FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
September 25, 2007
IMLS Press
Contacts
202-653-4632
Jeannine Mjoseth, jmjoseth@imls.gov
Mamie Bittner, mbittner@imls.gov
$18 Million Awarded to Advance Innovation and Public Service
at Nation’s Museums and Libraries
Washington, DC—The
Institute of Museum and Library Services, the primary
source of federal funds for the nation’s museums
and libraries, announced today the 43 recipients of its
prestigious National Leadership Grants for 2007. The projects
chosen for funding will receive a total of $18,661,716.
Because institutions receiving grants are generally required
to provide matching funds, National Leadership Grants
are leveraging an additional $24 million in non-federal
spending this year. For more information on the 2007 National
Leadership Grants recipients, please
see the list of awarded institutions.
"Cultural institutions energize their
communities by not just preserving culture, heritage,
and knowledge, but by supporting life-long learning and
engagement," said Anne-Imelda M. Radice, PhD, Director
of the Institute. “National Leadership Grants harness
the work of the best of these institutions. By promoting
innovation and partnerships, they allow these institutions
to create national models that address the challenges
of the broader library and museum communities, and help
strengthen their impact.”
National Leadership Grants help libraries
and museums collaborate, build digital resources, and
conduct research and demonstration projects. The selected
projects are national models that will help foster individual
achievement, community responsibility, and life-long learning.
This year, IMLS received 213 applications for National
Leadership Grants seeking more than $78 million.
Highlights from this year’s list
of recipients include awards to the Children’s Museum
of Houston in Houston TX, in partnership with the Houston
Public Library, to develop and make available nationally
multi-lingual kits that will increase literacy and family
learning; to the Libraries of Eastern Oregon in partnership
with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, to deliver
programs in science and art to 30 disadvantaged rural
communities, including three Native American reservations.
Both these awards are from our Library and Museums Community
Collaboration Grant category that was brought back into
National Leadership Grants this year.
Other awardees include: the Frist Center
for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN, in partnership with
the High Museum of Art, the J.B. Speed Museum of Art,
and the Institute for Learning Innovation, to conduct
research on how families learn in art museum environments;
the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY,
to test a web-based analytical tool that will allow multiple
museum and library environments to be evaluated and monitored
through the Internet; the University of California, Los
Angeles and UCLA’s Department of Near Eastern Languages
and Cultures to create the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative:
Second Generation (CDLI 2) for the long-term preservation
of the text inscribed on endangered ancient cuneiform
tablets; and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,
to investigate and implement a systematic approach for
the development of useful, meaningful and usable digital
collections, building on the prior work of the IMLS Digital
Collections and Content (DCC) project.
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