Resources for Applicants: Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions
An external view of the Withers Collection Museum and Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2020, the Withers Collection Museum and Gallery successfully received a Preservation Assistance Grant upon the institution’s first time applying for the program.
Courtesy of the Withers Museum and Gallery.
An external view of the Withers Collection Museum and Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2020, the Withers Collection Museum and Gallery successfully received a Preservation Assistance Grant upon the institution’s first time applying for the program.
Courtesy of the Withers Museum and Gallery.
Did you know that at the end of the Notice of Funding Opportunity, we provide a list of additional resources for applicants in Section H? By featuring these in a series of blog posts, we hope that they may help you jump start and refine project ideas. And remember, NEH staff are always available to consult with applicants, too.
Preservation and Collections Care
The American Institute for Conservation
The American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the national membership organization of conservation professionals, offers a free guide to conservation services on its website. AIC also offers a Wiki, outreach templates, and Storage Techniques for Art, Science, and History (STASH), an online venue to explore solutions for storage and support of cultural property. It also provides a directory to find a conservator, should you need one to consult on your project.
Archive Standards and Consultant Referral Service (Academy of Certified Archivists)
The Academy of Certified Archivists promotes fundamental standards of professional archival practice and maintains an archival consultant referral service.
Connecting to Collections Care (Foundation for Advancement in Conservation)
Developed by the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation, this website offers more than 150 free preservation webinars, a moderated discussion community for staff and volunteers at small and mid-sized institutions to post collections care questions, and links to approximately 1,000 collections care resources.
List of Preservation Organizations (North Carolina Preservation Consortium)
The North Carolina Preservation Consortium offers a list, with links, of state, regional, national, and international preservation organizations.
Museum Resource Library (American Alliance of Museums)
The American Alliance of Museums offers more than 2,000 how-to guides, articles, and tools pertaining to standards and best practices for museum operations.
Resources for Managing and Preserving Library Collections (Association for Library Collections & Technical Services)
The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS), which is a division of the American Library Association, offers learning resources for managing and preserving library collections. Sections include acquisitions, cataloging and metadata management, and preservation and reformatting.
Before Precita Eyes Muralists Association received a Preservation Assistance Grant in 2016 and a subsequent grant in 2019 to improve the organization’s system of storage, organization, and public access.
Courtesy of Precita Eyes Muralists Association.
Before Precita Eyes Muralists Association received a Preservation Assistance Grant in 2016 and a subsequent grant in 2019 to improve the organization’s system of storage, organization, and public access.
Courtesy of Precita Eyes Muralists Association.
After Precita Eyes Muralists Association received a Preservation Assistance Grant in 2016 and a subsequent grant in 2019 to improve the organization’s system of storage, organization, and public access.
Image provided by Susan Cervantes, Precita Eyes Muralists Association.
After Precita Eyes Muralists Association received a Preservation Assistance Grant in 2016 and a subsequent grant in 2019 to improve the organization’s system of storage, organization, and public access.
Image provided by Susan Cervantes, Precita Eyes Muralists Association.
Crisis Management and Emergency Response
Alliance for Response (American Institute for Conservation)
Alliance for Response is an initiative of the American Institute for Conservation that brings cultural heritage and emergency management professionals together at the local level. The program offers a list of existing Alliance for Response Networks, a handbook for planning an Alliance for Response forum, and a toolkit for maintaining these networks.
Conservation OnLine: Disaster Resource Database (Foundation for Advancement in Conservation)
The database includes disaster response resources from organizations including the Smithsonian Institution, the National Park Service, and the Northeast Document Conservation Center. The database also includes sample disaster plans from humanities organizations.
Heritage Emergency National Task Force (Smithsonian Institution)
The Heritage Emergency National Task Force (HENTF), co-sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Smithsonian Institution, is a partnership of 60 national service organizations and federal agencies.
National Resource Guide for Disaster Preparedness (Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts)
The Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts compiles a list of emergency vendors across the country. The center also offers telephone assistance, grant writing assistance, hands-on salvage training workshops, and other services related to preservation and emergency response.
Telephone and On-Site Assistance (Northeast Document Conservation Center)
The Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) staff members are available 24/7 via a collections emergency hotline. NEDCC also lists disaster recovery service providers for on-site visits and additional digital resources for disaster response, recovery, and preparedness.
Standards, Methods, and Collections Management Resources
Choosing a Collections Management System (American Association for State and Local History)
Choosing a Collections Management System is a Technical Leaflet provided by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH). This succinct, how-to guide provides information for reviewing and selecting a collections management system, including details and resources to accomplish the selection process.
Preservation Self-Assessment Program (University of Illinois Libraries)
The University of Illinois Libraries’ Preservation Self-Assessment Program (PSAP) is a free online tool that helps collection managers improve the conditions of collections. PSAP supports targeted preservation assessments, performs item- and collection-level assessments, provides textural and image-based resources, and addresses factors of both storage and display for audiovisual media, photographic and image materials, bound and unbound paper, and objects.
Professional Practices for Academic Museums & Galleries (Association of Academic Museums and Galleries)
The Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG) prepared the Professional Practices for Academic Museums & Galleries to assist academic museum staff and volunteers, as well as members of their parent organizations, with codified best practices drawn from other museum organizations including the American Alliance of Museums (AAM).
Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (First Archivists Circle)
The First Archivists Circle, a group of nineteen Native American and non-Native American archivists, librarians, museum curators, historians, and anthropologists, provide best professional practices for culturally responsive care and use of American Indian archival materials through the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials.
RE-ORG (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property)
The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property offers the RE-ORG method kit, a step-by-step approach for reorganizing cultural and heritage collections storage rooms.