Collections Care/Preservation
Libraries and museums care for collections that connect us to history, art, science and the natural world.
National Initiative: Connecting to Collections
Connecting to Collections is a national initiative to raise public awareness of the importance of caring for our treasures, and to underscore the fact that these collections are essential to the American story.
Search the Awarded Grants database for grants to programs that strengthen collections care/preservation (issue areas have only been assigned to grants awarded since FY 2009)
Collections care/preservation content on the IMLS Web site:
January 10, 2013 07:44 AM
A grant of $250,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) will help them provide for first time a much needed service to museums, libraries, and archives around the country. They will use new technologies to convert audio recordings from obsolete formats, such as wax cylinders and records, to new digital formats.
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November 16, 2012 10:01 AM
IMLS and Heritage Preservation are working together to assist museums impacted by Hurricane Sandy by offering damage assessments through the Conservation Assessment Program.
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October 17, 2012 01:12 PM
IMLS is accepting applications for the Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum Services grant program. The program’s new deadline is January 15, 2013.
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November 30, 2012 08:15 AM
IMLS-funded research shows that inkjet prints are susceptible to damage from airborne pollutants. Senior Research Scientist Daniel Burge describes measures that can be taken to mitigate the damage.
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Throughout the impacted region libraries and museums play important roles in recovery efforts.
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October 23, 2012 01:41 PM
The Asian Art Museum brought in consultants from the Seoul, Korea, to collaborate with a team of experts about their rare Korean paintings.
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The North Carolina Connecting to Collections (C2C) program is helping the state’s museums, libraries, and other cultural heritage institutions better care for their collections. This profile demonstrates how the C2C program is making an impact throughout the state by conducting forums, hosting workshops, and providing other valuable resources.
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Libraries, archives and museums across the country have special audio collections contained on antique grooved media that are broken, too fragile or too degraded to play back on traditional systems. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory IRENE/3D project uses digital imaging technology to preserve these sound recordings.
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The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, the world's largest institution dedicated to the African American experience, holds a collection of more than 30,000 artifacts and archival materials.
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This report describes how IMLS engaged dozens of public and private partners to reach thousands of museum and library professionals with resources and technical assistance to care for endangered collections.
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Sixty cultural heritage leaders from thirty-two countries, including representatives from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South America, Australia, Europe, and North America gathered in October 2009 in Salzburg, Austria, to develop a series of practical recommendations to ensure optimal collections conservation worldwide.
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A publication of Heritage Preservation in partnership with IMLS that outlines fund-raising fundamentals, strategies, and case studies to generate new contributions, increase support, and foster new audiences for collections care activities.
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June 10, 2010 11:54 AM
Susan Blakney, a senior painting conservator at Westlake Conservators and member of the AIC Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT), traveled to Haiti May 4-8 to help conduct an assessment of the country’s artwork damaged by the January earthquake. Blakney and two other conservators visited a dozen museums, which she says have made great strides in retrieving and storing damaged artwork. She describes seeing 500 paintings that were stacked “in a pile like pancakes” awaiting conservation care. Haitians are anxious to save their paintings, which are one of their “national loves and largest exports,” she said. However, the country doesn’t have the materials to conserve the “vivid, colorful, and thematic” artworks that are part of their social history, she says. Conservators will be needed for many years to help restore the country’s artwork and to train Haitian artists on conservation techniques. Blakney is certain that the paintings she assessed can be restored to exhibition standards.
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