2008 Museums for America Grant Announcement

Alabama  |  Alaska  |  Arizona  |  California  |  Colorado  |  Connecticut  |  Delaware  |  District of Columbia 

Florida  |  Georgia  |  Hawaii  |  Illinois  |  Indiana  |  Iowa  |  Kansas  |  Louisiana  |  Maine  |  Maryland 

Massachusetts  |   Michigan  |  Minnesota  |  Missouri  |  New Hampshire  |  New Jersey  |  New Mexico 

New York  |  North Carolina  |  Ohio  |  Oklahoma  |  Oregon  |  Pennsylvania  |  Rhode Island 

South Carolina  |  Tennessee  |  Texas  |  Utah  |  Vermont  |  Virginia  |   Wisconsin 

Alabama

U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Alabama Space Science Exhibit Commission - Huntsville,
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $140,800; Matching Amount: $421,690

Contact: Mrs. Irene Willhite
Curator
(256)721-7148; irenew@spacecamp.com

Project Title: "U.S. Space & Rocket Center Exhibit Plan"
The U.S. Space and Rocket Center will develop two exhibits for its newest museum addition, the Davidson Center for Space Exploration. The exhibits, entitled “Second Stage: Into Space” and “Third Stage: To the Moon,” will be part of the gallery located beneath the Saturn V rocket. The exhibits will present concepts of propulsion and aerodynamics, featuring artifacts such as the second and third stages of the Saturn V, a Saturn V wind tunnel model, an interactive kiosk demonstrating air flow around a wind tunnel, and an interactive kiosk allowing guests to build and test a rocket. Through the exhibit artifacts and hands-on inter-actives, guests will gain a deeper understanding of science as a human endeavor and how scientific experimentation evolved into the reality of space exploration.

Alaska

Pratt Museum, Homer Society of Natural History - Homer, AK
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $88,625; Matching Amount: $89,805

Contact: Ms. Heather Beggs
Director
(907)235-8635x33; director@prattmuseum.org

Project Title: "A Community Vision for a Community Museum: Engaging Diverse Constituencies in Capitol Project Planning"
The Pratt Museum, with A Community Vision for A Community Museum, will engage diverse audiences, community members, and stakeholder groups in planning the most significant capital project it has undertaken to date. The museum will gather community feedback to inform renovation planning through a questionnaire. Pratt staff will meet with each of the five Native villages as well as Russian Old Believer families and individuals to gather input for the renovation and feedback on a draft architectural program, and to seek approval for the final plan. Key research, education, and community institutions in the region will also be consulted. The result will be an architectural program widely approved by the Pratt’s community and stakeholders that defines space and site needs.

Museum of the Aleutians - Unalaska, AK
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $75,000; Matching Amount: $166,846

Contact: Ms. Zoya Johnson
Executive Director
(907)581-5150; zoyaj@akwisp.com

Project Title: "Design of the new permanent exhibit " The Aleutian Islands: Crossroads of the North Pacific"."
The Museum of the Aleutians will use its grant to support the design of a new permanent exhibition, “The Aleutian Islands: Crossroads of the North Pacific.” The new displays will interpret the art, culture, and heritage of the Unangan/Aleut people who have inhabited the Aleutian Islands continuously for the past 10,000 years. The displays will offer residents and tourists the knowledge to connect past and present, alerting them to historic evidence in the islands’ geographic names, man-made structures, and natural landscapes. By building new audiences, expanding the museum’s educational programs, attracting new museum members, and increasing opportunities for corporate and foundation support, this project will strengthen the museum's capacity to tell a comprehensive history of the Aleutian Islands.

Arizona

Museum of Northern Arizona - Flagstaff, AZ
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $169,148

Contact: Ms. Elaine Hughes
Collections Manager
(928)774-5211x228; ehughes@mna.mus.az.us

Project Title: "Hiring of Archivist to Gain Physical and Intellectual Control over Museum of North Arizona Archives"
The Museum of Northern Arizona will use its grant to hire an archivist to gain physical and intellectual control over institutional and donated manuscripts, maps, books, photographic prints and negatives, and sound and motion picture recordings. The archival project will help the staff develop written policies and procedures, expand current efforts to stabilize the collection, facilitate the move of the archives into a new collection center, and provide reference and research services and education opportunities to the public. The museum has never had a professional archivist on staff and will strive to make the position permanent. The project will increase accessibility to the collection and help the museum create future plans for the care of the archives.

California

UC Botanical Garden, University of California - Berkeley, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $57,046; Matching Amount: $58,278

Contact: Ms. Katherine Barrett
Associate Director of Eduation, UCBG
(510)643-7576; kdbarret@berkeley.edu

Project Title: "Crops of the World Garden for Low-income Youth"
The University of California Botanical Garden (UCBG) will develop educational materials and interpretive signs for its Crops of the World garden and two school gardens. Staff will work with students, teachers, and parents from two elementary schools in low-income communities to produce educational pamphlets in English and Spanish. Six durable I-Zone signs will be developed for the garden to show how to grow heirloom crops such as cucumbers and tomatoes, and to illustrate practices for sustaining soil fertility through composting and crop rotation. Laminated copies of the signs will be provided for each partner school to post in its nutrition garden. The program will reach elementary school children; teachers, students, and parents at the school garden Family Days; and all UCBG visitors.

UC Davis Arboretum, University of California - Davis, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,967; Matching Amount: $174,423

Contact: Emily Griswold
Assistant Director of Horticulture
(530)752-4880; ebgriswold@ucdavis.edu

Project Title: "Interpretive Trail, Exhibits, and Education Programs for Shields Oak Grove"
The University of California, Davis Arboretum will develop exhibits, educational programming, and an interpretive trail to enhance the 11-acre Shields Oak Grove. The Oak Discovery Trail will feature paths, benches, plant labels, interpretive signs, and stops for a cell phone tour. Oak researchers will participate in the arboretum’s Science Café, a series of informal presentations and conversations with UC Davis scientists about current topics of interest. Researchers will have access to online digital maps, a database, and herbarium specimens. UC Davis students, community volunteers, and K–12 students will create a large-scale ceramic mosaic mural for Oak Grove that will picture the fauna and flora of a California oak woodland ecosystem. The project will culminate in Family Oak Day, a community celebration of oaks.

Institute for American Research - Goleta, CA
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $24,712; Matching Amount: $26,992

Contact: Dr. Gary Coombs
Director
(805)964-3540; gcoombs@goletadepot.org

Project Title: "Goleta Depot: The History of an Enduring communtiy Landmark"
The South Coast Railroad Museum will begin a project titled Goleta Depot: The History of an Enduring Community Landmark. The museum will produce an updated and expanded edition of a 100-page history of the Goleta Depot, which has been out of print for over two decades. This book has been, and will continue to be, the seminal document that underlies much of what the museum does. Spanish and English versions of the text will be available, both in print and online. The new book will convey information but also engage its audience by making connections to the everyday lives of its readers. Community members, as well as museum staff and stakeholders, will be encouraged to invest themselves in the project and participate actively in its preparation.

Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology - Hemet, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $114,942; Matching Amount: $116,719

Contact: Dr. Paisley Cato
Curator of Collections Care
(951)791-0033x237; pcato@westerncentermuseum.org

Project Title: "The Simulated Dig Site Project"
IMLS funding will help the Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology develop a simulated dig site as a project-based learning experience that will enable participants to develop a deeper understanding of the intrinsic value and fragility of cultural and paleontological resources. Participants will be provided with an experience that simulates the scientific reasoning and technical processes involved with an archaeological or paleontological dig. The site activities will be designed to supplement and enrich state and national curriculum standards for formal education. Additional interpretation, including signage and information on the center’s Web site, will be designed to help casual visitors understand the ethics, science, and processes involved in a dig. Interpretive and curriculum units will be developed, tested, and implemented in a thorough, systematic manner.

Rotchev House Museum, Fort Ross Interpretive Association - Jenner, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $114,049; Matching Amount: $173,218

Contact: Ms. Lyn Kalani
Project Director
(707)847-3437; friaadmin@mcn.org

Project Title: "Rotchev House Museum Exhibit at Fort Ross California"
The Rotchev House Museum will research and design exhibit displays for material objects in the Rotchev House, an 1830s Russian-built national landmark house located at Fort Ross Historic State Park. The exhibits will enhance understanding and appreciation of the little known legacy of the 1812–1841 Russian-American Company settlement at Fort Ross. Researchers have uncovered a fuller picture of daily life at Fort Ross, and the museum will highlight how the Rotchev family’s European intellectualism influenced how they, and the larger colony, worked together to build an enlightened multicultural society that lasted nearly three decades. Interpretive materials for the exhibit will include a walking tour, museum panels and gallery prints, and a video that will also be available on the Web.

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County - Los Angeles, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $109,500; Matching Amount: $699,267

Contact: Dr. Carl Selkin
Vice President, Education
(213)763-3533; cselkin@nhm.org

Project Title: "Educational Partnership Initiative"
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will begin an educational partnership initiative. Students will draw on the museum’s collections as a source of information and inspiration for the creation of artistic projects, integrating curriculum in the arts, ecology, science, and social studies. Students will visit the museum and explore a topic from one of the 16 permanent collections. Museum curators and researchers will also contribute, with behind-the-scenes tours and classroom visits. Under the guidance of their teachers and guest artists, students will spend several weeks exploring their museum topics in the classroom, using a range of artistic media such as painting, music, photography, poetry, theater, and dance. Informal partnerships with local schools, arts organizations, and professional arts will make the program available to a wide range of students.

Oakland Museum of California Foundation - Oakland, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $145,582; Matching Amount: $179,178

Contact: Ms. Barbara Henry
Chief Curator of Education
(510)238-3820; bhenry@museumca.org

Project Title: "Picture This: California Perspectives on American History Expansion and Enhancement Project"
The Oakland Museum of California will expand and enhance its current educational Web site, titled “Picture This: California Perspective on American History.” As a pilot project for the digitization of all the Oakland Museum’s collections, the “Picture This” expansion will provide teachers with greater access to the museum’s collections and offer new ways to use them to explore the history of California’s ethnically diverse populations. The Web site will be expanded by adding images, content, and interactive elements, as well as related teacher training materials. The museum will collaborate with educators in developing educational activities, all of which will be tied to history and social science content standards. This project will ensure that the museum's K–12 educational services are relevant and accessible for students and teachers.

Pacific Asia Museum - Pasadena, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,763; Matching Amount: $516,368

Contact: Ms. Amelia Chapman
Curator, Education Programs
(626)449-2742x19; a.chapman@pacificasiamuseum.org

Project Title: "Chinese American Community Initiative"
The Pacific Asia Museum will develop a Chinese-American community initiative that will capitalize on the museum’s resources—including its collection of Chinese art and its Chinese-style building and courtyard garden—to attract a broad audience. The initiative is a targeted effort to increase the number of people of Chinese heritage who visit the museum and participate in its programs. The project is multilayered and integrates expanded programming, new Chinese-language materials, outreach, and the development of new partnerships with schools, social service and cultural organizations, media, and businesses based in the Chinese-American community. The programs will be publicized in Chinese communities but will appeal to the general public, thus encouraging interaction between the Chinese-American community and other communities in the area.

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego - San Diego, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $245,605

Contact: Ms. Gabrielle Bridgeford
Education Curator
(858)454-3541x142; gbridgeford@mcasd.org

Project Title: "Streaming Dialogues: Teen and Young Adult Programs at MCASD"
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) will undertake new and expanded programs targeting teens and young adults. Streaming Dialogues will include many elements designed by and for young people, including events, Web-based projects such as teen-produced interviews with artists and podcast tours, exhibitions, workshops, and special film programs. The museum believes that youth are an underrepresented demographic in art museums but an ideal audience for contemporary art. Like contemporary artists, they experiment, challenge, question, and explore issues of identity, authority, culture, irony, and social structures. The project will take place primarily at MCASD’s downtown San Diego location. It aims to empower and actively engage future audiences by making the museum an elemental part of young peoples’ lives.

San Diego Society of Natural History - San Diego, CA
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $38,148; Matching Amount: $38,812

Contact: Dr. Mary Hawke
Plant Atlas Director
(619)255-0301; mhawke@sdnhm.org

Project Title: "Increased Access to California's Botanical Heritage"
The San Diego Natural History Museum will begin a project to assign geographic coordinates to existing plant specimen records from San Diego County that are housed in other California herbaria (collections of preserved plant specimens). The museum, having previously completed the geo-referencing of its own collections, will build on this acquired knowledge. The resulting database will be shared online via the Consortium for California Herbaria and the San Diego County Plant Atlas. The project will increase access to botanical specimen data, preserve information about the region’s natural history, and promote public understanding of plant diversity. The intended audience includes educational institutions, land managers, land-use planners, conservation and environmental groups, government resource agencies, private landowners, and interested members of the public.

Zoological Society of San Diego - San Diego, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $185,486

Contact: Ms. Robyn Badger
Project Coordinator
(619)557-3902; rbadger@sandiegozoo.org

Project Title: "Educational Demonstration Wetland at the San Diego Wild Animal Park"
The Zoological Society of San Diego will develop an educational demonstration wetland at its Wild Animal Park to educate visitors of all ages about water conservation and the importance of conserving wetland habitats. In addition to providing an engaging educational experience, the educational demonstration wetland will improve the water quality in the park through natural biological filtration, provide additional wetland habitat for many rare and endangered species, and reduce the park’s consumption of imported water through increased water recycling efforts. A range of youth and adult participants will help with the planting and maintenance of the wetland, including underserved local youth through a partnership with the Escondido Education Compact’s youth career project. The park hopes the experience will motivate visitors to become active stewards of the natural world.

National Japanese American Historical Society - San Francisco, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $24,999; Matching Amount: $25,001

Contact: Ms. Rosalyn Tonai
Executive Director
(415)921-5007x000; rosalyn@njahs.org

Project Title: "Japanese American Cultural Heritage Tourism Initiative"
The Japanese American Historical Society will begin a yearlong planning process for a nationally coordinated program of historic preservation and interpretative activities exploring Japanese-American experiences in American democracy. With the goal of strengthening collaboration among regional organizations, the society will tour traveling exhibits, which will include curriculum packages, panel presentations, film screenings, performing arts presentations, family workshops, and digital storytelling workshops. The project aims to disseminate information about the Japanese-American experience before, during, and after World War II to a broader national audience and increase awareness of the upcoming development of WWII confinement sites by the National Park Service.

Chinese Historical Society of America - San Francisco, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $60,000; Matching Amount: $65,985

Contact: Dr. Anna Naruta
Director of Archives
(415)391-1188; anaruta@chsa.org

Project Title: "Chinese Immigrants and the Challenge to American Immigration Policy"
The Chinese Historical Society of America will use its grant to support the planning of “Chinese Immigrants and the Challenge to American Immigration Policy,” a special exhibition and a series of public programs that tell the history of Chinese immigration to America. Scheduled to open in December 2009, the exhibition will include photographs, films, historical artifacts, maps, documents, and oral histories that reveal the diverse story of Chinese immigrants in the United States. Public programs accompanying the exhibition will engage the broader community in lively panel discussions, family events, and film screenings that will educate and celebrate the Chinese-American communities and commemorate the centennial of the opening of Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - San Fransisco, CA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,938; Matching Amount: $710,646

Contact: Dr. Dominic Willsdon
Curator of Education and Pubic Programs
(415)357-4101; dwillsdon@sfmoma.org

Project Title: "Family Arts Participation Initiative"
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will use its grant to expand onsite, online, and community programs, as well as marketing and communications strategies for Bay Area families with young children. SFMOMA aims to broaden, deepen, and diversify participation in its programs by families with children ages 4–11 from Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo counties. This represents an increased commitment to maximizing the educational value of modern and contemporary art for families, increasing cultural and visual literacy and fostering a lifelong appreciation of the arts. The project will promote highly satisfying arts experiences that help sustain the benefits of arts participation for individuals, SFMOMA, and society.

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden - Santa Barbara, CA
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $143,469; Matching Amount: $198,011

Contact: Ms. Joan Ariel
Director of the Library
(805)682-4726; jariel@sbbg.org

Project Title: "The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Image Database Project"
The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden (SBBG) will develop a digital image database for use by staff, volunteers, and the public. Currently, SBBG has tens of thousands of photographs, slides, and born-digital images that have never been cataloged. The collection documents depict SBBG’s 82-year history, California native flora, and planted and natural landscapes. The image resources cannot be properly used because they lack finding aids and are scattered across staff computers and offices. This project will centralize the collection in a digital image database with greater search capabilities. The project advances SBBG’s goals to use technology, educate the public, disseminate research, and ensure that the image collection and associated knowledge are preserved for the future.

UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, University of California - Santa Cruz, CA
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $149,649; Matching Amount: $205,195

Contact: Dr. Daniel Harder
Executive Director, Arboretum
(831)427-2998x101; dkharder@ucsc.edu

Project Title: "Enhanced Stewardship: Collections Data, Seed Repository, and Herbarium"
The arboretum at the University of California, Santa Cruz will use its grant to implement a new collection record database program, BGBase. The new program will be used for all arboretum collections, making them more comprehensive, secure, and accessible for all users. A collections recorder will be hired and a long-term seed storage facility and a small regional herbarium will be established, which will allow the arboretum to better conserve and build collections and participate more fully in conservation efforts. This initiative will improve the arboretum’s ability to support collections care, education, research, and outreach.

Colorado

Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, City and County of Denver - Denver, CO
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $22,197; Matching Amount: $24,416

Contact: Mr. Steve Friesen
Director
(303)526-0744; buffalobill.museum@ci.denver.co.us

Project Title: "Online Photo Research Database"
The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave will create an online photo research database so the public can view images from the museum’s photo archives via the Internet. This project continues ongoing efforts to make the collections more accessible and usable to researchers and historians worldwide. The project will be beneficial to students, authors, researchers, historians, and the media as well as to museum staff, who will be able to respond to image requests in a more timely and cost-effective manner.

Denver Art Museum - Denver, CO
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $218,080

Contact: Melora McDermott-Lewis
Director of Education
(720)913-0056; mmcdermott-lewis@denverartmuseum.org

Project Title: "New Adult Programs at the Denver Art Museum"
The Denver Art Museum will develop five new young adult programs to help young adult visitors have meaningful and personally rewarding experiences with art. “Easy moments of creativity” programs will include do-it-yourself workshops offered on a drop-in basis, and “-ing” offerings, where artist facilitators will help visitors experiment in sketching, creative writing, or acting. “Unexpected content” programs will include “de-tour” podcasts that feature experts outside the realm of art and “guerilla gallery talks,” which will prompt visitors to convene near an artwork, at which point staff facilitators will invite visitors to engage in conversation with one another by looking at the work through unique perspectives. As a final component, messenger bags that contain portable tools will be available to enhance visitors’ experience with the works of art.

Denver Museum of Nature and Science - Denver, CO
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $100,968; Matching Amount: $107,468

Contact: Ms. Jude Southward
Conservation Department Conservator/Chair
(303)370-6496; jude.southward@dmns.org

Project Title: "DMNS FY08 Collections Risk Assessment"
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science will begin a collection stewardship project to complete a risk assessment for all collections in storage. The risk assessment will identify, quantify, and prioritize risks and risk mitigation strategies for its collection of one million objects. The museum’s collection contains objects in the areas of anthropology, earth and space sciences, zoology, and library and archives that represent the American West, including its geology, wildlife, and indigenous peoples. As the museum prepares to construct a new collections storage facility, the risk assessment will ensure the effective use of resources, staff knowledge, and expertise to achieve optimal collections stewardship and public access to the collections.

Children's Museum of Denver - Denver, CO
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $133,000; Matching Amount: $215,715

Contact: Mr. Mike Yankovich
Vice President of the Guest Experience
(303)561-0128; mikey@cmdenver.org

Project Title: "The Children's Museum of Denver's Interactive Bubbles Exhibit"
The Children’s Museum of Denver will design a new public Playscape featuring interactive bubble play. Plans for the exhibit include traditional and nontraditional bubble wand play; it will include large-scale bubble-making machines, a dome-and-fog bubble machine; and multiple tool-and-pan bubble areas. Educational programming related to the exhibit—for both school groups and the general public—will focus on the science of bubbles and will include weekly public programs around bubble paintings, black light bubbles, and the geometry of bubbles. The bubbles Playscape will provide an experience that effectively engages children of all ages, focusing on the museum’s audience of newborns through eight-year-olds.

Muriel L. MacGregor Trust - Estes Park, CO
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $46,920; Matching Amount: $51,920

Contact: Ms. Emily Barnthouse
(970)586-3749; emily@macgregorranch.org

Project Title: "Emergency Preparedness : Purchase Fire Detection, Suppression and Secu"
The Muriel L. MacGregor Trust will begin an initiative to follow through on recommendations from a risk assessment of the MacGregor Ranch Museum, a high-mountain historic working cattle ranch. The trust will purchase fire detection and suppression equipment and systems to protect outdoor resources and two historic structures that house collections and the education/nature center. A consultant will be hired to oversee the project, which will also include an upgrade of the security system and community-wide training entitled “Disaster Preparedness Response and Recovery Drills.” These measures will reduce identified risks to the people, collections, historic structures, and farm animals inhabiting and using the museum.

Connecticut

Fairfield Museum and History Center - Fairfield, CT
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $95,139; Matching Amount: $103,877

Contact: Ms. Regine Heberlein
Librarian
(203)259-1598; rheberlein@fairfieldhs.org

Project Title: "Fairfield Museum and History Center Joint Online Library Catalog Project"
The Fairfield Museum and History Center will digitize its bibliographic records, which are currently available only through its library card catalog. The records will then be made available through the online catalog of the Fairfield Public Library. This partnership is modeled on one between the Fairfield Public Library and the Pequot Library Association in neighboring Southport. The Fairfield Museum’s project has five components. First, a predigitization check of the master records against the public library’s online catalog will be done to identify duplicate holdings. Next, analog records will be converted to digital format. The system will be tested and corrected, the records will be loaded into the library’s database, and the outcomes will be evaluated and tested.

Mystic Seaport Museum Inc. - Mystic, CT
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $142,801; Matching Amount: $146,735

Contact: Mr. Jonathan Shay
Director of Exhibitions and Interpretation
(860)572-0711x4230; jonathan.shay@mysticseaport.org

Project Title: "Restoring an Icon: The Charles W. Morgan exhibition"
The Mystic Seaport Museum will plan and implement “Restoring an Icon: The Charles W. Morgan,” an exhibition interpreting the three-year restoration of the Charles W. Morgan, an 1841 whale ship and designated National Historic Landmark. The Morgan, the last remaining wooden whale ship, is a cornerstone of the museum’s collection. Project components will include a cell phone audio tour, hands-on interactive elements, and live interpretation to provide in-depth understanding of the Morgan’s structure, history, and restoration. Interpretive signs, diagrams, and photographs will provide schoolchildren, museum visitors, and distance learners with additional context about the restoration activities, the traditional techniques and technologies of wooden boat restoration, and the forces that can cause the deterioration of a wooden ship’s structure.

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum - Ridgefield, CT
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $75,991; Matching Amount: $75,991

Contact: Ms. Helen Kauder
Deputy Director
(203)438-4519; hkauder@aldrichart.org

Project Title: "Community Reseach Initiatve"
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will use its grant to implement a comprehensive audience and community survey and evaluation process titled the Community Research Initiative. The project will lay the groundwork for the museum’s next strategic plan and will inform the future direction of the institution, both strategically and programmatically. The museum will hire a consultant to work with the institution over a 16-month period to craft and administer a set of survey instruments and to evaluate the results. Visual artists—one of the museum’s core constituencies—will participate in the program as observers and surveyors. Following their participation, these selected artists will be invited to offer a creative response to the fact-finding and will work with the museum’s curatorial staff to develop future exhibitions and projects.

Delaware

Delaware Art Museum - Wilmington, DE
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $121,133; Matching Amount: $419,316

Contact: Ms. Gail O'Donnell
Director of External Affairs
(302)571-9590x503; godonnell@delart.org

Project Title: "Community Partners Program at the Delaware Art Museum"
The Delaware Art Museum will use its grant to support a Community Partners Program. The program will strengthen and expand existing partnerships between the Museum and diverse community organizations and schools. These partnerships generate a variety of educational K -12 programs in art and the humanities, provide exhibition space for community-based groups and collectives, and help develop innovative opportunities for creative renewal and lifelong learning. Currently, the Museum’s partnership projects include: ARTSCOPE, ARTSMART, ARTSPEAKS, Multi-Cultural Family Days, Glory of Stories, and Outlooks Exhibitions. A wide range of audiences are impacted by these programs including school children and educators, families, and local artists. Partnerships with various community groups strengthen the Museum’s ability to create an environment in which diverse ethnic communities feel “at home” in the Museum.

Winterthur Museum - Winterthur, DE
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $142,240; Matching Amount: $189,179

Contact: Ms. Linda Eaton
Curator of Textiles
(302)888-4658; leaton@winterthur.org

Project Title: "Winterthur Textile and Needlework Cataloguing Project"
The Winterthur Museum will begin a multiyear project to upgrade documentation (accession and catalog records) of its collection of historic textiles and needlework. Virtual access to the objects will be available via the Web site. With upgraded digital images of the collection online through CONTENTdm, a new digital asset management system, the collection will become more accessible to the public and allow information to be linked to textile research sites on the Web. Currently, most of Winterthur’s textile collection is housed in storage areas not readily accessible to the public. By placing its most important pieces online, it will allow the public to conduct more complex research on textiles and needlework.

District of Columbia

National Building Museum - Washington, DC
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $418,302

Contact: Ms. Bryna Lipper
Vice President, Marketing and Communication
(202)272-2448; blipper@nbm.org

Project Title: "Information and Technology Online Service- Phase Three"
The National Building Museum will complete the third and final phase of its information technology and online services initiative. Funding will allow the museum to purchase the hardware, software, and services needed to offer high-quality interactive and multimedia content on its Web site. The Web expansion will disseminate intellectual capital on the subjects of sustainable design, building, and planning to the museum’s virtual audience. Virtual learning will be available to adults and children alike through online discussion forums, mini-documentaries, and interactive children’s education activities. The projected launch of these programs will coincide with its next green-themed exhibition—“Green Communities”—in October 2008.

National Woman's Party/Sewall-Belmont House and Museum - Washington, DC
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $40,461; Matching Amount: $51,158

Contact: Mary van Balgooy
Museum Specialist Consultant
(301)251-6371; mvanbalgooy@verizon.net

Project Title: "Improving Collections Access"
The National Woman’s Party will use its grant to support projects to improve access to its women’s history collection. More than 500 objects that represent a cross-section of its collection will be cataloged and entered into a collections management software program. To ensure that the project meets professional museum standards, an advisory committee will be consulted. The committee will consist of individuals who specialize in researching and managing women’s history collections, including representatives from the Smithsonian National American History Museum, Women’s Rights National Historical Park, and the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House. The committee will help the National Woman’s Party identify priorities for cataloging artifacts and will help coordinate efforts to make collections related to women's history accessible to a wider public.

Florida

Coral Springs Museum of Art - Coral Springs, FL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $31,295; Matching Amount: $31,295

Contact: Ms. Barbara O'Keefe
Museum Excutive Director
(954)340-5000; ctbok@coralsprings.org

Project Title: "Coral Springs Museum of Art- APEX (Arts Partner for the Exceptional"
The Coral Springs Museum of Art will initiate an Arts Partnership for the Exceptional (APEX) program. The program will foster an appreciation of the visual arts and encourage the development of the creative process among special needs and disadvantaged adults. Participants will go on a docent-led tour of the current exhibition, followed by a related hands-on art activity in the museum classroom. Participants will have the opportunity to meet a national artist—Jan Kolenda, the museum’s artist-in-residence—and watch her create art with clay. The participants will return to the museum when the exhibit changes; it is hoped that they will become familiar with the arts culture and feel at ease in the museum environment.

University of Florida - Gainesville, FL
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $101,713; Matching Amount: $101,713

Contact: Dr. Rebecca Nagy
Executive Director
(352)392-9826; rnagy@harn.ufl.edu

Project Title: "Digitization of the Harn Museum Collection"
The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art will use its grant to add nearly 2,000 digital images to its collections management system. This project will greatly improve access to collections and make it easier for the staff to answer questions about the collections, plan exhibitions, organize loans, assist educators, and promote events and exhibitions. The project moves the museum a step closer to its goal of providing public access to the Harn collections and publications in digital format. The immediate beneficiaries of the project will be the Harn staff, but it will also benefit faculty and students at the University of Florida and Santa Fe Community College, as well as K–12 educators and students throughout Alachua County.

Key West Botanical Garden Society - Key West, FL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $146,814; Matching Amount: $298,809

Contact: Ms. Carolann Sharkey
Chairman and Volunteer
(305)304-3666; sharkeyfun@aol.com

Project Title: "The Outdoor Living Lab Classroom"
The Key West Tropical Forest and Garden will launch a K–5 living science lab—an outdoor, hands-on discovery program designed to align with state benchmarks. A curriculum will also be developed for grades six through eight to serve a wider audience. The project reaches out to the entire school population within a 35-mile radius and helps the garden serve the role of environmental center, as called for in its mission. The program will serve the more than 65 percent at-risk students and many underserved children who live in the surrounding rural areas. The goal is to offer students a safe haven where they can commune with nature and learn to appreciate the natural world that surrounds them.

Zoological Society of Florida - Miami, FL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $103,000; Matching Amount: $110,101

Contact: Mrs. Elisabeth Koncza
Deputy Director and Director of Education
(305)255-5551x121; ekoncza@zsf.org

Project Title: "Queztzal's World"
Miami Metrozoo will create an 18- to 20-minute program called “Quetzal’s World,” which will enhance families’ understanding and appreciation of tropical American wildlife through an educational, interactive theatrical production at the zoo’s 27-acre “Amazon and Beyond” exhibit, opening in 2008. “Quetzal’s World” will be a professionally staged, innovative theatrical presentation that will enhance audiences’ enjoyment of “Amazon and Beyond” and the zoo. Both the exhibit and “Quetzal’s World” will interpret the biodiversity of tropical areas of Central and South America, the countries of origin of many members of the zoo’s predominantly Hispanic community. “Quetzal’s World” will be performed twice daily, targeting children 8–12 years old and their families, and third to sixth grade students and their teachers.

Museum of Science and Industry, Tampa - Tampa, FL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,736; Matching Amount: $149,805

Contact: Mr. David Conley
Vice Prsident of Exhibits
(813)987-6340; DConley@mosi.org

Project Title: "Investigating the Amazing You Through Technologies"
The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) will install “Amazing You,” a series of innovative technology exhibits. With help from partners Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, WestCoast Brace and Limb, Laerdal Medical Corporation, Surgical Science, Inc., and the MOSI Health Advisory Board, the museum will design and fabricate exhibits in seven areas: robotic surgery, laparoscopic simulator, myo-electric prostheses, surgery on demand, patient simulators, heart microphone, and screenings. Each exhibit will be interactive and will give the public an opportunity to learn and explore current medical technologies and interact with medical and health professional volunteers. Through exhibit questions, visitors will be empowered to become successful advocates for their own health.

Georgia

Center for Puppetry Arts - Atlanta, GA
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $19,780; Matching Amount: $19,827

Contact: Mr. Jeremy Underwood
Curator of Exhibits
(404)881-5128; jeremyunderwood@puppert.org

Project Title: "Inventory of the Center for Puppetry Arts' Permanent Collection"
The Center for Puppetry Arts museum program will conduct a comprehensive inventory of its permanent collection of nearly 2,000 puppets and related performance objects of historical, cultural, religious, sociopolitical, and artistic significance from countries around the world. This project will entail a wall-to-wall inventory to examine the location and records for each object in the permanent collection. This information will be used to reconcile records in the collection management database system. The project will result in a more accurate and complete catalog of the collection and will enable staff to develop plans for the reorganization of museum storage and exhibition spaces in preparation for the opening of two major exhibitions and an anticipated move to a new facility.

Hawaii

Laupahoehoe Train Museum - Laupahoehoe, HI
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $125,400; Matching Amount: $325,800

Contact: Dr. Douglas Connors
Treasurer
(808)962-6300; dougconnors@yahoo.com

Project Title: "Establishment of livable communities through Laupahoehoe Train Museum"
The Laupahoehoe Train Museum will use its grant to strengthen its educational outreach and community awareness through projects developed around the theme, “Highlighting of Hawaii’s Railroads.” The Museum will hire a project coordinator to focus on programming, which will emphasize the Island’s railroad, plantation and cultural history. The Museum intends to publish a short informational DVD and a book detailing the history of the Hawaii Consolidated Railroad and the creation of the Museum.

Waioli Corporation - Lihue, HI
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $52,783; Matching Amount: $52,783

Contact: Robert Schleck
Director
(808)245-3202; grovefarm@hawaiiantel.net

Project Title: "Digital Equipment and Archiving Project"
Waioli Corporation will begin a digital equipment and archiving project to digitize all its museums’ historical records, which include missionary, sugar plantation, Wilcox family, Kauai Public Health nursing, and Hawaiian government documents. Waioli will purchase a turnkey digital imaging system that can capture the details of the collection, as well as the necessary hardware and software to support the digital archive. Additional computer file servers will support an ongoing digital archive and a computer workstation to access and process oversized files for researchers and staff. Digitization of the collection will facilitate the dissemination of the historic collection to the public.

Illinois

Chicago Zoological Society - Brookfield, IL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $148,722; Matching Amount: $694,163

Contact: Ms. Agnes Kovacs
Mnager-School, Group, and Teacher Programs
(708)688-8223; agkovacs@brookfieldzoo.org

Project Title: "Levels of Engagement"
The Chicago Zoological Society will introduce Levels of Engagement, a learner-centered education framework for achieving conservation outcomes and developing conservation leaders. The society recognizes the need for improved science education, and Levels of Engagement provides professional development opportunities for Chicago Public School teachers through programs that range from curriculum units and one-day workshops to science courses with credit toward endorsement and a master’s degree in science content and process. The program targets all educators in the Chicago Public School system to improve teachers’ competency and confidence in teaching science. The program will support the society’s mission to inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.

University Museum, Southern Illinois University - Carbondale, IL
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $149,962; Matching Amount: $237,369

Contact: Ms. Lorilee Huffman
Curator of Collections
(618)453-5388; curator@siu.edu

Project Title: "21st Century Collection Management Iniatitive: Implementing Collection Standards"
The University Museum, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, will implement the collection standards phase of its 21st century collection management initiative. In 2006, the museum completed a seven-year effort to enter manual records for its objects. The assessment of these records identified the need to address database standardization and record integration to ensure that computerized records are accurate. This important step must be completed before the museum can proceed with digital imaging, which will allow the collection to be shared online. To provide a foundation for digitization, the staff will work with digitization focus groups to help develop three model educational online collection portfolios and to obtain input for writing digitization and collection plans.

Orpheum Children's Science Museum - Champaign, IL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $88,258; Matching Amount: $92,087

Contact: Ms. Carolyn Knepp
Executive Director
(217)352-5895; orpheumkids@gmail.com

Project Title: "Orpheum Children's Science Museum LEAP for the Kids"
The Orpheum Children’s Science Museum will implement a Learning Environment Awareness Program (LEAP) geared toward middle-school-aged children and administered by the museum’s education department. It will begin by adapting preexisting curricula to craft a series of programs—including hands-on activities and assessment measures—and will continue with the development of an infrastructure to sustain and expand LEAP. The project will allow the museum to expand outreach to a wider age group, building on its focus on environmental education and aligning with its mission to actively engage children of all ages with the science of the world around them.

Art Institute of Chicago - Chicago, IL
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $182,329

Contact: Mr. Samuel Quigley
VP for Collection Management, Imaging , & IT
(312)443-4772; squigley@artic.edu

Project Title: "Rapid Imaging Project"
The Art Institute of Chicago will continue its Rapid Imaging Project (RIP), an important component of a massive digitization program recently initiated at the museum that allows for the rapid production of images for digital publication. This phase of the project focuses on approximately 31,500 small to moderate-sized two-dimensional art objects. The RIP will make images of the objects accessible to the public on the museum’s Web site, including works that are seldom, if ever, displayed because of their light sensitivity or fragility. This effort will create a vast resource of images, which can be used in print publications; digital slide presentations; interpretative material for student, teacher, and family programs; and visitor information kiosks located throughout the museum.

Shedd Aquarium Society - Chicago, IL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $136,302; Matching Amount: $136,302

Contact: Mr. Daryl Rizzo
Director of Floor Programs
(312)692-3170; drizzo@sheddaquarium.org

Project Title: "From Knowing to Feeling: A New Model for Interpretive Staff Professional Development and Program Design"
The Shedd Aquarium will implement a new model of interpretive engagement in its galleries and exhibits. This model (currently in use at the St. Louis Zoo) goes beyond the traditional delivery of scientific information in gallery education programs by employing the concept of affective transformation, a theory of engagement that asserts that specific kinds of emotional experiences with nature are necessary to cause a significant shift in attitudes about conservation. Affective transformation triggers will be incorporated into programming in the Oceanarium—the aquarium’s marine mammal pavilion—to elicit an emotional connection with animals. The goal is to touch hearts, minds, and souls to inspire visitors to make a difference.

National Museum of Mexican Art - Chicago, IL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $74,000; Matching Amount: $90,150

Contact: Cesareo Moreno
Visual Arts Director, Curator
(312)433-3915; cesareo@nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org

Project Title: "The African Presence on Tour"
The National Museum of Mexican Art will bring two exhibitions—“The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga to the Present” and “Who Are We Now? Roots, Resistance, and Recognition”—and a traveling civic dialogue series to three institutions: the African American Museum in Philadelphia, the Museo Alameda in San Antonio, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, DC. Funding will support visits to each of the host institutions to install, implement, and remove the exhibits, as well as a two-day culminating event in Chicago. The project will foster civic dialogue between Mexicans and African-Americans while educating the general public about an important yet overlooked aspect of history.

Chicago Historical Society - Chicago, IL
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $246,726

Contact: Kathleen Plourd
Andrew W. Mellon Director of Collections
3127992060; plourd@chicagohistory.org

Project Title: "Preservation of the Hedrich-Blessing Photography Collection, 1970-79"
The Chicago History Museum will use its grant to process, preserve, and make accessible a major collection of architectural photos taken from 1970 through 1979 by the Chicago-based firm Hedrich-Blessing Photography. Architecture is recognized as an important aspect of the city’s history and is an enduring topic of local, national, and international interest for scholars, tourists, and the general public. The Hedrich-Blessing collection documents the transformation of Chicago’s built environment. The images will be cataloged and made available electronically, and rehoused for better preservation and access. The project will enable the collection to be used more effectively by a wide variety of individuals and institutions.

Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago Horticultural Society - Glencoe, IL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $2,035,391

Contact: Ms. Patsy Benveniste
Vice President, Community Programs
(847)835-6945; pbenveni@chicagobotanic.org

Project Title: "Windy City Harvest"
The Chicago Botanic Garden will use its grant to launch Windy City Harvest, a unique social enterprise and partnership with two Chicago nonprofit institutions: North Lawndale Employment Network and the Chicago Christian Industrial League. The enterprise is planned for a 15-acre site in North Lawndale, one of Chicago’s most underutilized neighborhoods. The primary goal is to develop a center for training ex-offenders and hard-to-employ persons for living-wage jobs through a transitional jobs program. Other goals include producing and selling locally grown organic produce at a variety of markets and ultimately establishing a “green” campus for local residents. Participants will establish employment histories and acquire skills and experiences that will translate into employment opportunities in the food service, horticulture, and floriculture industries.

Morton Arboretum - Lisle, IL
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $222,034

Contact: Dr. Andrew Hipp
Plant Systematist & Herbarium Curator
(630)725-2094; ahipp@mortonarb.org

Project Title: "Integrated Plant Collections Database"
To improve the usefulness of its living plant and herbarium collections, the Morton Arboretum is developing an integrated plant collections database. The database will link all plants data in the two collections, improving the accuracy of plant names and establishing institutional consistency in plant nomenclature. Furthermore, the database will create a unified framework in which to store all current and future data related to the arboretum’s plant collections, including links between data tables, tools for curating the plant collections, and links to images and other resources. The project will include staff and volunteer training to use the database. Enhanced information on the arboretum’s living plant and herbarium collections will be available to a wide audience through a public Web interface.

Early American Museum - Mahomet, IL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $116,500; Matching Amount: $133,984

Contact: Dr. Barbara Oehlschlaeger-Garvey
Museum Curator of History
(217)586-2612; bgarvey@ccfpd.org

Project Title: "Abraham Lincoln: Large Presence in a Small Town"
The Early American Museum will create an exhibit entitled “Abraham Lincoln: Large Presence in a Small Town.” The exhibit, which will be displayed at the Champaign County courthouse in Urbana, will consist of an interactive, theatrical depiction of a courtroom as it would have appeared when Abraham Lincoln practiced law on the 8th Judicial Circuit from 1841 to 1859. Lincoln tried civil and criminal cases, and even served as a judge. Figures and holographic projections of Lincoln and his Champaign County contemporaries—along with artifacts, archival material, audio effects, and a “you be the jury” scenario—will engage visitors. Interpretive panels—including photographs, maps, and text—will place Lincoln in the context of the county, the courthouse, and legal history.

Children’s Discovery Museum, Town of Normal - Normal, IL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $147,267; Matching Amount: $158,505

Contact: Ms. Shari Buckellew
Museum Manager
(309)433-3447; sbuckellew@normal.org

Project Title: "Imagination Theatre Project"
The Children’s Discovery Museum will use its grant to design, construct, and install “Imagination Theatre.” The exhibit will include a performing arts stage, puppet theater, and operable technical board for dramatic play experiences. Visitors will be given drama and cultural story starters that incorporate thematic cultural or historical characters, and there will be storytelling and science experiments to broaden the impact of the exhibit beyond the arts. Programming will include arts-based day and summer camps, in-depth workshops, family fun events, and monthly hands-on classes. The exhibit aims to enhance imagination and creativity, cognitive development, and basic reading and writing skills. The experience will provide children with enhanced self-awareness, self-esteem, and a better understanding of themselves and others.

Discovery Center Museum - Rockford, IL
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $135,250; Matching Amount: $249,479

Contact: Mrs. Sarah Wolf
Executive Director
(815)963-6769; sarahw@discoverycentermuseum.org

Project Title: "Fit Families Initiative"
Discovery Center Museum will use its grant to support the Fit Families initiative, a partnership with the YMCA, Head Start, University of Illinois School of Medicine, the 21st Century After School Achievement Program, and the Rockford Public Library System to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to combat childhood obesity. The initiative is an opportunity for families and students to adopt healthy behaviors, and the museum hopes to reach a diverse audience, focusing on low-income households. The initiative will offer a series of healthy living education programs that are free, convenient, and presented in settings that families already visit and trust, such as schools and libraries.

Indiana

Indiana Historical Society - Indianapolis, IN
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $74,950; Matching Amount: $95,519

Contact: Dr. Stephen Cox
Executive Vice President
(317)232-1876; scox@indianahistory.org

Project Title: "The Indiana History Train"
The Indiana Historical Society will use its grant to support the Indiana History Train, a partnership between the Indiana Historical Society and the Indiana Rail Road Company. This mobile museum consists of three refurbished 65-foot Amtrak freight cars that will visit Indiana communities. It features “Faces of the Civil War,” an interpretive exhibit based on the society's Indiana Civil War collection and accompanying programming and activities. The Indiana History Train makes the society’s collections accessible to people all across the state, including geographically isolated or underserved audiences. The History Train combines the iconic allure and nostalgia of the American railroad with interpretive lessons of Indiana's rich past, allowing people to "come aboard" and discover the enduring meanings of their shared history.

Iowa

James & Meryl Hearst Center for the Arts, City of Cedar Falls - Cedar Falls, IA
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $9,287; Matching Amount: $12,642

Contact: Ms. Mary Huber
Director
(319)268-5500; mary.huber@cfu.net

Project Title: "Children's Book Illustration Gallery Phase I:"
The Cultural Division of the City of Cedar Falls, home of Hearst Center for the Arts, will use its grant to help the Hearst Center staff prepare for a large expansion of the building space that is expected in 2011. The new building will feature a children’s book illustration gallery, larger collection storage and management areas, and a studio learning lab. This project will improve programs and operational procedures, and will define goals and objectives for new illustration exhibits and events. Staff members will attend museum conferences and identify and visit larger organizations to study their illustration collections, review administrative structures and practices, and evaluate and analyze events and exhibitions in order to identify and adapt best practices for the center and its audience.

National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library - Cedar Rapids, IA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $116,699; Matching Amount: $117,414

Contact: David Muhlena
Library Director
(319)362-8500; dmuhlena@ncsml.org

Project Title: "Recording Voices and Documenting Memories of Czech- and Slovak -Americans"
The National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library will use its grant to support Recording Voices and Documenting Memories of Czech- and Slovak-Americans, a national oral history project designed to capture the personal stories, family sagas, and community history of 20th century political émigrés and descendents of early immigrants. Outcomes of the project will include 150 interviews, as well as photographs, community histories, archival materials, and a Web site that features biographies, indexed interviews, and photographs. The primary source materials will be used to develop a permanent exhibition about the Czech- and Slovak-American immigrant experience. The project will serve a national audience, engaging them in preserving their own history and culture and retaining personal and family stories to provide lessons for the future.

Iowa Children's Museum - Coralville, IA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $98,881; Matching Amount: $123,369

Contact: Ms. Deb Dunkhase
Executive Director
(319)625-6255x210; ddunkhase@theicm.org

Project Title: "Take Flight! An Exhibit About the Science of Aviation"
The Iowa Children’s Museum will use its grant to build an interactive exhibit about the science of aviation. The program is designed to improve the scientific literacy of children 8–12 years old and allow all visitors to participate in experiential learning that is also fun. “Take Flight!” will allow the community to join scientists and explorers, past and present, as they examine flight in both natural and man-made worlds. Visitors will explore Newton’s laws of physics and the fundamental concepts of force as they design, construct, and test model airplanes; investigate the aerodynamics of gliders, helicopters, and birds; and experience flying a plane through the use of flight simulators.

Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum - Decorah, IA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $122,934; Matching Amount: $122,938

Contact: Tova Brandt
Curator
(563)382-9681x238; tbrandt@vesterheim.org

Project Title: "Engaging a National Audience Through Expanded Collections Access"
The Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum will use its grant to invest in technology and staffing resources to engage a national audience by creating wider access to the museum’s collections. The museum will hire a collections access manager to facilitate onsite access for researchers, students, artists, and other visitors. An expanded computer network will provide the capacity for visitors, staff, and educational program participants to integrate collections access into the museum experience. Thousands of artifacts will be digitally photographed for research purposes, and three virtual galleries will launch on the Web site, including rosemaling (Norwegian decorative painting), weaving, and woodworking exhibits. The collections-based Web content will allow Vesterheim to transcend the barriers of geography and share its collection with a national and international audience.

National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium, Dubuque County Historical Society -
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $142,166; Matching Amount: $143,546

Contact: Mr. Jerry Enzler
Executive Director
(563)557-9545; jenzler@rivermuseum.com

Project Title: "Rivers to the Sea"
The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium will develop the “Rivers to the Sea” exhibit and education program. Working in partnership with the J. L. Scott Marine Education Center and other collaborators, the project will increase awareness of the role of water in the lives of visitors and the interconnectedness of streams and rivers and the oceans to which they flow. The museum has embarked on a multiyear program to address this topic through exhibits, programs, and outreach activities. The museum has conducted audience assessments and has worked with scholars, partnering museums and aquaria, and consultants.

Kansas

Fort Larned National Historic Site - Larned, KS
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $129,238; Matching Amount: $174,240

Contact: Ms. Afton Eye
Museum Curator
(620)285-2054; curator@santafetrailcenter.org

Project Title: "Those Who Saw: Sharing the Experiences of Converging Cultures Along the Santa Fe Trail and the Development of Pawnee County"
The Fort Larned Historical Society, Inc., in partnership with Pawnee County, will implement a multifaceted digitization project: Those Who Saw: Sharing the Experiences of Converging Cultures Along the Santa Fe Trail and the Development of Pawnee County. The project will bring together historical photographs and documents from both organizations. It will include organizing and training staff, digitizing catalog records, processing and creating descriptive aids for backlogged and new archival donations, selecting and digitizing 4,000–5,000 historic photographs and documents, designing a Web portal, and creating metadata for scanned files. The project will increase the society’s ability to grow and serve its community by improving intellectual control, and will increase public awareness and access to the collections.

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas - Lawrence, KS
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,751; Matching Amount: $149,755

Contact: Ms. Saralyn Hardy
Director
(785)864-4710; jenneu@ku.edu

Project Title: "Engaging 21st Century Learners: A Multidisciplinary Art-Museum Model"
The Spencer Museum of Art (SMA) will develop a collaborative, art-museum-centered communication model designed to address the multiple learning styles of its audience. The goals of the initiative are to introduce actual and virtual technologies to connect with new audiences, to collaborate with diverse community participants, to create multiple model teaching and learning styles across disciplines, to use two environment-themed art/science SMA exhibitions for model content areas, to train Kansas University preservice teachers to incorporate these techniques into future curricula, and to develop a multiformat teacher training resource. The project will help develop new relationships and audiences, break down stereotypes about art museums, and create a lasting impact by training teachers to bring the next generation of learners to the museum.

Franklin County Historical Society - Ottawa, KS
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $60,750; Matching Amount: $83,084

Contact: Ms. Deborah Barker
Director
(785)242-1232; history@old.depot.museum

Project Title: "Collection Cataloguing Completion"
The Franklin County Historical Society will catalog 7,000 items from its collection, which includes manuscripts and archives, architectural details, furniture, equipment and tools, textiles, ephemera and memorabilia, photographs, and publications. The collection is used for historical research, exhibition development, educational programming, community outreach, and genealogy inquiries. To assist with cataloging, a computer and scanner will be acquired, and staff will receive training on the cataloging software. Throughout the process, a preliminary assessment of the conservation needs of each item will be entered into the file, allowing the staff to identify and prioritize the items most in need of conservation attention.

Salina Art Center - Salina, KS
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $281,390

Contact: Ms. Heather Ferrell
Associate Curator of Art
(785)827-1431; hferrell@salinaartcenter.org

Project Title: "Artist Initiative"
The Salina Art Center will use its grant to support Artist Initiative, an integrated cycle of programs designed to provide the community and surrounding region with extended opportunities for in-depth engagement with artists. Artist Initiative was envisioned, developed, and implemented as a dynamic institutional advancement that serves the center’s mission to create exchanges among art, artists, and audiences that reveal life. The three components of the program are Artist in Residence, which brings three artists each year for a 6- to 12-week residence; Artist Exchange, a mentoring program for local and regional artists to teach and learn together; and Artist at Work, a series of professional development opportunities for local and regional artists, facilitated by visiting artists.

Louisiana

Louisiana Children's Museum - New Orleans, LA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $308,476

Contact: Mrs. Katie Rafferty
Education/Exhibit Director
(504)586-0725; krafferty@lcm.org

Project Title: "New Orleans: Proud to Call It Home"
The Louisiana Children’s Museum will use its grant to support an interactive exhibit and accompanying programming entitled “New Orleans: Proud to Call It Home.” The project incorporates elements of urban planning, architectural design, and construction. It includes a permanent exhibit, an outreach exhibit, and two dedicated staff members. The exhibit will offer open-ended experiences to teach families about the vocabulary of architecture, engineering, green design, and weather and climate. All participants will learn about current tenets of building “smarter, stronger, safer and greener” with the vast amount of rebuilding throughout the city. A new Learning Pathway curriculum that aligns with Louisiana state grade level expectations, complementary programs, and a take-home activity booklet will further expand the content.

Maine

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens - Boothbay, ME
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $149,550; Matching Amount: $211,603

Contact: Ms. Maureen Heffernan
Executive Director
(207)633-6433x102; mheffernan@mainegardens.org

Project Title: "Building Capacity for the Curation of Living Plant Collections at the Coast Maine Botanical Gardens"
The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (CMBG) will use its grant to hire a curator of living plants and to consolidate collections management and conservation under this new curatorship. Additionally, external advisors and a project evaluator will work to purchase the equipment needed for plant surveys and mapping. CMBG recognizes that the creation of a curatorial department, headed by a full-time curator, is an institutional investment that will significantly extend the garden’s capacity to maintain and grow its living plants collection. This investment will also extend CMBG’s capacity for horticultural research and will ensure an expert source of content information for educational programs in plant science, horticulture, and ornamental gardening.

L. C. Bates Museum, Good Will–Hinckley Homes - Hinckley, ME
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $46,053; Matching Amount: $52,977

Contact: Ms. Deborah Staber
Director/Curator
(207)238-4250; lcbates@gwh.org

Project Title: "Enhancing Science Education Through Community Afterschool Programs"
The L. C. Bates Museum will use its grant to support Inspiring an Interest in Science, an after-school program designed to reach rural and low-income children and their families by providing opportunities for science education. The project will bring established museum natural history and science programs to five central Maine after-school organizations and will offer eight Wild Saturday family programs to participants and their families. Local TV 7 will film and air a program about the project. The project is based on a successful pilot; it will support the L.C. Bates Museum’s mission of engaging with its community by presenting educational programming and will serve the museum by building audience and community collaborations.

Maine Historical Society - Portland, ME
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $149,620; Matching Amount: $165,949

Contact: Mr. John Mayer
Curator of Museum Collections
(207)774-1822; jmayer@mainehistory.org

Project Title: "The MHS Museum Collections Inventory Project: A Cornerstone for the Future"
The Maine Historical Society will undertake a comprehensive inventory of its museum collections, which include more than 15,000 objects that document the history of Maine, New England, and early America. The collections serve as the foundation for core activities across the institution, including research, exhibits, public and school programs, publications, and online programs. The project will address long-standing inconsistencies in the museum catalog and will allow the society to move forward in its effort to adopt collections management practices that meet or exceed museum standards. The project will also help establish physical and intellectual control of the museum collections and support a series of strategic initiatives designed to ensure the effective management and continued growth of the institution.

Maryland

Walters Art Museum - Baltimore, MD
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $392,450

Contact: Ms. Jacquline Copeland
Director of Education and Public Programs
(410)547-9000x231; jcopeland@thewalters.org

Project Title: "Exploring Asia: Connecting Art and Community"
The Walters Art Museum will use its grant to support “Exploring Asia: Connecting Art and Community.” Components of the project include performances, Art 201 (a course on Asian art), Asian-focused art activities, a family festival, and exciting interpretive materials for the galleries. The museum will serve teachers and students through online resources for math, science, language arts, and social studies. These programs are designed to foster meaningful experiences for visitors of all ages with the arts of China, Japan, and India. These collections offer the citizens of the Baltimore region the opportunity to discover, learn, and understand this diverse cultural region.

National Aquarium in Baltimore, Inc. - Baltimore, MD
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,988; Matching Amount: $246,586

Contact: Mr. Mark Donovan
Senior Director of Exhibits & Design
(410)576-1012; mdonovan@aqua.org

Project Title: "Wings in the Water Exhibit Reinterpretation"
The National Aquarium in Baltimore will develop, produce, and install interactive interpretive stations to enhance the aquarium’s ability to engage visitors at its focal exhibit, “Wings in the Water.” This project is part of a large, multiyear renovation of the “Wings in the Water” exhibit, which houses mostly rays and sharks. Interactive components will include touch screen computers at multiple locations. Visitors will use the computer to identify the species; learn about its natural history and biological characteristics; and understand environmental issues, threats, and recommended actions. By adding new interpretive activities to the exhibit, the aquarium will improve the way it communicates ocean health messages to its audiences.

Adkins Arboretum - Ridgely, MD
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $28,025; Matching Amount: $42,302

Contact: Ms. Eleanor Altman
Executive Director
(410)634-2847; ealtman@adkinsarbortum.org

Project Title: "Adkins Arboretum Planning Initiative"
Adkins Arboretum is building a new Arboretum Center that will more than triple the size of its visitor center and allow it to significantly expand the content and reach of its education programs. This project will help the arboretum take critical steps to ensure that it has the organizational and administrative structure, staff knowledge, skills, and operating policies and procedures necessary to carry out the goals outlined in its master plan. Input will be solicited from members of the staff, volunteer corps, and board of trustees, and from visitors, arboretum members, and the community. There will be a special focus on reaching out to members of the community who are underrepresented at the arboretum.

Montgomery County Historical Society - Rockville, MD
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $106,519; Matching Amount: $149,842

Contact: Ms. Karen Lottes
Education Director
(301)340-2825; kylottes@montgomeryhistory.org

Project Title: "Montgomery Connections"
The Montgomery County Historical Society will implement Montgomery Connections, a multilingual local history project intended to reach nontraditional audiences in innovative ways. The project is designed to engage a diverse audience of residents, commuters, and visitors in an introduction to local history and its connection with their lives. The society will put striking historical images on freestanding banners, bus advertisements, newspaper advertising in local and ethnic papers, trilingual cell downloads, and Web site materials to illustrate 12 themes in county history. Each theme will be exemplified by a real person and his or her story. The banners, posters, and ads will be in Chinese, Spanish, and English, with a short text, a cell phone number, and a Web site address.

Massachusetts

Whittier House Association - Amesbury, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $29,650; Matching Amount: $30,256

Contact: Ms. Janet Howell
President, Board of Trustees
(978)388-5920; hellhowl@verizon.net

Project Title: "John Greenleaf Whittier: Poet and Abolitionist"
The Whittier House Association (WHA) will develop educational programming focusing on the life and work of American poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier. Activities will include writing and literacy workshops for school age and adult populations, as well as a school curriculum unit. The programming, developed with input from local teachers and community members, will be designed to highlight Whittier’s interest in human rights and will build social capital in the community of Amesbury. By examining Whittier’s poems and other writing, WHA aims to connect the local to the national—helping local schoolchildren and citizens better understand a part of the nation's history through the contributions of one of their own.

New England Aquarium - Boston, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $127,506; Matching Amount: $129,802

Contact: Dr. William Spitzer
Vice President for Programs and Exhibits
(617)973-6567; bspitzer@neaq.org

Project Title: "New England Aquaruim Blue Planet Explorations"
The New England Aquarium will create interactive mobile-media tours to promote the exploration of the aquarium’s exhibits. These “Blue Planet Explorations” will provide a flexible and engaging platform to present educational content, while offering visitors the ability to direct their own experiences. Users will download explorations into handheld devices, where they can then manipulate a range of information linked with exhibits. They can customize their visits by choosing among information and activities (available in several languages) such as animal identification, geographic information about an exhibit’s habitat, fun activities and discussion points, or more in-depth scientific information. Conservation messages and information about research programs will convey the aquarium’s mission, and regular updates will introduce new themes so that each visit can be a unique, personalized, and rewarding experience.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - Boston, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $68,440; Matching Amount: $167,749

Contact: Ms. Margaret Burchenal
Curator of Education and Public Programs
(617)278-5123; pburchenal@isgm.org

Project Title: "School Partnership Program"
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will strengthen its School Partnership Program through ongoing programming and an intensive professional development initiative for all partnering Boston Public School teachers and administrators. In the core multivisit program and new teacher training initiative, the visual arts will be integrated into the everyday curriculum by training teachers to lead discussions about images using the Visual Thinking Strategies curriculum. Students build critical thinking skills such as observation, evaluation, and interpretation through sequential, developmentally appropriate lessons that take place throughout the academic year. Through the program, students develop personal connections with the Gardner’s building, collection, and special exhibitions, and become more comfortable in a museum environment.

USS Constitution Museum Foundation - Charlestown, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,988; Matching Amount: $156,432

Contact: Ms. Anne Grimes Rand
Deputy Director
(617)426-1812x121; arand@ussconstitutionmuseum.org

Project Title: ""A Sailor's Life for Me?""
The USS Constitution Museum will create “A Sailor’s Life for Me?” an engaging, research-based online exhibit that introduces visitors, young and old, to the lives and experiences of the sailors who served onboard the USS Constitution during the War of 1812. Visitors will learn how 450 men lived and worked together in a small floating city and will have virtual access to parts of the ship not accessible to the general public. Written in first-person style, the site will reinvigorate interpretation of this national monument and foster personal connections by interpreting the ship from the inside looking out via detailed illustrations, crew profiles, quotes, objects, and games. Families can extend the fun and learning beyond time spent online through activities available for download.

Memorial Hall Museum, Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association - Deerfield, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $235,456

Contact: Timothy Neumann
Executive Director
4137747476 x12; tneumann@deerfield.history.museum

Project Title: "Poetry to the Earth: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Deerfield"
Memorial Hall Museum will use its grant to support "Poetry to the Earth: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Deerfield," an array of complementary programs on Deerfield Arts and Crafts. The project will include an illustrated book on the Deerfield Arts and Crafts movement, and the reinstallation of Memorial Hall Museum's existing Arts and Crafts exhibit, which will include recent scholarship and engaging interpretive audio podcasts. An interactive “Poetry to the Earth” Web site exhibit, classroom activities and resources for teachers and students, and a traveling exhibit on the Deerfield Arts and Crafts movement will also be created. The goal of the program is to increase knowledge and appreciation of the ideals, historic context, aesthetics, and unique contributions of Deerfield to the American Arts and Crafts movement.

Historic Highfield - Falmouth, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $32,916; Matching Amount: $33,014

Contact: Ms. Barbara Milligan
Executive Director
(508)495-1878; highfieldhall@verizon.net

Project Title: "The Highfield Story"
Historic Highfield, Inc., will use its grant to develop an interpretive strategy for Highfield Hall, a historically and architecturally significant 1878 mansion on Cape Cod. Saved from demolition by the community, the mansion has undergone restoration and is now being operated as a historic site and community cultural center. The interpretive plan will include an interactive educational exhibition, “The Highfield Story,” which will be the major avenue for communicating the history of the building and its restoration to the public. Mobile interpretive panels located throughout the building will provide room-specific historical and pictorial information. An interpretive brochure will provide a brief history of the property and a map of the entire estate, including gardens, woods, carriage trails, and outbuildings.

New England Wild Flower Society - Framingham, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,924; Matching Amount: $151,104

Contact: Mr. Greg Lowenberg
Education Director
(508)877-7630x3301; glowenberg@newenglandwild.org

Project Title: "Online New England Flora"
The New England Wild Flower Society/Garden in the Woods will use its grant to construct a prototype of Online New England Flora, a Web-based educational resource. The site will encourage informal, self-directed education in botany and will enable anyone with Internet access to identify and learn about the native and naturalized plants in the New England region. The creation of this prototype will enable the society to evaluate the Web architecture, user interface, and curricula that best serve the programmatic needs of target audiences before constructing the complete Online Flora. A curriculum task force made up of museum, nature center, and academic educators will identify and develop teaching activities and downloadable curriculum packets that would benefit from using the Online Flora.

American Textile History Museum - Lowell, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $108,417; Matching Amount: $118,199

Contact: Ms. Clare Sheridan
Librarian
(978)441-0400x228; csheridan@athm.org

Project Title: "American Textile History Museum: Creating Public Access to the Collections."
The American Textile History Museum (ATHM) will use its grant to support two components of the ongoing Chace Project, which was initiated to make its collections accessible to the broadest possible audience. The first component will improve the functionality and usability of the Chace Catalogue, ATHM’s online collections catalogue, improving users’ ability to access information about and images of objects in the collection. The second component will improve intellectual control of and access to the Osborne Library’s collection of trade catalogues, broadsides, and advertising ephemera, adding three new categories of objects from the library’s collections to the growing number of artifacts and paper-based materials already available online through the Chace Catalogue.

Hancock Shaker Village - Pittsfield, MA
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $412,967

Contact: Mr. Todd Burdick
Director of Education
(413)443-0188x216; tburdick@hancockshakervillage.org

Project Title: "Implementation of New Interpretation Training Program"
Hancock Shaker Village will implement Opening Doors to Great Guest Experiences, a new training program for its historic interpreters to help them serve the community as an educational resource. New thematic content will be developed in the areas of sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and historic preservation, and research will be conducted on the effectiveness of the program. New interpretive techniques and content will resonate with contemporary audiences, spurring visitor-motivated inquiry and dialogue that will follow both set agendas and the visitor’s interests. These dialogues will honor diversity and difference in education levels, economic backgrounds, and world view, and will encourage visitors to continue the dialogue with their families both on- and offsite.

Plimoth Plantation - Plymouth, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $106,831; Matching Amount: $890,346

Contact: Ms. Elizabeth Lodge
Director of Museum Programs
(508)746-1622x8216; llodge@plimoth.org

Project Title: "Adornment"
The Plimoth Plantation will present “Adornment,” a major exhibition exploring the multiple meanings of personal embellishment in 17th century New England and the impact of clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, hairstyles, and body art on the cultural encounters of Native people and colonists. Plimoth Plantation will present this topic as one story of two peoples, examining how embellishment functioned in Wampanoag and English societies, and how nonverbal messages about race, gender, power, age, body image, social status, and spirituality were read or misread across those cultures. “Adornment” will include a catalog, activities room, teacher workshops, docent programs, film and lecture series, theatrical performances, online resources, and a traveling exhibit.

Peabody Essex Museum - Salem, MA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,899; Matching Amount: $298,197

Contact: Ms. Peggy Fogelman
Director of Education and Interpretation
(978)745-9500x3233; Peggy_Fogelman@pem.org

Project Title: "Peabody Essex Museum Multiple Visit Partnership Program"
The Peabody Essex Museum will use its grant to continue its successful Multiple Visit Partnership program, which piloted in 2006. The program serves under-resourced schools in the surrounding community. Students in grades K–7 participate in multiple visits to the museum, and programs are tailored specifically to the needs of each class and reinforce curriculum frameworks. English is not the first language of many students in the program—the use of art and objects helps create a common ground that begins to break down the language barrier. Students use the collection to foster critical and visual thinking skills and creativity. The program concludes with student presentations to friends and family, and they leave with a tangible product—taking the museum home with them.

Heritage Museums and Gardens, Heritage Plantation of Sandwich - Sandwich, MA
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $72,875; Matching Amount: $139,068

Contact: Dr. Scott Swank
Executive Director
(508)888-3300x143; sswank@heritagemuseums.org

Project Title: "Heritage Museums & Gardens Living Collection Cataloging Project"
Heritage Museums and Gardens will embark on a two-year living collections cataloging project to catalog 4,000 of an estimated 15,000 trees and plants. A plant catalog will be created to replace the incomplete plant records that have accumulated over the first 40 years of the institution’s history. As a result of the project, Heritage Museums and Gardens will be able to network and collaborate with arboretums and botanic gardens worldwide, and build a collections management program to facilitate the strategic plan for the gardens. Funding will allow Heritage to maintain its current plant recorder and purchase new plant labels for the project.

Norman Rockwell Museum - Stockbridge, MA
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $136,425; Matching Amount: $411,550

Contact: Ms. Laurie Norton Moffat
Director/CEO
(413)298-4100x232; lnmoffat@nrm.org

Project Title: "Planning for the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies"
The Norman Rockwell Museum will use its grant to plan, evaluate, and pilot the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies (RCAVS), the country’s first research institute for the study of American illustration. RCAVS will sponsor research on Rockwell and illustration, emphasizing their relationship to art history and to American culture and society. The center will be a primary repository for information, research, and scholarship on illustration. It will house four major programs: Norman Rockwell Archives and Project NORMAN; Illustration Art and Digital Image Network and Library; Scholars’ Research Program; and Illustration Art Collection. Tangible products will include three national advisory boards, new exhibition content, and a national network of illustration collections.

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute - Williamstown, MA
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $74,927; Matching Amount: $440,406

Contact: Ms. Susan Roeper
Librarian
(413)458-0550; sroeper@clarkart.edu

Project Title: "Clark Library Inventory and Circulation Control Project"
The purpose of the library inventory and circulation control project for the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute is to provide increased security and improved physical and intellectual access to the holdings of the Clark Library through the use of barcode and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. IMLS funds will support the project cataloger, who will be responsible for database preparation, catalog maintenance, and cataloging over 40,000 auction catalogs held at the Clark Library.

Michigan

Artrain USA - Ann Arbor, MI
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $1,154,350

Contact: Ms. Janet Torno
Museum and Program Director/COO
(734)747-8300; janet.torno@artrainusa.org

Project Title: ""American Portraits" Visual Art Exhibition and National Tour"
Artrain USA, a self-contained mobile museum, will offer a new exhibition, “American Portraits: A Picture of 21st Century America,” to approximately 15 communities. The exhibition will include more than 50 original works of art by culturally diverse artists from across the United States. It will use portraiture and figurative work to explore the emotional, social, and psychological challenges and issues facing 21st century Americans. Educational materials and programs will include an art education curriculum, guided tours, artist demonstrations, volunteer training, the Allesee Fellowship, and an exhibition catalog. Artrain USA tours original, museum-caliber art exhibitions to under-resourced, small, and rural American communities, providing people with access to quality art and art education programs, and the opportunity to discover the world of art in their hometown.

University of Michigan Museum of Art - Ann Arbor, MI
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,446; Matching Amount: $223,842

Contact: Dr. James Steward
Director
(734)764-0395; jsteward@umich.edu

Project Title: "UMMA's Collections Access Project"
The University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) will use its funds to support three initiatives to increase opportunities for students, educators, scholars, and the general public to connect with its collections. Open storage installations will allow audiences to benefit from in-depth visual comparison of objects in the collections and gain additional information from new, interactive learning resources. Collections library resources will provide undergraduate students, K–12 educators, university instructors, scholars, and general visitors with staffed access to more specialized information about the UMMA collections. Object study rooms will provide university educators, scholars, and specialists with space and resources to study original works of art across collections, encouraging the development of collections-based scholarship and visual analysis skills.

Arab American National Museum - Dearborn, MI
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $110,000; Matching Amount: $275,756

Contact: Dr. Anan Ameri
Director
(313)624-0201; aameri@accesscommunity.org

Project Title: "Understanding Arabs, Islam, and Arab and Muslim Americans"
The Arab American National Museum will use its grant to support its education outreach initiative, Understanding Arabs, Islam, and Arab and Muslim Americans. Through this project, the museum will implement a series of educational activities that will include comprehensive educational materials, workshops, and traveling exhibits about Arab and Muslim Americans, the Arab world, and Islam. The museum hopes to reach high school students and teachers, college students, and educators from Arab American organizations throughout Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. The museum hopes this program will bring about better understanding of the Arab community.

Detroit Science Center - Detroit, MI
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $147,000; Matching Amount: $247,860

Contact: Mr. Todd Slisher
Vice President, Science Program
(313)577-8400x449; tslisher@sciencedetroit.org

Project Title: "Detroit Science Center School Community Collaborative"
The Detroit Science Center will expand school community outreach activities, including teacher professional development, Traveling Science outreach programs to schools and other community-based organizations, curriculum and science activity kits for science classrooms, and after-school science clubs and increased sponsorship of field trips for schools and organizations that serve minority and disadvantaged youth. A collaborative network among the Detroit Science Center, the Detroit Public Schools Office of Science Education, the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program, Communities in Schools of Detroit, and the Youth Development Commission will help identify and take advantage of opportunities to expand the reach of the center into schools and the community to improve science education in metropolitan Detroit.

Michigan State University Museum - East Lansing, MI
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $71,532; Matching Amount: $77,764

Contact: Ms. Laura Abraczinskas
Collections Manager
(517)355-1290; abraczi1@msu.edu

Project Title: "Technological Enhancements for Data Quality and Stewardship of MSU Museum Collections (Phase 2)."
The Michigan State University Museum will use its grant to hire temporary personnel to undertake database and technological enhancements of its cultural and natural history collections. The project will increase data quality, bring systems into line with current standards, streamline stewardship practices, and expand the use of collections. Project activities will include completing database cleaning and geo-referencing records. The project will allow the museum to gain intellectual and physical control over its collection of cultural history objects and ornithology (birds) and herpetology (reptiles and amphibians) specimens.

Outdoor Discovery Center of Wildlife Unlimited - Holland, MI
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $54,350; Matching Amount: $57,051

Contact: Mr. Jamie Krupka
Program Director
(616)393-9453; jkrupka@oaisd.org

Project Title: "Native American Traveling Interpreter Project"
The Outdoor Discovery Center of Wildlife Unlimited will develop a Native American Traveling Interpreter project, an extension of its existing Native American Life Ways program. The Native American Life Ways program allows the center to connect Native American history, the Native American respect for and relationship to the natural world, and Native American communities today. Currently based in an onsite reconstructed Native American village, the traveling program will allow interpreters to visit schools and other community sites. The program features an authentic cattail mat house, and Native American artifacts are used to offer a hands-on learning experience during the cultural history presentations.

US National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum - Ishpeming, MI
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $106,785; Matching Amount: $213,671

Contact: Mr. J. West
President and CEO
(906)485-6323; twest@skihall.com

Project Title: "Digitization of Historic Ski Films to Increase Access"
The U.S. National Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum will improve access to its historic film collection with a two-year digitization project. Spanning 80 years, the 16mm format collection includes footage of the early years of ski jumping and Olympic training, as well as the films and outtakes from legendary ski filmmaker John Jay. More than 45 hours of film will be converted to DVD format. In addition, five two-minute film excerpts will be distributed to national and international television networks before the 2010 Winter Olympics to promote the use of the museum’s historic resources for reporting and broadcast. Resort Sports Network, a national television network that broadcasts at resorts across the country, will broadcast 18 hours of the historic films over 18 months.

Minnesota

Cokato Museum - Cokato, MN
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $7,150; Matching Amount: $7,280

Contact: Mr. Michael Worcester
Museum Director
(320)286-2427; cokatomuseum@cmgate.com

Project Title: "Akerlund Glass Plate Negative Digitization Project"
The Cokato Museum will begin its Akerlund Glass Plate Negative Digitization project. The museum will scan and digitize 2,600 glass plate negatives from its Gust Akerlund Photography Studio collection. Built in 1905, the studio was used during the first half of the 20th century by Swedish immigrant Gust Akerlund. Once the project is complete, the museum will use the images for exhibits and publications, and reproductions will be available for the general public. The images will be burned onto a set of DVDs and stored in the museum’s archives; a duplicate set of the DVDs will be stored safely offsite.

Prairie Ecology Bus Center - Lakefield, MN
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $149,850; Matching Amount: $205,714

Contact: Ms. Chrystal Dunker
Executive Director
(507)662-5064; ecologybus@ecologybus.org

Project Title: "Nature Center Master Plan Development and Organizational Training"
The Prairie Ecology Bus Center will begin a project to develop a strategic framework that will guide it through the development of a new regional nature center and strengthen the existing mobile nature center programs to complement and enhance the site facility. The master plan document will provide a road map for activities and policies that will inform future decisions, such as the nature center’s financial planning, program partnerships, and exhibit development. The resulting document will be used for staff/board development, fundraising, and to strengthen the center’s ability to serve its constituents with a well-designed plan of action.

Science Museum of Minnesota - Saint Paul, MN
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $148,380; Matching Amount: $181,101

Contact: Ms. Tilly Laskey
Curator for Ethnology
(651)221-9432; plaskey@smm.org

Project Title: "Digitization of Dakota and Ojibwe Ethnographic Collections"
The Science Museum of Minnesota will begin a two-year digitization initiative to begin inventory, cataloging, and digitization activities for its Ojibwe and Dakota collections. The current database and paper records will be reconciled. A physical inventory of the objects will be completed to allow the museum to correct existing catalog and database records. The project will allow the museum to solidify its methods for collections care. Fully completed digital records and associated photographs will then be available to descendent communities of Ojibwe and Dakota peoples and other constituencies via the Web.

Missouri

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - Kansas City, MO
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $56,625; Matching Amount: $634,482

Contact: Mr. Ian Kennedy
Curator, European Art
(816)751-1280; ikennedy@nelson-atkins.org

Project Title: "Art in the Age of Steam: Europe, America and the Railway, 1830-1960"
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art will showcase a new exhibit titled “Art in the Age of Steam: Europe, America and the Railway, 1830–1960.” Organized jointly with the Walker Art Galley in Liverpool, England, the exhibition brings together paintings, photographs, drawings, prints, and posters created by American, English, French, German, Italian, Austrian, Japanese, and Russian artists from the time the railroad was invented in the 1830s through the end of the steam age in the 1950s. IMLS funding will support the exhibition brochure, labels, text panels, wall signage, entrance posters, and public programs.

Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art - Saint Joseph, MO
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $138,784; Matching Amount: $139,351

Contact: Ms. Jennifer Zeller
Curator of Education
(816)233-7003x18; jzeller@albrechht-kemper.org

Project Title: "Quest for the Greater Good: A Citizen's Perspective on Nationhood and American Identity during the Civil War"
The Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art will recognize the 150th anniversary of the Civil War with an exhibition and accompanying educational and interactive activities that examine the history of antebellum and Civil War America from the perspective of citizens. Because the language of liberty is principled on civic duty, the theme “Quest for the Greater Good” has been chosen to anchor and connect significant subject matter. The exhibit will include art created by Americans about the conflicts citizens faced and the compromises they made as they waged war on the western frontier. The timing of the project will parallel community celebrations of the Civil War sesquicentennial, and it supports the educational curriculum of local school districts in Kansas and Missouri.

New Hampshire

Currier Museum of Art - Manchester, NH
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $68,076; Matching Amount: $71,995

Contact: Ms. Leah Fox
Director of Public Programs
(603)669-6144x119; lfox@currier.org

Project Title: "Art Afterschool"
The Currier Museum of Art will initiate a collaboration to bring multidisciplinary art programs to local afterschool organizations serving K–12 audiences. Art Afterschool is a multiple-part pilot program designed to strengthen students’ academic and critical thinking abilities, confidence, and appreciation for the visual arts. Led by docents and staff members, students will examine a selection of works based on the Currier’s collection and other educational resources that focus on themes that complement school curricula. The program offers art-making, interactive discussion, and writing opportunities. The museum will partner with Plus Time NH, a statewide nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership to create and sustain afterschool programs in New Hampshire communities.

New Jersey

Newark Museum Association - Newark, NJ
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $111,700; Matching Amount: $262,740

Contact: Ms. Rebecca Buck
Deputy Director of Collection Services
(973)596-6667; rbuck@newarkmuseum.org

Project Title: "Paper Collection Inventory Project"
The Newark Museum will support a comprehensive inventory project to maintain intellectual control of its permanent paper collection. The permanent collection includes American art, decorative arts, and Asian art, and the museum’s research library and archives contain rare books and historical institutional photographs. The increased availability of the permanent paper collection will affect the museum’s programming capabilities. It will enable curators to develop relevant new exhibitions and support the Education Department’s efforts to create engaging new school and public education programs. The collection will be more accessible to scholars and will fill more of the cultural and educational needs of the museum’s diverse and growing constituencies.

New Mexico

City of Las Vegas Museum and Rough Riders Memorial Collection - Las Vegas, NM
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $16,499; Matching Amount: $17,274

Contact: Ms. Linda Gegick
Museum Administrator
(505)454-1404x248; lgegick@desertgate.com

Project Title: "Development of the Interpretive Plan for Permanent Exhibit and Programming"
The City of Las Vegas Museum/Rough Rider Memorial Collection will use its grant to support consultant fees for the design of an interpretive master plan for the reinstallation of its permanent exhibit. The plan will include a schematic exhibit layout and a detailed time line that schedules exhibit phases and related programming, as well as individual development outlines. Identified stakeholders will be consulted to ensure the exhibit’s relevance for various audiences. The process will occur in three phases over the course of a year; together, the documents from the project will serve as a guiding document for the museum through 2012.

New York

Albany Institute of History and Art - Albany, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $145,443; Matching Amount: $439,080

Contact: Ms. Christine Miles
Director
(518)463-4478x422; milesc@albanyinstitute.org

Project Title: "The Hudson River : Symbol of America"
The Albany Institute of History and Art (AIHA) will develop “The Hudson River: Symbol of America,” an exhibit to commemorate the 2009 Hudson-Champlain quadricentennial. Drawn from the AIHA collections, project components will include evaluation, exhibition revision, public and family programs, publications and outreach, and audience development. The project will provide intellectual and physical access to new scholarship and collection materials, as well as innovative interpretive tools and approaches for a variety of audiences. The project will expand public programming and allow the AIHA to better understand the needs of its audience; it will serve as a springboard for future growth and capacity building.

Bronx Museum of the Arts - Bronx, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $779,824

Contact: Mr. Sergio Bessa
Director of Education
(718)681-6000; sbessa@bronxmuseum.org

Project Title: "Bronx Cultural Archive"
The Bronx Museum of the Arts will use its grant to support the research, planning, implementation, and promotion of “The Bronx Talks: Urbanity in the Borough Since 1971.” “The Bronx Talks” is a pilot program consisting of a monthly series of exhibitions, public programs, performances, street projects, and educational activities about the Bronx and developed around Bronx life and culture, including art, music, and fashion. Programming will make use of the museum’s permanent collection as well as cultural artifacts available in the community, such as private collections and public monuments. Neighborhood advisory committees and the museum’s Teen Council will help develop and promote the program. “The Bronx Talks” will attract, inspire, and educate multicultural audiences to create a more vibrant community.

New York Botanical Garden - Bronx, NY
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $147,249; Matching Amount: $151,803

Contact: Ms. Susan Fraser
Director of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library
(718)817-8879; sfraser@nybg.org

Project Title: "Innovating the Index to American Botanical Literature: Enhancing Access to 120 Years of Scholarship on the Plants and Fungi of the Americas"
The New York Botanical Garden will develop a project entitled Innovating the Index to American Botanical Literature: Enhancing Access to 120 Years of Scholarship on the Plants and Fungi of the Americas. The garden will create a Web-accessible database of botanical literature that extends back to the 19th century, which will include all areas of organismal botany and mycology (the study of fungi). The project will serve as a resource for a global audience of scholars and students, especially those without access to large botanical libraries. People who are interested in plant sciences can verify the existence of previous work and be reassured that they are not initiating a project that was already completed earlier.

Lehman College Art Gallery - Bronx, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $179,884

Contact: Ms. Susan Hoeltzel
Director
(718)960-8731; susan.hoeltzel@lehman.cuny.edu

Project Title: "Lehman College Art Gallery High School Partnerships"
The Lehman College Art Gallery will expand its High School Partnerships program to four new high schools in the Bronx. The High School Partnerships program offers family workshops, professional development for teachers, and hands-on art activities for students, which include gallery tours and talks by artists and arts professionals. The gallery will further engage students outside the classroom through after-school workshops, internships, a docent training program, college mentors, and a summer bridge program for incoming freshman. The program aims to forge bonds among parents, schools, and communities, and to allow students to become more involved and connected with their neighborhoods. Students will also benefit from the exposure to the gallery’s resources and the proximity to a college environment.

Wave Hill - Bronx, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $124,375; Matching Amount: $146,478

Contact: Ms. Jennifer McGregor
Director of Arts & Senior Curator
(718)549-3200x204; jenniferm@wavehill.org

Project Title: "Wave Hill's Commissioning Projects to Commemorate 400th Anniversary Hudson River Exploration by Henry Hudson in 1609"
Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural center, will showcase visual artists, composers, lyricists, and poets to mark the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Hudson River. The project includes an art installation relating to the river and an indoor exhibition presenting works that explore the life of Native Americans along the Hudson River. IMLS funding will support public programs in conjunction with both exhibits; the programs will include artist talks, panel discussions, and nature and art-based workshops. Other special programming for the anniversary will include a concert series and a river reading series. The art will educate visitors about the Hudson River from the artistic, environmental, and historical perspectives, and will help develop a sense of stewardship in the community for the Hudson River area.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden - Brooklyn, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $560,102

Contact: Ms. Robin Simmen
Director of Brooklyn Green Bridge
(718)623-7251; robinsimmen@bbg.org

Project Title: "Creating Greener Communities"
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden will use its grant to support the Creating Greener Communities project, which is part of GreenBridge, a community horticulture outreach program. The project includes three initiatives: the Brooklyn Urban Gardener program, which trains community leaders in sustainable practices; Community Greening, which offers education and promotion of best practices for community gardens; and the Street Tree Stewardship program, a public information and training initiative to ensure the health of New York City’s street trees. The project will increase the botanic garden’s institutional capacity to strengthen its community horticulture programs and support a growing corps of trained volunteers who will enrich their communities with horticultural and leadership skills, producing greener neighborhoods and stronger community bonds.

Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences - Brooklyn, NY
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $149,270; Matching Amount: $152,978

Contact: Deborah Wythe
Head of Digital Collections and Services
(718)501-6311; deborah.wythe@brooklynmuseum.org

Project Title: "The Brooklyn Museum Collection: Digital Content Development"
The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science will begin a project to identify significant but underdocumented and underexposed segments of the collections, and will undertake a combined digitization and cataloging process. The selected objects will come from collections that include Japanese prints; works that depict Brooklyn; Islamic photographs; and paintings, manuscripts, and works by ancient artists from Egypt and South America. The goal of the project is to produce new digital images, convert transparencies and glass negatives to publication-quality digital images, and scan black-and-white negatives for reference-quality access. The project will provide accurate and up-to-date visual and textual documentation of groups of related objects and will prepare the museum’s collections for dissemination to the broadest possible audience through digitization.

Handweaving Museum & Arts Center - Clayton, NY
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $25,026; Matching Amount: $25,026

Contact: Ms. Wendy Cooper
Curator/Educator
(315)686-4123; wendy@hm-ac.org

Project Title: "Digital Catalog Completion Project"
The Handweaving Museum and Arts Center will begin a project to complete a photo-illustrated digital catalog of the museum's textile and tool collection. An accurate digital catalog of the collection will be used for collections management, exhibit planning, educational programming, publications, and presentations. It will be an onsite, and eventually Web-based, resource for the public. Each project participant will be trained in museum collections management standards, digital photography, weave structure, and data entry skills. As they catalog, the staff will sort and match existing collection records to the artifacts and digitally record all relevant accession, provenance, title, and historical information.

Hyde Collection - Glens Falls, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $77,000; Matching Amount: $80,849

Contact: Ms. Sara Hallberg
Director of Education
(518)792-1761; shallberg@hydecollection.org

Project Title: "Interpretive Planning and Visitor-Based Outcomes Project"
The Hyde Collection's Interpretive Planning and Visitor-Based Outcomes project will design interpretive materials and spaces for historic Hyde House and the surrounding museum complex. The comprehensive interpretive plan will communicate the Hyde’s identity and provide a consistent and meaningful narrative about the collection, the people who built it, and its place in local and national history. New orientation materials—such as video, audio, and written visitor guides—will connect people to information and ideas that have not been readily available. Visitors will leave Hyde House with a deeper connection to the human aspect of its history and will be able to relate the story to their daily lives and the world around them.

Fenton History Center - Museum & Library - Jamestown, NY
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $95,656; Matching Amount: $120,577

Contact: Ms. Karen Livsey
(716)664-6256; library@fentonhistorycenter.org

Project Title: "Special Collections Management Project"
The Fenton History Center will use its grant to support its special collections management project, which will allow the center’s staff and qualified volunteers to gain intellectual control over special collections. The Fenton History Center is planning to relocate and expand the Research Center services over the next three years, and the special collections are a major component of the Research Center. The collections include records, photographs, and other paper artifacts about the southern Chautauqua County region. The collections will be inventoried, arranged, rehoused, and cataloged, and made accessible to researchers, educators, and other interested members of the public via an online catalog. Completion of the project will allow more efficient and timely responses to public, exhibit staff, and educator inquiries.

Museum of the City of New York - New York, NY
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $46,200; Matching Amount: $59,316

Contact: Ms. Julia Van Haaften
Director, Collections Planning Project
(212)534-1672x3379; jvanhaaften@mcny.org

Project Title: "Open Internet Access to the Museum of the City of New York's Collection Catalog: Phase 3 of a Data Migration Project"
The Museum of the City of New York will use its grant to begin phase 3 of its data migration and digital cataloging project. Phases 1 and 2 converted object images into Web-friendly formats and imported this information into the museum’s collections database. During phase 3, the museum will create electronic records of its collection and make the collections database accessible online. The museum’s collection reflects the social, political, and cultural life of New York City from the 17th to the 21st centuries. By providing Internet access to these objects, the museum seeks to serve the local, regional, national, and international public of specialists, students, and lifelong learners.

Van Alen Institute: Projects in Public Architecture - New York, NY
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $100,915; Matching Amount: $196,317

Contact: Ms. Adi Shamir
Executive Director
(212)924-7000; ashamir@vanalen.org

Project Title: "Van Alen Institute: Digital Archive Project"
The Van Alen Institute (VAI) will digitize and catalog a portion of its collection of architecture competition materials. VAI organizes and manages a program of public design competitions, fellowships and related publications, exhibitions, and forums that engage architecture as a creative and cultural practice with great public consequence. The project will provide public access to a significant but often overlooked narrative in American architectural history as represented by the institute's collection of original architectural drawings and public design competition materials dating from the early 20th century to the present. All digitized materials will be publicly accessible via OpenCollection, an open source, Web-based collections management platform developed by Seth Kaufman in collaboration with the Museum of the Moving Image.

El Museo Del Barrio - New York, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,249; Matching Amount: $331,324

Contact: Deborah Cullen-Morales
Director of Cultural Programs
(212)660-7122; dcullen@elmuseo.org

Project Title: "Voces Y Visones Web-based Interpretation Project"
El Museo del Barrio will use its grant to support the Voces y Visiones Web-based interpretation project, through which highlights of the permanent collection will be shared with a variety of publics through the Internet. The project will offer a wide range of bilingual (English/Spanish) educational tools and experiences, and will provide access to El Museo’s online collection, which includes about 1,000 digitized images and 300 bilingual entries describing artists, movements, schools, and groups, as well as links to additional resources. The site will also offer thematically organized lesson plans for K–12 audiences. The museum will follow best practices for online museum learning and plans to disseminate information about the project and its evaluation at local and national conferences.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum - New York, NY
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $182,910

Contact: Ms. Alison Weaver
Director of Program and Operations, Affiliate
(212)423-3644; aweaver@guggenheim.org

Project Title: "Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: Comprehensive Collection Survey"
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will use its grant to support the second and third stages of a collection survey. A cross-departmental project team composed of curators, conservators, registrars, art handlers, and legal counsel in the museum began the project in August 2005, setting out to systematically survey the Guggenheim’s entire permanent collection. In addition to providing logistical information and documentation, the team is confirming object location, attributions, dimensions, media, and components. This information updates the paper and electronic files in each department and in the collections database. The process has created new standardized forms and procedures to catalog the museum collection.

Jewish Museum - New York, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $343,168

Contact: Ms. Ruth Beesch
Deputy Director for Program
(212)423-3243; rbeesch@thejm.org

Project Title: "New Website for The Jewish Museum"
The Jewish Museum will upgrade its Web site to enhance content and to serve larger and broader audiences, making it more representative of the whole museum. The design and navigation of the new Web site will make it easier for visitors to use. The site will offer many more online images from the permanent collection, as well as “chats” or brief essays on some of the objects. The site will bring the collection, educational resources, and programs to a global audience, and will offer scholars and researchers the opportunity for serious study. Online education materials will consist of three sections: an Educator Zone; a Kid Zone, and podcasts for adult audiences.

Strong National Museum of Play - Rochester, NY
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $137,900; Matching Amount: $172,016

Contact: Mr. Christopher Bensch
Vice President for Collections
(585)263-2701x247; cbensch@strongmuseum.org

Project Title: "Planning Project for Long- Range Collections Development"
The Strong Museum will begin a two-year collections planning project to guide and develop the institutional collecting plan for the next 10 years. The project will include a thorough review of the key play-related artifacts in the Strong collection; consultation with academic specialists in cultural history and American studies on such topics as play studies, trends in American popular culture, and race and gender issues in play; and travel to other institutions that collect and exhibit objects related to play. A full-time acquisitions cataloger will be hired for the duration of the grant period. The museum will share its findings with the museum field through publications and conference presentations.

Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages - Stony Brook, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $147,500; Matching Amount: $148,034

Contact: Mr. William Ayres
Director Collections and Interpretations
(631)751-0066x221; wayres@longislandmuseum.org

Project Title: "Gentleman's Carriage House gallery"
The Long Island Museum will complete the Gentlemen’s Carriage House gallery, which is part of a four-year project to transform its Carriage Museum exhibitions from static displays into a participatory experience. The Gentleman’s Carriage House gallery will reflect several 19th century American carriage houses and, where possible, will include actual artifacts from similar carriage houses. A servant’s room—in this case, the living space of a groom—will be included in the gallery. The contrasting spaces (a highly polished carriage display hall and bare-bones servants’ quarters) will speak volumes about the differing economic social status of the people who shared adjacent spaces. The gallery will help visitors understand the importance of horse-drawn transportation in shaping American history.

Rensselaer County Historical Society - Troy, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $116,386; Matching Amount: $139,689

Contact: Ms. Mari Shopsis
Director of Education
(518)272-2732x17; mshopsis@rchsonline.org

Project Title: "History is Here!"
Rensselaer County Historical Society will implement a project called “History Is Here!” The society will create a comprehensive school education program highlighting its location in historic downtown Troy. Project components will include walking tours and museum workshops that draw on the rich archival and material collections of the society and will teach students how to read primary documents and see how the county has changed over time. “Front door/back door” tours of the Society’s Hart-Cluett Historic House will highlight the relationships between city and country and rich and poor. Middle and high school students will have the opportunity to use historic events as the inspiration for artistic, musical, and theatrical projects through Art of History, an interdisciplinary arts competition.

Woodstock Artist Association - Woodstock, NY
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $102,289; Matching Amount: $102,482

Contact: Ms. Josephine Bloodgood
Interim Executive Director
(845)679-2198x103; josephine@woodstockart.org

Project Title: "Maverick Youth Project"
The Woodstock Artist Association will implement the Maverick Youth Project, a museum education program that will provide opportunities for students and families to obtain meaningful, hands-on art experiences and make connections with local art history through the permanent collection of the museum. The program’s goal is to enrich local students’ experience of the visual arts through collaboration with art professionals and exposure to historic and contemporary art during museum visits. Students will observe, interpret, and reflect on the artwork from the museum’s collection and will create their own art in response, addressing state standards for the visual arts. During each phase of the project, students will be able to show the work they create in the museum’s youth exhibition space.

North Carolina

Mint Museum of Art - Charlotte, NC
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $21,611; Matching Amount: $30,322

Contact: Cheryl Palmer
Education
(704)337-2031; cpalmer@mintmuseum.org

Project Title: "Planning Phase of Family Interactive Gallery at New Mint Museum Facility"
The Mint Museum of Art will use its grant to plan a family interactive gallery for a new facility in downtown Charlotte. The Mint will conduct a year of research, visitor studies, prototype development and formal assessments to design a space with a family-friendly feel. The gallery will feature works from the permanent collection and hands-on activities, and will include five areas that replicate diverse urban neighborhoods. Each zone in the “neighborhood” will explore the collections through the use of “cool” (cognitive), “warm” (interpersonal), and “hot” (kinesthetic) activities. The gallery will be a dedicated space where families with children ages 2–10 can observe, discover, play, and share together. It will serve as an introduction to the museum collections that is specially geared to this audience.

North Carolina Aquarium Society - Raleigh, NC
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $41,500; Matching Amount: $45,294

Contact: Ms. Laurie Streble
Outreach Coordinator
(252)247-4003x283; Laurie.Streble@ncmail.net

Project Title: "North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores Outreach Expansion Project"
The North Carolina Aquarium Society will begin an expansion project to increase the number of outreach programs offered, improve programs for distant and underserved communities and schools, and assist teachers in meeting state and federal environmental science curriculum requirements. The project aims to improve the perception of outreach availability and the rating of outreach quality among program recipients. To fulfill its goals, the society will acquire a suitable outreach vehicle and a portable touch tank, as well as support equipment. The project will extend over two years. The society will conduct a formal evaluation of the program and produce a final report summarizing the findings.

North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc. - Raleigh, NC
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $104,265; Matching Amount: $214,040

Contact: Ms. Ashley Weinard
Educator
(919)664-6845; aweinard@ncmamail.dcr.state.nc.us

Project Title: "The Art of Collaboration"
The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) will collaborate with two school districts to design innovative teacher training and curriculum planning tools to promote arts integration at the middle school level. NCMA educators and teams of teachers from multiple disciplines will work together to create a collaborative planning process and materials that can be replicated in schools across North Carolina. The Art of Collaboration will strengthen teachers’ skills in art integration and object-based learning through professional development workshops and coaching. Students and teachers will learn to make connections between art and other disciplines, and to recognize how making those connections applies skills, illuminates concepts, and changes perceptions.

Fort Dobbs Alliance - Statesville, NC
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $190,252

Contact: Mrs. Beth Hill
Historic Site Manager
(704)873-5882; bhill@fortdobbs.org

Project Title: "Fort Dobbs Historic Site: Reinterpretation, Expansion and Reconstruction"
The Fort Dobbs Alliance will embark on a multiyear period restoration project designed to enhance the historical and interpretive potential of Fort Dobbs, a fort during the French and Indian War. The project coincides with the 250th anniversary of the French and Indian War, and complements efforts to engage in new historical interpretation. Fort Dobbs will use its grant to support the next phase of the project, which is the creation of conceptual drawings for the restoration of the 1756 fort structure, including preliminary renderings of exhibitions for the interior.

Cape Fear Museum of History and Science, County of New Hanover - Wilmington, NC
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $412,286

Contact: Ms. Ruth Haas
Director
(910)798-4357; rhaas@nhcgov.com

Project Title: "Longleaf Pine Forest-Creating Regional Memory"
The Cape Fear Museum will revise and update its core exhibition, “Cape Fear Stories.” This exhibit highlights the important roles people and the environment play in shaping history and explores the history, science, and cultures of the Lower Cape Fear region from prehistory through the end of the 20th century. Revitalization of the early part of the exhibition will showcase new objects, innovative exhibition techniques, and the latest scholarship. A new Longleaf Pine Forest gallery will use a variety of multisensory exhibition techniques to illuminate the history of the region’s peoples and places through the lenses of conflict, cooperation, and change. The gallery will enhance visitors’ experiences by creating a more diverse and accurate picture of life in the region.

Museum of Anthropology, Wake Forest University - Winston Salem, NC
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $50,561; Matching Amount: $51,151

Contact: Dr. Stephen Whittington
Director
(336)758-5827; whittisl@wfu.edu

Project Title: "Web access for the Museum of Anthropology's archives"
The Museum of Anthropology at Wake Forest University will begin to prepare its archives for public access on the Web. Employees will digitize paper documents and photographs and assist the registrar in creating a catalog record for each digital image. This project expands the museum’s educational mission by providing broad access to the collections for primary and secondary school teachers and students, university faculty and students, independent researchers, and the general public. The archival records will allow users to better understand the cultural and environmental context of the collections and help with interpretation of unfamiliar archaeological and ethnographic objects. Project activities will include a marketing campaign and workshops to make educators aware of the resource and orient them in its use.

Ohio

Cleveland Zoological Society - Cleveland, OH
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $142,666; Matching Amount: $182,188

Contact: Dr. Pam Dennis
Veterinary Epidemiologist
(216)635-2520; pmd@clevelandmetroparks.com

Project Title: "Enhancing Veterinary Excellence ? Cleveland Metroparks Zoo? s Conservation Medicine Program"
The Cleveland Zoological Society will begin a conservation medicine program to enhance institutional capacity for research, training, and staff development. The program will allow the zoo to better understand the causes of health problems in captive animals through scientific research for improving animal management, health, and welfare. The proposed expansion of the project will support the zoo’s veterinary epidemiologist (one who studies factors affecting the health and illness of populations) and add a master’s degree student position and a three-year residency program in conservation medicine. By providing information to be shared with both public and professional members of the local, national, and international community, the zoo hopes to establish programs and initiatives to enhance conservation efforts and create a direct link to conservation programs in the field.

Oberlin Heritage Center/Oberlin Historical and Improvement Organization - Oberlin, OH
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $106,581; Matching Amount: $117,128

Contact: Patricia Murphy
Executive Director
(440)774-1700; patm@oberlinheritage.org

Project Title: "Building On Our Strengths: Capacity Building at the Oberlin Heritage Center"
The Oberlin Heritage Center's three-year capacity-building project is designed to move it forward in accordance with its mission and strategic plan. The project will focus on improvements in financial management, board governance, and human resources, and will enhance staff capacity through training in outcome-based evaluation and leadership development. The organization will use its grant to develop new manuals and procedures for financial management; to facilitate volunteer, intern, and board orientation; and to hire a museum education coordinator and finance assistant. The center will strive to become certified according to the Ohio Association of Nonprofit Organizations Standards for Excellence, an ethics and accountability code for the nonprofit sector.

Oklahoma

Greater Southwest Historical Museum - Ardmore, OK
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $77,993; Matching Amount: $83,344

Contact: Ms. Kristin Mravinec
Curator
(580)226-3857; gshmcurator@cableone.net

Project Title: "Backlogged Collections: A Catalouging project"
The Greater Southwest Historical Museum (GSHM) will use its grant to support a project to catalog its collections in a PastPerfect database. The GSHM will hire and maintain full-time curatorial staff members who, along with volunteers, will be responsible for cataloging the objects, assessing condition changes from previous condition reports, cleaning objects when necessary, applying object identification numbers, and preparing objects for return to collections storage. The staff will develop finding aids for the collection—specifically, for archival material and photographs—and will launch the collection online to provide access to a wider audience.

Myaamia Heritage Museum and Archive, Miami Tribe of Oklahoma - Miami, OK
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $102,395; Matching Amount: $104,262

Contact: Meghan Jensen
Archivist
(918)542-1445; mjensen@miamination.com

Project Title: "Myaamia Virtual Exhibition"
The Myaamia Heritage Museum and Archive (MHMA) will use its grant to support the “Myaamia Virtual Exhibition.” The project will highlight an art exhibit of Native American objects from the Miami Nation, which will be displayed together for the first time in Oxford, Ohio, in an exhibit titled “How the Miami Live.” Because many Miami tribal households will not have access to the exhibit, MHMA will digitize it, integrating images and recorded interviews, and creating a virtual tour. The project will produce a Web site, DVDs, and print publications in an effort to preserve heritage and cultural knowledge of how the Miamis live by sharing the message of a living people.

Oregon

Oregon Zoo - Portland, OR
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $104,973; Matching Amount: $114,196

Contact: Mr. Stephen Chaney
Construction and Maintenance Manager
(503)525-4297; steve.chaney@oregonzoo.com

Project Title: "Predators of the Serenegeti Interpretives Project"
The Oregon Zoo will create and evaluate educational interpretive materials for the new “Predators of the Serengeti” exhibit. The exhibit will feature naturalistic displays of African lions, cheetah, African wild dogs, caracal, and several other carnivore species. Visitors will have up close and personal opportunities to view these animals, learn about their unique adaptations for survival as hunters, and help with efforts to safeguard them from extinction. The educational components will include mood-setting soundscapes and authentic African artifacts, appealing graphic panels, hands-on displays, and visitor-activated audiovisuals. The goal of the project is to increase public understanding of the important role of predators in nature and counter the largely negative representation of predators in popular American culture.

Pennsylvania

Da Vinci Discovery Center of Science and Technology - Allentown, PA
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $104,048; Matching Amount: $105,296

Contact: Robert Fox
Associate Director/Director of Education
(484)664-1002x116; rfox@davinci-center.org

Project Title: "Science Preschool Inquiry for Little Learners (SPILL)"
The Da Vinci Discovery Center for Science and Technology will begin a project titled “Science Preschool Inquiry for Little Learners” (SPILL). SPILL will promote inquiry-based science education, which encourages preschoolers and their families to ask and answer their own questions through hands-on exploration and discussion of predictions and results. SPILL expands each of the center’s three major activities—the exhibit floor, outreach programs, and professional development—to this new audience. The center is partnering with the Lehigh Valley Head Start provider to develop outreach programs and work with preschool staff. These programs will focus on teaching science, developing in-house preschool programs that encourage parent-child learning, and developing modifications to existing exhibits to make content more accessible to preschool learners and their parents.

Mercer Museum, Bucks County Historical Society - Doylestown, PA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $130,000; Matching Amount: $130,395

Contact: Mr. Cory Amsler
Curator
(215)345-0210x127; camsler@mercermuseum.org

Project Title: "Design Development for New Mercer Museum Exhibit Centers"
The Bucks County Historical Society will produce the final design for three new interactive exhibit centers for the Mercer Museum. The exhibits will offer new ways of looking at and engaging with the museum's vast collection of tools, folk art, and objects of everyday life for a range of ages and audiences. The three proposed exhibits include “Points of View,” in which visitors engage with a single object from a variety of perspectives and disciplines; “When Objects Speak,” a provocative encounter in which objects describe their history and relationships from their own unique perspective; and “Making Music Together,” an exhibit platform and hands-on space that encourages visitors to explore and experiment with a variety of instruments.

Gettysburg Foundation - Gettysburg, PA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $96,231; Matching Amount: $96,231

Contact: Susan Corbett
Vice President of Development and Programs
(717)338-1243; scorbett@gettysburgfoundation.org

Project Title: "Perspectives Audio Tour at the Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center"
The Gettysburg Foundation will create a Perspectives Audio Tour to be used in the new Museum of the American Civil War. The four distinct tours will expand the complex story of the Civil War through the voices and perspectives of those who lived during this critical period in our nation’s history: civilians, commanders, soldiers, and correspondents. The tours support the mission of the foundation to provide visitors with a better understanding of the Battle of Gettysburg in the context of the full story of the Civil War, and they will cover the reasons why these events remain relevant today. The audio tour will be launched in conjunction with the national celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln and the 146th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Philadelphia Museum of Art - Philadelphia, PA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $359,828

Contact: Ms. Marla Shoemaker
Senior Curator of Education
(215)684-7586; mshoemaker@philamuseum.org

Project Title: "Educating Through Technology"
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) will use IMLS support for Educating Through Technology, an initiative to expand cross-curricular visual arts learning in schools. The initiative provides wider access to the PMA’s collections, illustrating how studying works of art can enrich core curriculum topics and create a classroom environment more conducive to true learning. Programs will be developed around the museum’s new Wachovia Education Resource Center, which mentors educators in the use of its materials and teaches how technology can bring arts into the classroom. New programs will include curricular partnerships with school districts across the region; an initiative to reach rural schools throughout Pennsylvania; a range of professional development activities conducted via videoconference; and innovative studio art programs that feature interactions with professional artists.

National Constitution Center - Philadelphia, PA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $147,800; Matching Amount: $184,395

Contact: Dr. Steve Frank
Vice President of Education and Exhibits
(215)409-6633; sfrank@constitutioncenter.org

Project Title: "Living News"
The National Constitution Center will use its grant to establish the Living News program as a permanent part of its student programming. Living News is a live, interactive theatrical performance for middle and high school students. It was developed to actively engage students with the meaning of the Constitution and its relevance to their lives. The program combines theatrical performance with an innovative curriculum that examines current constitutional issues and encourages personal understanding of and connection with these issues. By inspiring active learning about and engagement with the Constitution, the program addresses the center’s core educational mission to increase public understanding of and appreciation for the Constitution, its history, and its contemporary relevance.

Andy Warhol Museum - Pittsburgh, PA
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $149,458; Matching Amount: $374,164

Contact: Mr. Matthew Wrbican
Archivist
(412)237-8361; wrbicanM@warhol.org

Project Title: "Time Capsules Cataloging Project"
The Andy Warhol Museum will use its grant to support its time capsules cataloging project. Warhol began filling boxes with letters, phone messages, invitations, magazines, newspapers, gifts, photographs, business records, and other ephemera in 1974 and continued to do so until his death in 1987. When a box was full, it was taped shut, labeled, and rarely opened again. Museum staff will open, inventory, digitally photograph, and enter into the database the contents of more than 500 of these “time capsules,” and preserve them in archival-quality materials. The general public will be able to view these materials in permanent and special exhibitions in the museum, on the Web site, and through traveling exhibitions.

Rhode Island

Preservation Society of Newport County - Newport, RI
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $458,544

Contact: John Rodman
Director of Marketing and Sales
(401)847-1000x117; jrodman@newportmansions.org

Project Title: "Strategic Technology Initiative"
The Preservation Society of Newport County will use its grant to implement part of its technology master plan. The entire project will provide a wireless network data system that will join all of the 10 historic sites, the administrative offices, and 7 satellite sites in an improved technological configuration. This portion of the project focuses on training selected staff in the use of the new wireless technology and its many applications. Training will occur with the contractor both on- and offsite, and the trained personnel will later train their own departmental employees. The outcomes of the project will be improved knowledge and efficiency of employees in technical applications, which will translate to better service for visitors and members.

Newport Art Museum - Newport, RI
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $134,543; Matching Amount: $136,343

Contact: Ms. Judy Hambleton
Director of Education
(401)848-2787; JHambleton@NewportArtMuseum.com

Project Title: "MUSE: Museum Studies program"
The Newport Art Museum will use its grant to support the expansion of MUSE, a school-to-career initiative that orients high school students to the management and administration of museums and cultural institutions through hands-on and classroom learning, multiple site visits, and mentoring. Developed in partnership with community leaders, MUSE is designed to strengthen museum-community connections, inspire and educate youth about careers in arts administration and museum management, and cultivate a professional workforce. The program is currently offered at only one area high school; the museum will expand it to a second high school, promote it as a model for other communities, and establish paid internships for students.

South Carolina

Historic Columbia Foundation - Columbia, SC
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $107,400; Matching Amount: $141,583

Contact: Mr. John Sherrer
Director of Collections and Interpretation
(803)252-1770x28; jsherrer@historiccolumbia.org

Project Title: "People, Places, and Progress: Connecting Communitues through History"
The Historic Columbia Foundation will use its grant to support People, Places, and Progress: Connecting Communities Through History. The initiative uses elements of built history, material culture, and traditional research—along with the stories and collections of living members of a historic neighborhood—to engage residents and visitors with local history. This series of conversations, public programs, exhibits, and Web-based materials will provide a critical link between Columbia’s historically diverse and eclectic neighborhoods and the community at large. The program aims to engage visitors and residents of Columbia, past and present, in the documentation and preservation of the community; encourage exploration of the diverse histories of the community; and educate them on the benefits of historic preservation.

Tennessee

Tennessee Aquarium - Chattanooga, TN
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,338; Matching Amount: $179,240

Contact: Mr. Tim Baker
Director of Education
(423)785-4058; twb@tnaqua.org

Project Title: "Watershed Learning Path: Connecting the community to its Water Resources"
The Tennessee Aquarium will design and install the Watershed Learning Path, a self-guided journey for visitors that follows a raindrop through the Tennessee River watershed from the Appalachian Mountains to a reef in the Gulf of Mexico. The path will include four interactive conservation stations and more than 20 full-color graphics that bring messages of conservation to life. The path will educate and engage the audience about the importance of biodiversity and the ways that all life connects to the water cycle. The ultimate goal of the interactive hands-on journey is to inspire visitors to act—whether as advocates for conservation or simply by making behavioral changes—to ensure the protection of the environment of the Southeast for generations to come.

Creative Discovery Museum - Chattanooga, TN
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $261,341

Contact: Miss Shannon Johnson
Exhibit Development Manager
(423)756-2738; srj@cdmfun.org

Project Title: "Good for You Health Exhibit"
Creative Discovery Museum will use its grant to support “Good for You,” a health exhibit that teaches children and families about the importance of eating healthy foods and leading an active life. The exhibit will offer a hands-on environment, pretend play, and a test kitchen to present food choices and physical activities that lead to a healthy lifestyle. The exhibit will engage children by connecting them to a familiar atmosphere, which will include characters with childlike traits, friendship clubs, and neighborhoods. “Good for You” will be a three-dimensional representation of a book that is being written in conjunction with the exhibit. Visitors will engage in the same healthy activities enjoyed by the children in the book.

Discovery Center, Children’s Museum Corporation of Rutherford County - Murfreesboro,
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $83,918; Matching Amount: $88,509

Contact: Mrs. Billie Little
Executive Director
(615)890-2300; blittledisccenter@comcast.net

Project Title: "Playspace squared"
Discovery Center will launch Playspace2 to expand and enhance an early childhood hands-on exhibit area, and to develop and implement a mentor program for parents and caregivers. This project will provide children from infancy to five years with increased opportunities to develop skills and learn behaviors needed for kindergarten, including cognitive, fine motor, social, and communication skills. Parents and caregivers will have greater access to educational and developmental resources, and opportunities for information exchange among parents, child development professionals, and other child care providers. The project will include the creation of a Tot Space for infants; an increase in hands-on exhibits and manipulatives for children ages two to five years; and collaborations with childhood educators and other professionals.

Texas

Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History - Corpus Christi, TX
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $255,969

Contact: Mr. Richard Stryker
Director
(361)826-4660; ricks@cctexas.com

Project Title: "Voyage: A Journey through our Solar System"
The Museum of Science and History in Corpus Christi will purchase and install “Voyage: A Journey Through Our Solar System,” a 1- to 10-billion scale model exhibit of the solar system designed by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. Public display of this exhibit will create a focal point for museum, school, and community programming through the power of models. The accompanying programming—“Journey Through the Universe”—involves national experts, professional development workshops, family science programs, and K–12 earth and space science curriculum content. The museum will collaborate with all five Corpus Christi public school districts and with local private, parochial, and charter schools.

El Paso Museum of History, City of El Paso - El Paso, TX
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $150,000; Matching Amount: $173,764

Contact: Vanessa Macias
Exhibit Project Manager
(915)351-3588; vmmacias20@hotmail.com

Project Title: "Las Villitas"
The El Paso Museum of History will begin a project called “Las Villitas”—an exhibition that will represent historic neighborhoods in El Paso, such as Segundo Barrio, Chihuahita, Kern Place, Sunset Heights, and the Mission Trail. The gallery will include three or four exhibit kiosks designed and fabricated to be modular and flexible. Each kiosk will tell the story of a different neighborhood in El Paso, with artifacts, photographs, text, and oral histories developed and loaned by the neighborhood. At regular intervals, the kiosks will be transitioned to focus on new neighborhoods. This community-based approach will allow El Pasoans to take ownership of their community heritage and participate in historical interpretation.

Museum of the Southwest - Midland, TX
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $145,760; Matching Amount: $398,332

Contact: Thomas Jones
Executive Director
(432)683-2882; tjones@museumsw.org

Project Title: "Marian Blakemore Planetarium and Education Classroom- Program and Exhibit Phase"
The Museum of the Southwest will use its grant to support programs and exhibits that will augment a renovation and expansion project currently under way. Multiple offerings will expand the museum’s educational offerings, such as astronomy and space science programming, a permanent astronomy exhibit, classroom technology with distance learning capabilities, and a new astronomy educator for the Marian Blakemore Planetarium. The new and improved Marian Blakemore Planetarium and Space Science Education Center will provide a higher level of service, using the latest technology, in a comfortable and accessible environment for all the citizens of West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico. The project advances the museum’s goal to inspire young minds to pursue advanced degrees in astronomy, space science, and related fields of technology, math, and engineering.

Scurry County Museum - Snyder, TX
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $71,295; Matching Amount: $84,878

Contact: Mrs. Shirley Leftwich
Curator
(325)573-6107; scm@snydertex.com

Project Title: ""Tracks Across the Land" Exhibit"
The Scurry County Museum will implement plans and designs for “Tracks Across the Land,” a new exhibit to replace the museum’s current chronologically based display. “Tracks Across the Land” will be divided thematically into four sections: Opportunity, Encounters, Resilience, and Identity. The themes were determined through consultation with scholars, residents, students, and members of the general public. The bilingual exhibit will interweave human responses with consequences to environmental, social, political, and economic conditions on the southern plains of West Texas. The exhibit blends scholarship and local perspectives to foster long-term positive visitor experiences; it aims for accuracy, multicultural balance, focus, and accessibility, with the goal of engaging visitors on both the cognitive and sensory levels.

Utah

Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University - Logan, UT
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $149,325; Matching Amount: $162,066

Contact: Ms. Victoria Rowe
Director
(435)797-0164; victoria.rowe@usu.edu

Project Title: "Triangulations: A Bridge to Interdisciplinary Arts Education, Museums and Community"
The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art will create a comprehensive two-year initiative using the arts as a tool of engagement for elementary and secondary core curriculum instruction. While it brings arts education into the classroom, this program also addresses the need for the region’s schools to improve standardized math scores. Drawing on the museum’s collection of Western American art, the initiative will develop Utah State University (USU) ArtsBridge, a program which will bring in-depth interdisciplinary arts engagement into regional K–12 classrooms, and Triangulations: The Multiple Angles of Art and Math, a museum education program linking mathematics to the visual arts. Triangulations will be used as a pilot project to help establish USU ArtsBridge in Utah schools.

Vermont

Vermont Division for Historic Preservation - Montpelier, VT
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $85,736; Matching Amount: $86,021

Contact: Mr. William Jenney
Historic Site Administrator
(802)672-3773; william.jenney@state.vt.us

Project Title: "Coolidge Collection Management Project"
The Vermont Division of Historic Preservation will begin a two-year project to inventory and catalog the collections at the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site. The site includes 25 buildings and 570 acres of land and houses a large collection of three-dimensional artifacts associated with President Coolidge and his family, as well as a major agricultural collection. A collections manager will be hired to process the museum’s diverse collections and supervise the accessioning, cataloguing, indexing, and storing of the objects. During the second year of the project, a collection plan will be developed, along with plans for future cataloging to promote continued care and improved access to the collections.

Shelburne Museum - Shelburne, VT
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $75,841; Matching Amount: $77,382

Contact: Mrs. Karen Petersen
Director of Education and Public Programs
(802)985-3346; kpetersen@shelburnemuseum.org

Project Title: "Expansion of Education Programs and Guide Training at Shelburne Museum"
The Shelburne Museum will expand its public education programs and offer better training for its exhibition guides. The museum will offer seven summer youth day camps, including The Artisan Apprentice, A Day in 1796, D.I.Y Architecture, and Art and Landscape. Multiple summer evening programs will be offered for adults and children; they will feature lectures, films, theater, and music performances. The museum will also develop free daily children’s art workshops throughout July and August whose themes will change weekly in conjunction with permanent collections and special exhibitions. Furthermore, the museum will improve the curricula and training program for its exhibition guides; the program will include one-hour classes taught by curators, educators, and museum staff, as well as a field trip to a regional museum.

Virginia

George Washingtons Fredericksburg Foundation - Fredericksburg, VA
Grant category: Engaging Communities
Award Amount: $129,080; Matching Amount: $135,220

Contact: Mrs. Carol Underhill
Director, Stewardship & Foundation Relations
(540)373-3381x44; underhill@gwffoundation.org

Project Title: "Comprehensive Interpretive Plan and Preliminary Exhibit Design for Ferry Farm and Kenmore"
The George Washington Fredericksburg Foundation will develop phases 2 and 3 of a comprehensive interpretive plan for Kenmore, the plantation home of Fielding and Betty Washington Lewis (George’s sister) and Ferry Farm, where George Washington and his siblings grew up. The plan will provide the road map to the development, construction, and installation of a wide variety of exhibits and experiences, both inside and out, that will tell the stories of the two extraordinary families, the Washingtons and Lewises, as they raised children, became patriots, and made great sacrifices during the Revolution. An integrated interpretive plan will allow more efficient use of resources, improve visitors’ experiences, and provide the opportunity to develop educational programming that links the two sites.

National Maritime Center - Norfolk, VA
Grant category: Building Institutional Capacity
Award Amount: $59,478; Matching Amount: $61,854

Contact: Rolf Johnson
Deputy Director of Exhibits and Education
(757)664-1003; rolf.johnson@norfolk.gov

Project Title: "Connecting Learners Digitally through Internet 2"
The National Maritime Center will use its grant to implement a new exhibit/public program initiative. The goal of the initiative is to increase the center’s ability to serve visitors and remote audiences through development and application of digital and interactive distance learning technologies. The center will connect to the high-speed Internet 2 network through a partnership with Norfolk State University, which will allow the museum to receive and send educational programs based on the center’s mission, and audience interests, needs, and educational goals. Programs are currently in predevelopment with the museum’s many community partners. As part of this process, the center will develop and disseminate a set of case study documents to inform parallel efforts at other museums.

Wisconsin

Circus World Museum - Baraboo, WI
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $18,831; Matching Amount: $25,831

Contact: Ms. Erin Foley
Archivist
(608)356-8342x3283; efoley.cwm@baraboo.com

Project Title: "Digitization and Cataloging of Photography from the Golden Age of Circus"
The Circus World Museum will use its grant to purchase the tools to digitize and catalog 1,377 glass negatives that date from 1880 through 1938, a period often described as the Golden Age of American Circus. The images and information will be made available online for research and purchase, making the collection accessible to many audiences. While many of the images have been available in print for researchers, this will be the first time they have been available for browsing online. The project marks an important step forward in the museum’s commitment to sharing information about the place of the circus in American history.

Logan Museum of Anthropology, Beloit College - Beloit, WI
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $114,521; Matching Amount: $119,785

Contact: Dr. William Green
Director
(608)363-2119; greenb@beloit.edu

Project Title: "Catalogue Conversion and Accessibility Project"
Beloit College’s Logan Museum of Anthropology will convert approximately 53,000 paper-based catalog records to electronic format using Re:discovery Proficio, a collections management system, and CONTENTdm, a digital collections management system. Through this project, the museum will improve public access to collections, reach a broader audience, increase points of access to collections for educational use, inspire collaborations on and off campus, and facilitate data sharing. The museum houses approximately 15,000 ethnographic and 160,000 archaeological objects from 12 countries and 169 Native American tribes. The museum and associated researchers and educators use these collections extensively for object-based learning, contributing to Beloit College’s leadership in undergraduate anthropology and museum studies.

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art - Madison, WI
Grant category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $24,000; Matching Amount: $24,625

Contact: Ms. Jane Simon
Curator of Exhibitions
(608)257-0158; jane@mmoca.org

Project Title: "MMoCA Permanent Collection Digital Photography Project (MMoCA PCDPP)"
The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art will design and equip a photography studio and workstation and then create a substantially improved image library of artworks from the permanent collection. This library of several thousand digital images will enable the museum to provide enhanced stewardship to works in its care and organize more inclusive and targeted exhibitions from its holdings. The project will also allow the museum to improve and expand its education programming, create more compelling marketing campaigns, monitor the care of collected works through image-based condition reports, and plan for future programming based on the permanent collection.