The Division of Preservation and Access of the National Endowment for the Humanities is accepting applications for grants in its Humanities Collections and Reference Resources (HCRR) program, with a deadline of July 19, 2018. With maximum award amounts ranging from $50,000 (planning) to $350,000 (implementation), these grants support projects to preserve and create intellectual access to collections such as books, journals, manuscript and archival materials, maps, still and moving images, sound recordings, art, and objects of material culture. Awards also support the creation of reference works, online resources, and research tools of major importance to the humanities. Eligible activities include digitizing collections; arranging, describing, or cataloging materials, performing conservation treatment, and facilitating persistent access to born-digital sources, in addition to producing databases, virtual collections, encyclopedias, linguistic works, and resources for geospatial representation of humanities data.
To encourage collaboration between smaller and larger institutions, the Partnership/Mentorship Opportunity in HCRR provides up to $60,000 for planning and pilot-level projects that could help to propel lasting collaborative relationships. These awards might be especially well suited for community-based cultural heritage initiatives, though they are not limited in geographic or topical scope.
New for 2018: In conjunction with NEH’s encouragement Protecting Our Cultural Heritage, applicants to HCRR may also request support to create, preserve, and make available oral history interviews with individuals who can provide first-hand accounts or reflections on events or experiences of cultural devastation. Informants could include survivors or other witnesses of natural disasters as well as circumstances of social unrest or armed occupation, during which cultural heritage was at extreme risk. The program continues to support a related opportunity for the creation of oral histories in conjunction with NEH’s Standing Together initiative, on the humanities and the experience of war.
Further details, including links to the application guidelines and other resources, are available online. Also, several of the most recent HCRR awards are described on NEH’s Funded Projects database. Inquiries are always welcome; contact the Division of Preservation and Access by phone at 202-606-8570 or via email at preservation@neh.gov.
