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:
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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The L.C. Bates Museum is one of 2700 institutions that have received Conservation Assessment Program (CAP) awards during the past 20 years. This article describes the history and accomplishments of the program.
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Providing community access to understand how collections are cataloged and handled can have myriad benefits. When the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute created a temporary exhibit in which curators and technicians performed cataloging and preventative conservation work in front of visitors, the results included a deeper understanding of how museums and cultural centers care for collections.
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