collections drawn from historical records held by multiple institutions* Create new tools and methods for users to access recordsThe NHPRC welcomes collaborative projects, particularly for bringing together related records from multiple institutions. Projects that address significant needs in the field and result in replicable and scalable approaches will be more competitive. We also encourage organizations to actively engage the public in the work of the project.

As part of the nation's response to the pandemic through the CARES Act, IMLS is funding direct grants to respond quickly, efficiently, and with significant impact to the national emergency. We welcome projects that will create opportunities for museums and libraries to support positive socio-economic change now and in a future reopened environment. This can be through preserving jobs, staff training and development, addressing the digital divide, planning for reopening, and providing technical support and capacity building for digital inclusion and engagement, prioritizing our highest-need communities.