Humanities Collections and Reference Resources
Division of Preservation and Access
Grant Snapshot
Maximum award amount
Foundations projects: $50,000 (NEH offers an additional $10,000 to support interinstitutional planning and pilot activities).
Open to
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Period of performance
Application available
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HCRR advances scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities by helping libraries, archives, museums, and historical organizations across the country steward important collections of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art and material culture, and digital objects. The program strengthens efforts to extend the reach of such materials and make their intellectual content widely accessible. Awards also support the creation of reference resources that facilitate the 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.
Projects may address the holdings or activities of a single institution or may involve partnerships between organizations. Collaboration between humanities experts and information professionals is essential to broaden the scope of, and audiences for, proposed collections or reference resources. You should design a project that facilitates sharing, exchange, and the interoperability of humanities information and products, as well as ensures their long-term availability. Projects should expand participation in cultural heritage and promote engagement with primary sources.
Read the Notice of Funding Opportunity and study the application package and supplementary materials.
Application Materials and Program Resources
Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Notice of Funding Opportunity 2023 (PDF)
Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Grants.gov application package
List of recently funded projects in this program
Sample Application Narratives
Foundations Project: Barnum Museum, Planning to Digitize the Collections
Foundations Project: Bryn Mawr College, History of Women's Education Open Access Portal Project
Foundations Project: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Building a Duchamp Research Portal
Implementation Project: University of Nebraska, Genoa Indian School Digital Reconciliation Project
Implementation Project: Barnum Museum, Digitizing the P.T. Barnum Collections
Implementation Project: Museum of the City of New York, Digitizing the Museum's Ephemera Collections
Implementation Project: Rutgers University-Camden, Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
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Follow the instructions outlined in the Notice of Funding Opportunity and in the Grants.gov instructions.
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