FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
September 17, 2007
The Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National
Endowment for the Humanities Award First
Advancing Knowledge: The IMLS/NEH Digital Partnership
Grants
Three Institutions Awarded
over $1 million in Grants for Digital Innovation
Washington, DC—The
Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced
today the first three grant recipients under Advancing
Knowledge: The IMLS/NEH Digital Partnership, a funding
opportunity that brings together museum, library, archive,
and IT professionals with humanities scholars to spur
innovative digital projects. The Historical Society of
Pennsylvania; Tufts University, Medford; and the University
of California, Berkeley will receive a combined total
of $1,047,455 for their work.
Through Advancing Knowledge: The IMLS/NEH
Digital Partnership grants, IMLS and NEH are joining
together to support collaborations among libraries, museums,
archives, universities, and other cultural organizations
to develop digital tools that will aid in the discovery
and dissemination of new knowledge about our past and
our culture. The partnership encourages projects that
explore new ways to share, examine, and interpret humanities
collections in a digital environment and to develop new
uses and audiences for existing digital resources.
The grants announced today are:
• $347,520 to Historical Society of Pennsylvania
for its project: PhilaPlace: A Neighborhood History
and Culture Project. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania
in collaboration with the Philadelphia Department of Records
and the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design
will develop PhilaPlace, an interactive Web resource chronicling
the history, culture, and architecture of Philadelphia's
neighborhoods. Complete with maps, historical records,
photographs, and digital models of select neighborhoods,
PhilaPlace will serve as a prototype website for communities
wishing to digitize their cultural heritage.
• $349,939 to Tufts University, Medford for its
project: Scalable Named Entity Identification in Classical
Studies. The Perseus Project and the Collections
and Archives of Tufts University will construct a testing
database of scholarly and cultural documents about the
ancient world. In the second part of the project, Tufts
will develop a digital reference tool allowing researchers
and librarians to conduct context-based “smart searches”
of un-indexed words from existing databases in the Tufts
Digital Library. By developing this database, and allowing
for much shorter and complete context-based searches,
Tufts hopes to lead scholars and students to the next
generation of digital tools.
• $349,996 to University of California, Berkeley
for its project: Context and Relationships: Ireland
and Irish Studies. The University of California,
Berkeley in collaboration with the Queen’s University,
Belfast, will develop a digital database of Irish studies
materials to test three open-source digital tools. The
Context Finder, Context Builder, and Context Provider
tools will be aimed at establishing scholarly context.
Using a common word search feature in digital collections,
these tools will allow users to access the ideas that
are associated with the words, thereby creating context
through maps, primary texts and secondary works.
“We are pleased to award the first
three Advancing Knowledge grants to pioneers of the digital
frontier,” said Anne-Imelda M. Radice, Ph.D., IMLS
Director. “These projects will foster new relationships
among museums, libraries, archives, IT professionals,
and humanities scholars to advance digital scholarship,
education, and preservation. This program will create
a foundation for professional collaborations needed to
support the digital humanities.”
“The mission of the Endowment has
always been to advance excellence in the humanities and
today that must mean maximizing the use of advanced technology,”
stated Dr. Bruce Cole, Chairman of the NEH. “These
first three awardees provide a great example of how humanities
organizations not only can leverage digital tools to advance
their area of study, but how the humanities can play a
more active role in creating new digital tools and resources.
I’m so pleased that our partnership with the Institute
of Museum and Library Services is helping to make this
possible.”
The Advancing Knowledge program is a key
component of IMLS’s Digital Connections Initiative
(DCI). This comprehensive program has made possible the
digitization of millions of artifacts and documents; the
annual WebWise Conference, a convening of representatives
of museums, libraries, archives, systems science, education,
and other fields interested in the future of high quality
online content for inquiry and learning; statewide digitization
efforts; and research on the public use of information
technology such as social tagging, blogs, Ipod downloads,
and text messaging.
The Advancing Knowledge program is a key
component of the NEH's Digital Humanities Initiative (DHI),
which supports projects that utilize or study the impact
of digital technology. The DHI program supports grants,
sponsors conferences, workshops, and other educational
events to offer humanists new methods of conducting research,
conceptualizing relationships, and presenting scholarship
using digital technology.
NEH grants are awarded on a competitive
basis. Throughout the year, humanities experts outside
of the Endowment and members of the National Council on
the Humanities consider all applications and advise NEH
on the quality and significance of each proposed project.
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About the Institute of Museum
and Library Services
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary
source of federal support for the nation’s 122,000
libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission
is to create strong libraries and museums that connect
people to information and ideas. The Institute works at
the national level and in coordination with state and
local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and
knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support
professional development. To learn more about the Institute,
please visit www.imls.gov.
About the National Endowment for
the Humanities
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the
National Endowment for the Humanities supports learning
in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of
the humanities. NEH grants enrich classroom learning,
create and preserve knowledge, and bring ideas to life
through public television, radio, new technologies, museum
exhibitions, and programs in libraries and other community
places. For more information about NEH's Digital Humanities
Initiative, please see: www.neh.gov/grants/digitalhumanities.html.
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