Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

Institute of Museum and Library Services

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The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. Read more

Director's Message In 2005, the Heritage Health Index report revealed that our nation’s collections of objects, documents, and digital materials were not only essential to America’s cultural health, but were imperiled and in need of swift protective action. Read more.

The Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills initiative underscores the critical role our nation’s museums and libraries play in helping citizens build such 21st century skills as information, communications and technology literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, civic literacy, and global awareness. Read more.

From October 28 – November 1, 2009, IMLS co-hosted “Connecting to the World’s Collections: Making the Case for Conservation and Preservation of our Cultural Heritage” with the Salzburg Global Seminar. Read more. Visit the Connecting to Collections Web Site to learn more about this multi- year, multi-faceted national initiative.

Multimedia on the IMLS Web site Now available: Libraries to the Rescue podcast series. Read more. Also, watch the webcasts from IMLS events and view video highlights from IMLS initiatives and more on the Multimedia page.



Volunteer Voices: Tennessee’s Rich History Is Collected Online Tennessee history abounds with major events—Civil War battles, the Scopes trial about the teaching of evolution, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and much more. Thousands of documents, photographs, and other items are held throughout the state, but they had never been assembled in one place. Now, with a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), researchers and librarians in Tennessee have created volunteervoices.org, a rich online collection of nearly 11,000 documents and photographs about life through the decades in the Volunteer State Read more

International Strategic Partnership Initiative We live in a global society and American libraries and museums have so much to share with, and learn from, people engaged in library and museum work throughout the world. Read more about our international strategic partnership initiative.


Find Available Grants Search grants by grant name, institution, or project type.


Search Awarded Grants Search our archive of grants awarded by the Institute. Search now


November 20, 2009-- Guardians of World Treasures Sign Salzburg Declaration on the Conservation and Preservation of Cultural Heritage November 20, 2009-- IMLS Funds Research on 3D Scanner Technology to Save Endangered Recordings November 20, 2009-- International Collaboration to Close the Digital Curation Gap View all


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