Highlights Archives
$500,000 N.E.H. Grant to Help Preserve Library-Archives Collections
A $500,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities has been awarded to the Wisconsin Historical Foundation, which will use the grant to build a $2.5 million endowment for the preservation of the Wisconsin Historical Society's world-class North American history library and archival collections. News of the major federal grant was announced to the Society by 2nd District Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, whose office endorsed the grant application.
The Wisconsin Historical Foundation, a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1954 to raise funds and hold assets for the Society, applied for the federal grant last November. The application cited the need to ensure preservation of the largest collection of primary and secondary sources in the country devoted solely to North American history.
The Foundation must match the grant on a four-to-one basis, with $400,000 already raised. The challenge grant will be provided in stages as additional funds are raised. Once the $2.5 million goal is reached, the endowment will support a full-time senior conservator and provide annual funding for part-time staff, training, consultants to identify solutions to specific problems, and equipment for use in conserving the collection.
"This grant provides the impetus for a fund-raising campaign that, when complete, will help provide the means to conserve one of the most important North American history collections in America," said State Archivist Peter Gottlieb, who directs the Society's library and archives programs. "The endowment will augment state funding for preservation and will put the Society in a stronger position to find new sources of private support."
"The library and archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society are a treasure and an invaluable asset to our state," said Representative Baldwin. "I am delighted that our request for a challenge grant to fund a preservation endowment has been approved. It's up to all of us to ensure that these collections survive for future generations."
Examples of conservation projects the endowment will support include preservation of motion pictures in the collections of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater research, conservation of the Society's massive collection of historical photographs, and improved storage of flat oversize materials such as maps, posters and architectural drawings. It will also assist in long-term preservation planning.
:: Posted May 27, 2004
|
