The Institute of Museum and Library Services recently announced a series of grants to support institutional resilience and research activity at libraries and museums at historically Black colleges and universities. In total, eight HBCUs and one HBCU alliance received a combined $1,725,261 in funding.
The HBCU Library Alliance, in collaboration with the American Institute of Physics, received $216,691 to address the under-documentation of contributions made by HBCUs in the field of physical sciences. The funding will be used to create a three-day summer workshop on oral history, digital collection, and digital preservation for 10 early- and mid-career librarians from HBCUs. The workshop will enhance participants’ preservation skills, as well as create open educational resources to be disseminated across the academic community.
The archives department of the Levi Watkins Learning Center at Alabama State University received $99,000 to increase its capacity to plan for and respond to disasters in the management of its collections. This funding will allow the HBCU’s archives team to create an updated disaster response plan, implement response training for 25 staff members, create appraisal reports for select materials, assemble four disaster response kits, and take documentary photographs of 70 pieces of art.
Bishop State Community College in Mobile, Alabama, received $91,495 to inventory, catalog, and make accessible three collections of local nineteenth- and twentieth-century African American historical materials, including documents, material culture, and oral history recordings. The project activities include establishing an archival processing room, conducting a full inventory of the collections, interviewing community stakeholders, developing cataloging procedures, and training staff and interns.
The Clark Atlanta University Art Museum received $152,440 to establish a museum educator position. The museum educator will work to expand access to the art museum’s collection, foster partnerships with at least five CAU faculty from at least three different departments, and enhance museum programs for the public and students across the Atlanta University Consortium.
The Meek-Eaton Black Archives Research Center and Museum at Florida A&M University received $500,000 to optimize collection management and expand digital access for students, researchers, and the public. The funding will also support professional development opportunities for staff in archival management and digital curation
The Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University in Mississippi received $317,039 to move its archives to secure, environmentally controlled, temporary storage during building renovations and HVAC replacement made necessary due to storm damage in 2023. During this project, the center will digitize nearly 1,000 oral histories and transfer 35,000 items from a fee-based digital platform to an open-source program used in the HBCU History and Culture Access Consortium, a digital initiative with the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture.
The art department and the Langston Hughes Memorial Library at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania received $98,901 to create an internship program for future museum professionals. The program will support three undergraduate students, each mentored in one of three fields: archiving, collections management, and exhibitions. Students will be mentored by Lincoln faculty and staff and attend workshops, field trips, and conferences within the museum field.
North Carolina A&T State University received $149,927 to host a national forum and launch the Artificial Intelligence Catalyst Institute to support the professional development of library professionals and library students in the field of artificial intelligence, showcasing how the technology can be used to support academic institutions in research and teaching. The funding will also create a resource toolkit for using artificial intelligence in librarianship.
Southern University at Shreveport received $99,768 to improve the care and preservation of the art, artifacts, and other significant works at the Southern University Museum of Art. The funds will be used to install two portable air conditioning units and four hygrometers to maintain optimal temperature and monitor humidity levels, upgrade existing cold storage, and enhance digital display signage. Staff will also work to develop proper policies and procedures for the care and maintenance of the museum and its collections.
