NEH Humanities Collections and Resources CFDA 45.149

The Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program supports projects that provide an essential foundation for scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities. Thousands of libraries, archives, museums, and historical organizations across the country maintain important collections of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art and material culture, electronic records, and digital objects. Funding from this program strengthens efforts to extend the life of such materials and make their intellectual content widely accessible, often through the use of digital technology. Awards are also made to create various reference resources that facilitate 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. Applications are due by July 15, 2009.


Applicants should define a specific problem, devise procedures and potential solutions, and explain how they would evaluate their projects and disseminate their findings. Project results must serve the needs of a significant segment of humanists. Small and mid-sized institutions that have never received an NEH grant are especially encouraged to apply. Applications may be submitted for projects that include or combine the following activities: arranging and describing archival and manuscript collections; cataloging collections of printed works, photographs, recorded sound, moving images, art, and material culture; implementing preservation measures, such as basic rehousing, reformatting, deacidification, or conservation treatment; digitizing collections, or preserving and improving access to born-digital resources; developing databases, virtual collections, or other electronic resources to codify information on a subject field or to provide integrated access to selected humanities materials; creating encyclopedias; preparing linguistic tools, such as historical and etymological dictionaries, corpora, and reference grammars (separate funding is available for endangered language projects in partnership with the National Science Foundation); developing tools for spatial analysis and representation of humanities data, such as atlases and geographical information systems (GIS); and designing digital tools to facilitate use of humanities resources. Applications may address the holdings or activities of a single institution or may involve collaboration. In all cases, projects should be designed to facilitate sharing, exchange, and interoperability of humanities information and products.

Awards range from $100,000 to a maximum of $350,000 for a two-year period. As part of this request, a maximum of $50,000 may be included to develop a plan for the long-term sustainability of the project. Applicants for Research and Development projects that focus on integrated access as noted above may request up to $500,000. Successful applicants will be awarded a grant in outright funds, federal matching funds, or a combination of the two, depending on the applicant's preference and the availability of NEH funds.

Cost Sharing
Cost sharing is not required. NEH, however, is rarely able to support the full costs of projects approved for funding. In most cases, NEH Humanities Collections and Resources grants cover no more than 50 to 67% of project costs. A 50% level is most likely to pertain in the case of projects that deal exclusively with the applicant’s own holdings.

Document Type: Grants Notice
Funding Opportunity Number: 20090715-PW
Opportunity Category: Discretionary
Posted Date: Apr 07, 2009
Creation Date: Apr 07, 2009
Original Closing Date for Applications: Jul 15, 2009
Current Closing Date for Applications: Jul 15, 2009
Archive Date: Aug 14, 2009
Funding Instrument Type: Grant
Category of Funding Activity: Humanities (see "Cultural Affairs" in CFDA)
Category Explanation:
Expected Number of Awards: 20
Estimated Total Program Funding:
Award Ceiling: $350,000
Award Floor: $0
CFDA Number(s): 45.149 -- Promotion of the Humanities_Division of Preservation and Access
Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement: No

http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/HCRR.html