Grant Deadline for NEH’s Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections

 
 
 
 
NEH’s Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections grants encourage sustainable approaches to preserving humanities collections
Grant deadline: December 3, 2014
The National Endowment for the Humanities invites applications from nonprofit museums, libraries, archives, and educational institutions in the United States to the Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections program. This grant program supports planning and implementation of sustainable preventive conservation projects that pragmatically balance preservation goals, cost, and environmental impact. All projects should be designed to be as cost effective, energy efficient, and environmentally sensitive as possible.
To identify and achieve sustainable preservation strategies, it is important to define preservation requirements based on an understanding of your collections, their conditions, and the risks they face, rather than relying on ideal and prescriptive targets. Your local climate, the characteristics and performance of your building and its systems, the potential effects of climate change on cultural property, and institutional capacities must also be considered. It is advisable to look first for passive (that is, nonmechanical) ways to improve collection environments and to design mechanical systems, whenever possible, after investigating and implementing passive approaches for achieving and managing desired conditions. It is also important to evaluate and measure the effectiveness of a project’s results through the collection of data on conditions, energy use, and costs.
Planning grants of up to $40,000 (with an option of up to $50,000) are available to bring together interdisciplinary teams that will work collaboratively to identify sustainable preventive conservation strategies.
Implementation grants of up to $350,000 are available to manage interior relative humidity and temperature by passive methods; install heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems; install storage systems and rehouse collections; improve security and the protection of collections from fire, flood, and other disasters; and upgrade lighting systems and controls to achieve levels suitable for collections that are energy efficient.
Over the program’s first five years, museums, libraries, and archives have used Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections grants to
* identify passive strategies for creating more stable and protective collection environments;
* reevaluate specifications for relative humidity and temperature and establish realistic, achievable, and perhaps seasonally adjusted targets;
* repair building envelopes and improve site drainage to prevent moisture infiltration to help stabilize collection environments;
* investigate how the environmental management features of historic buildings might be used, especially those related to ventilation and control of solar gain;
* study the natural variations in a building to identify spaces best suited for collections and reorganize collections by material type, locating more vulnerable collections in spaces that are more naturally stable;
* employ the concept of multiple layers of buffering to create more stable conditions for collections;
* evaluate existing mechanical systems and optimize their performance;
* explore control strategies and programming of building automation systems for operating HVAC systems more efficiently, perhaps implementing managed setbacks and shutdowns of climate control systems in well-insulated spaces;
* design mechanical systems that are “right sized” and adopt, when possible, simple and easy-to-maintain systems and controls; and,
* install energy efficient lighting and employ occupancy sensors for control in storage spaces and galleries.
Guidelines, FAQs, and sample narratives from successful applications: www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/SCHC.html
A list of previous awards: www.neh.gov/files/divisions/preservation/sustaining_cultural_heritage_collections_awards.pdf
NEH program officers are available to discuss project ideas and read draft proposals. Please contact the division for more information by emailing preservation@neh.gov or calling 202-606-8570.