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Ackland Art Museum – Chapel Hill, NC
Year: 2005
Amount: $16,320  
Grant: Museums for America
Ackland Art Museum will use grant funds to support the pilot programs of FYI, the Ackland Family and Youth Initiative. This long-range initiative will develop a template for content-rich gallery guides, activities, and programming designed expressly for youth and families as nonacademic lifelong learners. Using the artistic and intellectual capital of Ackland and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, FYI builds on the museum’s existing outreach to local communities and service to educators at every level and establishes the museum as a vital resource for families and youth. In keeping with Ackland’s mission, strategic plan, and core values, the museum has identified four project goals: 1) Increase awareness of the museum as a resource for lifelong learning. 2) Increase institutional capacity to serve its local community and national partners. 3) Provide families and youth with free programs and printed materials to enliven their exploration of works of art in both the permanent collection and major traveling exhibitions. 4) Evaluate the effectiveness of focused programming for nonacademic audiences. FYI will entail activities within two broad categories: 1) materials and events related to the permanent collection and 2) materials and events related to temporary or traveling exhibitions. In each category FYI will design, publish, and distribute free materials for family and youth visitors to prompt deeper investigation of the museum’s exhibitions and collections, while stimulating family interaction and individual creativity. In addition, FYI will sponsor free public programming designed for family and youth audiences. The program will demonstrate the museum’s commitment to refining these offering by maintaining a development and review protocol that allows Ackland to improve and expand its service to families and youth in the coming years. At the end of the grant period, the museum will support FYI through regular programming and materials and major exhibitions.

Adirondack History Center – Elizabethtown, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $50,500  
Grant: Museums for America
The museum collection is used extensively for collection-based exhibits, research, and educational programs. During this two-year project, the museum will hire a consultant to reorganize and catalog the collection during the museum building project. This is an urgent need, identified through the long-range planning process, to ensure accessibility to the collection. Scheduled to ensure no lapse in public services while a new building is under construction, proposed activities include relocating objects impacted by the construction, reorganizing storage spaces, and cataloging collections. Some objects have already been moved, exposing clear gaps in the catalog. To meet project goals, the cataloging process must be accelerated to occur simultaneously with reorganization of the storage spaces. The project builds on the museum’s current collections management program by using existing PastPerfect software.

Akron Art Museum – Akron, OH
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
In support of the Akron Art Museum’s mission to enrich lives through modern art, this grant will support installation of the first long-term, in-depth exhibition of the museum’s collection. Emphasizing American art, the collection encompasses fine art produced from 1850 to the present, an incredibly rich and diverse period. Community demand to have more of the collection on long-term view was a major impetus for the museum expansion currently underway. This exhibition will permanently transform the institution, granting visitors access to all of its key paintings and sculptures. More than a quarter of the works on view will be by regional artists, and more than half the artists represented are living. Three of the collection’s four focal areas are featured: 1) turn-of-the-century American painting, 2) painting and sculpture since 1960, and 3) regional art. Following is a list of major grant activities: 1) finalizing the installation design; 2) writing and producing interpretive materials; 3) preparing artwork, signage, and galleries; 4) installing the art; 5) training docents; 6) creating a collection brochure and a children’s activity guide; 7) promoting the exhibition and tour program; and 8) evaluating the project outcome. The collection exhibition stems from and fulfills three of the strategic plan’s five imperatives: (No. 2) All the major paintings and sculptures will be on long-term view. (No. 3) Display of these works should expand local and national attendance. (No. 5) Project provides five times more room for showing the collection. Expanding interpretative materials, school, and other tour offerings and promotion will also draw visitors to the museum, and the improved visitor experience should encourage visitors to become members.

Albany Institute of History And Art – Albany, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $86,784  
Grant: Museums for America
The Albany Institute of History and Art (AIHA) will use its IMLS grant funds to improve, expand, and evaluate programs to better serve our growing family audiences. The primary goals of the Museum Explorers: Engaging Family Audiences in Lifelong Looking and Learning Project are to improve educational offerings available to family audiences; to incorporate family friendly information, activity stations, and learning cues into the galleries; to use Web-based interactive technology to create a virtual bridge from family homes to the AIHA collections; and to expand AIHA’s growing audience for family and intergenerational programming. This project consists of five components: evaluation and redesign of the Museum Explorers Gallery (MEG); evaluation, redesign, and expansion of family gallery guides and other learning tools in the exhibition galleries; evaluation, refinement, and expansion of family programs through the inclusion of multi-arts and multidisciplinary activities; development of an interactive Web-based learning module; and development of a family audience marketing and membership campaign. AIHA will work with an evaluation team led by Dr. Dianna Newman, associate professor of education and director of the Evaluation Consortium at the University at Albany, to assess current use of the MEG through observation and focus group feedback. This evaluation process will provide the foundation for other elements of the project.

Amazement Square – Lynchburg, VA
Year: 2005
Amount: $49,196  
Grant: Museums for America
To improve the educational, social, and recreational opportunities available to students with special needs, Amazement Square is collaborating with Laurel Regional School, which serves students aged 4-21 in Lynchburg and five surrounding counties who are severely and profoundly mentally and physically handicapped. Through biweekly, two-hour hands-on workshops held at both the museum and the school, students learn to focus their creativity in innovative ways and have opportunities to interact with the public as a way of becoming integrated into mainstream society. Due to the diversity, multiplicity, and varying degrees of severity of students’ disabilities, programmatic activities at Laurel Regional School address both group and individual needs. Programs have a thematic focus, complement the school’s established curriculum, and incorporate selected museum exhibits to provide additional learning experiences for the students.

Aquarium of the Pacific – Long Beach, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Aquarium of the Pacific sits at the mouth of the Los Angeles River in Long Beach and serves visitors from Southern California. The greater Los Angeles area is unique in that its major rivers, the Los Angeles and San Gabriel, have been channeled by concrete bottoms and sides for most of their length. Many people living in Southern California do not realize that major rivers flow through the area, that they may live in a historical flood plain, or that most of their drinking water is imported from other areas. The aquarium will soon launch “It All Flows to the Ocean,” a major new watershed exhibit and environmental education classroom. The IMLS grant will fund the design and construction of a stream table at the center of the watershed exhibit that will serve as a learning tool for the environmental education classroom and public programs. The aquarium will match with $1.5 million in funding from the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC). “It All Flows to the Ocean” will be an engaging interactive exhibit that will tell the evolving story of the history and health of the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and their watersheds, which ultimately drain into San Pedro Bay in the Pacific Ocean. Specific goals of the exhibit are to engage visitors with one another, with scientific information, and with their environment by defining for visitors what a watershed is; illustrating how visitors are connected to their local watershed and how that watershed impacts their lives; teaching visitors how humans have impacted watersheds over the past century and how we can improve watershed health in the future; making a direct connection between trash and urban runoff and the health of the watershed and the coastal ocean; and providing schoolchildren with California State Science Standards–based education programs on water and watersheds.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum – Tucson, AZ
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,990  
Grant: Museums for America
For more than 50 years, the Arizona–Sonora Desert Museum (ASDN) has served as the recognized authority on the natural history of the Sonoran Desert region and has introduced more people to the flora, fauna, and habitats of the region than has any other medium of environmental education in the Southwest. ASDM’s mission is to inspire people to live in harmony with the natural world by fostering love, appreciation, and understanding of the Sonoran Desert. This project will help the museum fulfill its mission and meet its strategic goals by sharing its expertise and knowledge with an even larger constituency via creation of a searchable, Web-based multimedia catalog of the plants, animals, minerals, landforms, landscapes, and habitats of the Sonoran Desert region.

Art in General – New York, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
Art in General adapts and reacts to changes in contemporary art practice, assisting artists early in their careers when organizational and financial support is needed most. In 2005, the organization launched The Commission Project to support, exhibit, and publish work by 10 regional (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) emerging and underrepresented artists annually. This three-year IMLS grant will support the project goals. Art in General will select artists through a competitive process and will include work in all media—painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, sound art, film, video, performance art, public interventions or public art, digital work, or interdisciplinary work. Each artist will receive a $10,000 fee to create work that challenges the artistic practice and advances his/her career. Monthly interdisciplinary public programs such as open houses, performances, readings, artists’ talks, and panel discussions will complement each commission. Art in General will develop a publication in conjunction with the project. The education component of The Commission Project will pilot yearlong collaborative programs with three to five public schools. Working with two classes in each school over 20 sessions, these partnerships will be sustained for at least three years and will help disadvantaged student develop vital skills. Through The Commission Project, Art in General will continue to take an active leadership role in providing a laboratory for artistic investigation, developing creative modes of art production, and attracting and serving diverse audiences. The project will strengthen Art in General’s capacity and visibility as a New York City center of community engagement.

Art Museum of Greater Lafayette – Lafayette, IN
Year: 2005
Amount: $54,800  
Grant: Museums for America
Comprising a slide presentation and resource guide, Art Smart: Indiana is an outreach program originally developed in 1986 by the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette. Its purpose is to teach Indiana history through artwork created by Native American artists. The decision to develop Art Smart: Indiana as a major public/educational program was prompted by museum staff and the board of directors’ mutual belief in visual literacy, museum education, and nontraditional, multidisciplinary learning approaches. They envisioned an enrichment program for both children and adults throughout Indiana that exemplified the historic goals of the museum founders: to support art in the community through collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting the work of Native artists. After 18 years of the successful sale and presentation of Art Smart: Indiana, a program update is in the works, with additional artwork and a new presentation format. This project will improve the completeness and flexibility of the program with the following new components: contemporary works of art; an updated resource guide with additional content, a new format, and better quality images; digitization of slide images onto CD-ROM; a cross-reference format of the Indiana Academic Standards for teacher curriculum planning; a program marketing plan; upgraded equipment (laptops and LCD projectors) for docent presentations; and docent training for statewide program presentations. The upgrade will result in a more accessible program for Indiana teachers and a more fully developed curriculum, which will be shared with an expanded statewide audience, including day care centers, libraries, service organizations, senior centers, nursing homes, mental health facilities, museums, historical associations, clubs, teacher organizations, and cultural centers.

Art Museum of Southeast Texas – Beaumont, TX
Year: 2005
Amount: $50,594  
Grant: Museums for America
The Art Museum of Southeast Texas will use IMLS grant funds for a two-year project toward photographic digitization of its permanent collection. The project will include a thorough update of collections files and conversion to a software program better suited to museum needs. Photographic digitization will run in conjunction with the opening of a new, dedicated permanent collection gallery that will rotate works of art every six to twelve weeks. With an emphasis on regional works, the collection comprises 1,000 objects of fine, folk, and decorative arts from the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. Highlights from the collection will be featured on the museum Web site, with interpretive text, artist biographies, and interactive educational activities. The digitized images will also be integrated into the museum’s education programs, such as the mobile outreach program Art-to-Go, which reaches remote and underserved audiences in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. The museum’s multi-visit programs, Art After School and Odom Junior Docents, will have integrated educational programming using artwork featured on the Web site. General audiences, students, and on-site scholars will have access to the Web site through the museum’s existing C-space computer lab and access to filtered, read-only permanent collection files through a dedicated computer in the museum’s library.

Art Museum of Western Virginia – Roanoke, VA
Year: 2005
Amount: $58,881  
Grant: Museums for America
The Art Museum of Western Virginia will apply its grant toward upgrading its collection management software. This upgrade will facilitate collections care, enrich records, increase public access to collection data, and improve educational use of the museum collections. Records for about 1,700 objects in the permanent collection are cataloged in a DOS-based program with limited contextual or object use documentation, while more than 600 objects in the growing special collections are not even in the system. The collection has grown substantially in scope and significance over the past five years, resulting in increased information requests from educators, researchers, and the public. A new museum facility (scheduled to open in 2007) will further increase demands on the collections software to track location, conservation, and exhibition details. Using the eMuseum software package, the project will address most data requests by integrating selected information from the collections management database into a fully searchable, Web-based collections interface for public use.

Austin Museum of Art, Inc – Austin, TX
Year: 2005
Amount: $74,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) will use its IMLS grant to fund phases two and three of AMOA for Families. This initiative is designed to build on the museum’s 24-year history of critically acclaimed, well-attended family programming by expanding family-focused events, hands-on workshops, didactic informational and interpretive materials, marketing efforts, and community partnerships. IMLS funds will enable the museum to serve as a center of community engagement and to provide varied and broadly accessible free-choice learning opportunities for families to learn together; promote visual literacy by building upon instructional tools that can be easily infused into family’s lives; increase family attendance at the museum’s exhibitions and public programs; and broaden community partnerships and expanding the museum’s outreach. AMOA for Families will solidify the museum’s current audience of regular museumgoers and develop a new audience that will provide the foundation for the museum in the future. This investment in institutional capacity will also strengthen AMOA’s ability to serve a broad audience by presenting innovative exhibitions and accessible programs that reflect the eclectic, creative spirit of Austin.

Bay Area Discovery Museum – Sausalito, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $96,491  
Grant: Museums for America
The Bay Area Discovery Museum (BADM) will use its IMLS grant to fund a pilot partnership between the museum and the Cross Cultural Family Center (CCFC), an early childhood education center serving culturally diverse, low-income families. This two-year pilot project will create, implement, and ultimately replicate My First Museum, a developmentally appropriate, culturally relevant curriculum with programs for families, caregivers, and educators of preschool children. This grassroots effort will involve parents, teachers, and museum staff in developing a model, pilot curriculum, and programs to deliver the curriculum to children, their families and caregivers. Assessment by educational evaluators is integral to the program and ensures its applicability to other museum partners, as well as replication of the model by other museums and cultural organizations. Building on a two-year partnership between BADM and CCFC, the project targets children ages three and four, their families, and teachers from three family center sites in low-income San Francisco neighborhoods. The project will unfold in phases that advance the partnership from development through program implementation and evaluation. BADM will incorporate the pilot program into its ongoing program offerings to ensure access to the newly created curriculum by its audience of preschool families and school groups. It also plans to extend the curriculum and programs to other organizations serving multicultural low-income children and families, tailoring both to the specific needs of its partner families. My First Museum increases BADM’s capacity to serve as a center of community engagement by joining with CCFC to provide underserved preschoolers, their families, and educators with opportunities to engage in age-appropriate and culturally relevant learning opportunities that likely would otherwise be unavailable to them.

Bell Museum of Natural History – Minneapolis, MN
Year: 2005
Amount: $63,600  
Grant: Museums for America
The Bell Museum of Natural History is planning construction of a new facility. The project team has developed preliminary building, exhibit, and program concepts, but has not designed or tested those concepts. Audience research is the next step in planning a museum that will be relevant, responsive to diverse audiences, and a center for community engagement. The museum will use its IMLS grant to fund such audience research. The project comprises two major activities: 1) a community involvement study and 2) a concept preview study. Both studies will involve collaboration between Bell Museum staff and People, Places, and Design Research, an outside firm that will bring extensive experience to building and developing the museum’s ability to understand and communicate with its audiences.

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive – Berkeley, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $122,300  
Grant: Museums for America
The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) will use this grant to fund two major 18-month exhibitions that will trace key elements of twentieth century American art and explore development of the moving image in a range of art forms. “A Measure of Time: America’s Art 1900 to the Present” and “The Mechanical Age of Cinema” will highlight the historical sweep and variety of art forms that define BAM/PFA’s collections and trace the aspects of innovation that contributed to America’s cultural heritage and continue to play a crucial role today. The goals of the project are as follows: 1) Increase access to and appreciation of the cultural heritage of our country’s diverse communities. 2) Enrich understanding of the collections and their place in the history and future of visual art. 3) Create new scholarship that will inform interpretive materials and programs. 4) Maintain the integrity of artists’ intentions in exhibition design and presentation. These goals align with BAM/PFA’s strategic plan and mission as a collecting institution. Among a handful of American museums that offer both a world-class art museum and renowned film archive in a single institution, BAM/PFA is distinctive in its commitment to place equal weight on the full range of moving images in art and the best means of care and presentation. This project fulfills the museum’s multifaceted commitment and allows it to reassess the museum’s twentieth century American collections while planning a new building between the campus and downtown Berkeley.

Berkshire Museum – Pittsfield, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $100,500  
Grant: Museums for America
The Berkshire Museum’s diverse 25,000-object permanent collection comprises significant pieces in the three primary areas of art, natural science, and history. The collection records are less than adequate, however, and are not on a computer database. This management project will develop an inventory by researching, cataloging, and entering pertinent data on a computerized collections software system. The project will focus on four significant areas of the collection—history, ethnography, fine art, and natural science—which collectively comprise 44 percent of the museum’s holdings. Further research and recording is expected to elevate some of these objects to become significant items in the collection. Project goals include the following: 1) Inventory objects in the four identified categories of museum’s collection. 2) Research objects in these collections. 3) Catalog and input objects into the computer database. 4) Create accession inventories in database software for use by staff and experts. 5) Obtain expert evaluation of the significance and accuracy of objects and information. 6) Determine significant objects in the collections. 7) Share information on significant pieces with the public. When compiled, the information will account for more than 10,000 objects and related data. Eventually, staff and researchers will be able to cross-reference data. As stated in the strategic plan, these collections are integral to the museum’s mission and original collecting policy, and the staff plans to use the objects in future permanent, temporary, and traveling exhibitions, as well as programming.

Bosque Memorial Museum – Clifton, TX
Year: 2005
Amount: $63,333  
Grant: Museums for America
The mission of the Bosque Memorial Museum is to protect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit Bosque County’s historic and prehistoric resources for the use, education, enjoyment, and economic benefit of the people of the county. This nationally known museum is considered one of North America’s most significant Paleo-Indian sites—one of only 12 such sites with skeletal remains. These remains are presently under examination at the Smithsonian. Bosque County has witnessed continuous human habitation for at least 9,500 years, a date established by radiocarbon dating from charcoal found in the stratum of the site’s Horn Shelter. Current museum exhibits portray the inhabitants of the site’s historic period, but do not cover the prehistoric period. Funded by the grant, a Horn Shelter exhibit will provide a comprehensive representation of these first known site inhabitants and become the starting point in the museum’s timeline of human occupation in the county. Dedicated workers and knowledgeable volunteers staff this award-winning institution. The museum is self-supporting and receives no federal, state, or county funds, aside from the occasional program-specific grant. While the museum’s primary audience comprises the county’s 17,000 residents, the potential audience draws from the 8 million people living within a 120-mile radius of the museum (Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Austin).

Bramble Park Zoo – Watertown, SD
Year: 2005
Amount: $54,000  
Grant: Museums for America
Grant funding will allow Bramble Park Zoo (BPZ) to create a new long-term exhibit, “Waters of South Dakota,” designed to stimulate inquisitive children and adults to learn more about South Dakota’s natural history and proactive conservationists. The interactive area in BPZ’s Discovery Center will feature exhibits about the following: waterways of South Dakota; the Upper Big Sioux River watershed project; local water pollution issues; improving water quality through improved agricultural practices; local water ecology concepts; and vanishing South Dakota wildlife and their habitats. The interactive area will feature a 2,000-gallon (8’x 7’x 4.5’) native fish aquarium with emphasis on game fish species. Related exhibits will include endangered pallid sturgeon; mounted native fish to tell stories of local aquatic food chains; maps that plot South Dakota lakes and rivers and the local Upper Big Sioux River; video presentations on South Dakota’s endangered aquatic wildlife; Optech viewing of native fish in aquarium; and hands-on interactive graphics emphasizing native fish, water pollution, and basic water ecology. BPZ’s education department will develop, implement, and evaluate educational materials targeted to teach third through eighth graders about several aspects of water ecology and local water conservation issues. Curricula for “Waters of South Dakota” will be tied to state and national education standards. The exhibit and educational materials will be incorporated into existing school field trips that reach 6,000 students, as well as River Quest activities for 75 Lincoln third graders, and Environmental Days that reach 300 sixth graders at all five Watertown elementary schools. Through this project, the zoo intends to inspire its 53,000 annual visitors to 1) think globally, but act locally, 2) increase their interest in ecology and conservation, and 3) become proactive conservationists.

Brooklyn Children's Museum – Brooklyn, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
Cultural knowledge and exploration is integral to children’s understanding of themselves, their communities, and the global issues of their day. Brooklyn Children’s Museum (BCM) is developing a set of programs and resources for World Brooklyn, a suite of integrated cultural education experiences, to foster a lifelong curiosity about the people who live nearby and far away. The IMLS grant will fund programs, workshops, educational materials, and a Web site that will offer families opportunities for deeper exploration of cultural themes, community members a forum for cross-cultural engagement, and educators the resources and support to weave cultural concepts into their curriculum plans. These programs will complement the “World Brooklyn” exhibit, a 5,000-square-foot cultural exhibit that will open at BCM in 2007—part of the museum’s first major capital expansion in its 25-year history. The expansion will grant the museum an unprecedented opportunity to build on its experience and more thoroughly integrate its collections, exhibits, programs, and community involvement into a comprehensive interpretive plan. The exhibit will revolve around a vibrant fabricated marketplace that reflects Brooklyn’s cultural diversity and connections to global communities. BCM will establish “World Brooklyn” on the four cornerstones of its educational philosophy—hands-on, object-based, inquiry-driven, and multidisciplinary—and engage community partners in its development. The intended audience for the exhibit and its programs will be urban children ages four to 11, their caretakers, and teachers. BCM anticipates that at least 290,000 annual visitors, many who are educationally underserved, will see “World Brooklyn” over a minimum eight years—a total of 2.3 million visitors, many of whom are educationally underserved.

California Indian Museum and Cultural Center – Santa Rosa, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $140,341  
Grant: Museums for America
The goal of the STORIE project is to preserve, present, and sustain California Indian oral traditions by developing a mobile multimedia storytelling environment coupled with digital storytelling technology training for California Indians. This proposal encompasses phase one of a two-phase project. Phase one involves the design, fabrication, installation, testing, and evaluation of a storytelling environment with a three-channel audiovisual installation. During phase two an ongoing training component will be developed, implemented, and disseminated. The proposed storytelling environment is composed of the following elements: a lightweight, inflatable, 40-foot diameter domelike tent that holds up to 99 people, a storyteller, and a 360-degree, three-channel audiovisual installation. This environment will function as a traveling exhibit/learning lab on California Indian storytelling and a tool for training storytellers, or, when not traveling, as an integral part of the CIMCC’s facility and collections. The STORIE project has four quantifiable objectives: 1) to fabricate and test the storytelling environment, including its audiovisual and operating systems; 2) to produce a three-channel audiovisual installation, staffed by a storyteller from the California Indian Storytelling Association; 3) to develop and test a storytelling technology training workshop with the storyteller and a select group of 10 California Indian youth aged 12 to 17; and 4) to premiere the first installation at the CIMCC for the project’s target audience. The project will produce, test, and evaluate the following products: 1) a specification report on project equipment; 2) a mobile multimedia storytelling environment and user manual; 3) an audiovisual template and workbook for the installation that can be used and adapted at the local level; and 4) a model curriculum for storytelling technology training.

Cape Cod Children's Museum – Mashpee, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $24,100  
Grant: Museums for America
The Cape Cod Children’s Museum will use IMLS Museums for America funds to mount a dynamic, interactive educational exhibit that communicates the unique history, culture, and environment of Cape Cod and highlights the spectacular scientific accomplishments that have taken place there. As no other local museum or cultural organization has ever undertaken a comprehensive, permanent exhibit of this nature, this museum has a brilliant opportunity to seize the day. In partnership with numerous historical societies, environmental organizations, and scientific institutions, the Children’s Museum will create the exhibit “Cape Cod Communities.” This exhibit will encourage local families and national and international visitors to learn about the Cape and promote discussion about why it is a special place to live, work, and visit. Visitors will be able to take a virtual ride in an underwater submersible to study deep ocean life; construct a Cape Cod half-house and learn how the environment impacted early settlers’ house-building techniques; compare the Cape Cod house to a Wamanoag wetu and hear the Native American perspective; and view computer models of how the Cape’s landscape and settlement patterns have dramatically changed over the past 50 years. These are among the exhibit elements that will help children and their families learn about Cape Cod and promote dialogue about what it means to be a resident of, or visitor to, this special place. The museum will also prepare a comprehensive third-grade social studies curriculum to communicate exhibit themes to Cape Cod’s numerous school systems. Both the exhibit (the first professionally designed exhibit undertaken by the museum) and the curriculum will help the museum further its strategic goals and place it in a leadership position as the Cape’s premier cultural attraction and educational resource.

Center for Anti-Slavery Studies, Inc. (CASS) – Montrose, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $94,856  
Grant: Museums for America
The center’s Research and Planning Phase will have several activities that will advance its research collection and the planning/design elements,, furthering project goals and elements of the museum’s strategic plan. The center has identified seven primary activities: 1) Research Underground Railroad (UGRR) information in northeastern Pennsylvania: Hire a researcher to conduct primary research in. Conduct regional research training sessions for partners and the public, investigate research leads, record oral histories, and examine information within the context of the larger UGRR story. 2) Conduct regional town meetings: Host regional town meetings in northeastern Pennsylvania to provide a forum for ongoing public participation and inform the center’s planning and design strategies. 3) Review other materials/programs/site visits: Read and analyze current UGRR scholarly work. Research and analyze other projects, programs, and sites within Pennsylvania. Conduct site visits to surrounding states. 4) Participate in UGRR and black history conferences and symposiums. 5) Meet with Advisory Committee quarterly to discuss and evaluate current research, project planning, and comprehensive strategic plan development. Meet with smaller focus groups as needed on selected topics. 6) Develop project’s comprehensive strategic plan (CSP): Interview and hire exhibit/Web/education consultants and designers. Work with consultants and Advisory Committee to develop a CSP toward a coherent and systematic road map for the implementation phase. 7) Develop a network of community partnerships in northeastern Pennsylvania, including historical societies, libraries, colleges/universities, community organizations, heritage regions, funding partners, and interested individuals.

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo – Colorado Springs, CO
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo will use IMLS funds to implement its Vision Project, a strategic effort to realize the zoo’s vision statement, Every Kid. Every Time: Goosebumps! This vision that kids of any age can have an experience of a lifetime on every visit is inspired by the belief that positive encounters with animals and nature can create defining moments for people of all ages that can inspire attitudes of caring and stewardship for the natural world. The primary project goals are to support the zoo mission and foster long-term visitor loyalty. The Vision Project will be implemented on two fronts: employee-initiated experiences for visitors and self-directed visitor experiences through on-site interactives, graphics, and displays and online at the zoo’s dynamic Web site. The project will allow the zoo to do the following: 1) Dramatically expand employee and volunteer training and enable all participants to initiate meaningful and memorable experiences with visitors. 2) Work with a design team to develop engaging interpretive displays that capture visitors’ imaginations. 3) Enlist a professional to develop and conduct pre-and post-visit surveys of employees and visitors to provide early guidance and measure success. Zoo employees are the primary agents for creating extraordinary visitor experiences, and they can be successful only when they have the aptitude and attitude for guest interaction. The “hiring for vision and attitude” component of this project represents a cultural shift to secure the continuation of this program well into the future.

Chicago Botanic Garden – Glencoe, IL
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Chicago Botanic Garden will use IMLS grant funds to launch a career-training program in horticulture and entrepreneurship for Chicago youth in North Lawndale, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. North Lawndale youth will grow and prepare food—one of society’s basic functions—and learn the fundamentals of free enterprise through the development and marketing of horticultural products. Students will be paid a stipend and a share of income from products sold. The goal is to create a replicable program for high school youth to gain new skills and knowledge in horticulture nutrition and food preparation, marketing, and product development; build positive work habits, discover personal interests, and experience new accomplishments; and increase their awareness of career opportunities in the green industry. The garden will partner with Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS) for storage and meeting space and with NeighborSpace, which will supply land for a 10,000-square-foot garden and arrange access to water and liability insurance. Staff will work with three area high schools to recruit up to 40 students over two years. The program will begin in the spring and run through the academic year. Activities will include constructing , planting, maintaining, and harvesting the garden; food preparation with a professional chef; field trips to model garden sites; guest lectures by members of the green industry; selling produce at area farmers’ markets and restaurants; and developing horticultural products in an after-school program. This program advances many different objectives for all participants: students gain from the introduction of new skills, knowledge, and experiences and from the focused attention of responsible adults; the garden becomes a visible sign of positive community development and a source of fresh produce for residents; and program partners benefit from additional strategies for meeting their missions.

Chico Museum Association – Chico, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $74,796  
Grant: Museums for America
The Chico Museum Association’s (CMA’s) Inventory/Catalog Project will provide a collections specialist to systematically inventory, number, catalog, store, and enter into a PastPerfect database approximately 18,000 artifacts inherited by the Chico Museum Association along with a 16-room 1875 English Renaissance mansion on farmland near Durham, California. Expected to exceed 25,000 items, the collection represents the lives and work of three generations of interconnected families, from 1849 to 1999, on two large adjacent farms. Included is abundant information on pioneer and twentieth century farm and family life; records of crops and farm methods, including early aviation and crop dusting; social history (including labor history, women’s history, and changing social mores); and history of minority groups, particularly Chinese and Native Americans. Unusual in its completeness, the collection has particular regional significance, as Chico was an early center for experimental crops that later developed into major statewide farm crops, including almonds, English walnuts, peaches, apricots, rice, grapes, oranges, lemons, olives, and, more recently, kiwi fruit. The collection includes furniture, tools, household goods and textiles, clothing and other personal effects, product packages, library materials, photographs, and voluminous archival materials such as ledgers, labor records, financial records, and correspondence. A collection catalog will enable interested parties to retrieve information about families and individuals tied to the house, and associations with surrounding businesses, farms, and ranches. Such searchable associations are essential to provide researchers with access to these rich resources, as well as to assist with site interpretation and publications.

Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose – San Jose, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
At the forefront of its long-range plan, the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose (CDM) seeks to increase its annual attendance by 15 percent, from 300,000 to 350,000, with visitors reflective of changing local demographics. Demographic trends show that the Santa Clara County population would have decreased between 1990 and 2000 had it not been for new immigrants, particularly those from Vietnam. (San Jose is now home to more people of Vietnamese origin than any other city outside of Vietnam.) To meet new attendance goals and sustain its commitment to an audience that mirrors its community, CDM must focus on attracting this growing Vietnamese population. Toward this end, the Vietnamese Audience Development Initiative puts in place foundational research from which to validate strategies and measure success, as well as across-the-board initiatives designed to broaden and deepen the museum’s impact. The three-phase process will include 1) community assessment and relationship building, 2) development of operational, exhibit, educational program, event, marketing and governance strategies, and 3) full-scale implementation of appropriate communications and programmatic measures to attract Vietnamese children, parents, and grandparents and increase attendance by 20 percent in ZIP codes with high-density Vietnamese populations. Success in this endeavor will incorporate all aspects of the museum, involve representatives from the Vietnamese community in the process, broaden visitation by Vietnamese families, and support programming services to low-income Vietnamese community members. Through the Vietnamese Audience Development Initiative, CDM will serve as an effective bridge between two worlds, where traditions of a homeland can be passed to future generations and immigrant parents can experience their adopted community through the eyes of their children.

Children's Museum of Denver – Denver, CO
Year: 2005
Amount: $52,625  
Grant: Museums for America
The Children’s Museum of Denver will use its IMLS grant to fund a third year of the Denver Public Schools Science and Literacy Collaborative. In fall 2005, the museum will partner with 24 second grade classrooms from 12 northwest Denver schools to provide second grade students with a unique opportunity to discover the joys of science and literacy through hands-on learning. The Science and Literacy Collaborative has three overarching goals: 1) Foster respect and compassion in teachers, children, and their families for all living things. 2) Inspire young children, their families, and teachers to take action to make the world a better place for animals, the environment, and the human community. 3) Partner with Title I schools (schools with the greatest number of children accessing the federal free and reduced lunch program) to enhance their curriculum. The Science and Literary Collaborative stems from the need to provide children in traditional learning environments with experiences in informal settings that extend and deepen their classroom work. According to the National Science Foundation, informal educational settings motivate learning and promote joyful discovery. They also provide an experiential base for scientific curiosity and encourage further activity and study. The museum partners with Title I schools for this program, enabling it to bring innovative programming to underserved populations.

Children's Museum of Oak Ridge – Oak Ridge, TN
Year: 2005
Amount: $80,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge will use its IMLS grant for a two-year Appalachian Heritage Project that will build on the museum’s existing collection, exhibits, and programs. The purpose of the project is threefold: 1) Digitally preserve audiotapes and videotapes of Appalachian culture, as well as preserve the original tapes. 2) Expand interpretive and educational services. 3) Make museum resources more accessible to the public through the following activities: a) Upgrade the museum’s system of collection care and management by converting from a card-based system to a computerized system using PastPerfect collection management software. This upgrade will encompass the museum’s Appalachian archives and artifacts collections, including audiotapes and videotapes of music, storytelling, and lectures by regional contributors. b) Revitalize the museum’s Appalachian exhibit by incorporating the digitized recordings into interactive kiosks. c) Hire additional staff and consultants and train existing and new staff as necessary to implement the digitization process and care for the digitized collection, exhibit design, interpretation, and preparation. d) Incorporate digitized resources into the museum’s Web site in two areas: Appalachian Resources and the Appalachian Teacher’s Manual.

Children's Museum of Portsmouth – Portsmouth, NH
Year: 2005
Amount: $88,545  
Grant: Museums for America
The Children’s Museum of Portsmouth’s Museum to You (MTY) initiative creates a temporary free museum in underserved communities throughout the region, with exhibits, performances, educational programs, and artist workshops. The project eliminates such barriers to museum attendance as cost, transportation problems, and lack of time or awareness. MTY provides a comprehensive museum experience to families and schools in communities where high-quality art, science, and cultural programs are not readily accessible. By remaining in a community for four to six weeks, MTY goes beyond a traveling exhibit or a single outreach program to create a satellite version of the Children’s Museum of Portsmouth, complete with a wide range of exhibits, guest presenters, daily art projects, and special programs. MTY addresses the evolving role of museums as centers of community engagement by meeting specific community needs, building partnerships, and integrating into community life. The museum uses a number of criteria to choose site communities, such as the wealth cluster into which the town falls, poverty levels, school dropout rates, number of new immigrants, proximity to cultural enrichment resources, and proficiency test scores. In its first 20 months, MTY served six communities facing multiple challenges. More than 8,800 adults and children have participated in the program thus far. The museum plans to extend the project’s reach to serve six of the poorest communities northern New Hampshire, 90 miles or more from Portsmouth. The museum will use its grant to fund the MTY project coordinator position and a part-time assistant position needed to expand the program and to continue with follow-up efforts in towns already served.

Children's Museum of Tacoma – Tacoma, WA
Year: 2005
Amount: $136,073  
Grant: Museums for America
Story Box will create a literacy-rich environment that brings good books to life for children and their adult caretakers. The project will support children’s growing literacy abilities, model positive, playful approaches for parents to encourage those abilities, and set a new standard of excellence for exhibits at the Children’s Museum of Tacoma. As children play together with adult caretakers in this program, their knowledge of and comfort with positive literacy behaviors will increase. This layered approach to exhibits will reach all ages and improve the museum’s ability to support lifelong learning. Over a two years, Story Box will bring to life the works of two different authors in two separate installations. An evaluation plan will ensure excellence in both the creative design and enjoyment of each new installation.

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo – Cleveland, OH
Year: 2005
Amount: $147,575  
Grant: Museums for America
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo will use its grant toward its three-year program, Improving the Future for Wildlife: Fulfilling the Zoo’s Conservation Mission. The program will launch a fundamental component of the zoo’s growing conservation and science program and help meet one of the zoo’s most compelling goals: to be a leader and innovator in wildlife conservation and research. The grant will support salary and programming to expand the conservation and science staff with a local conservation coordinator, establish a cooperative venture between a field biologist in Africa (regional conservation coordinator–Africa) and the zoo’s significant African collection, and test methodologies for meaningfully conveying the results and importance of the program and the zoo’s conservation work to the zoo’s 1.3 million annual visitors. Additional staffing will allow the zoo to strengthen its African and local initiatives to complement efforts already in place in South America and Asia, completing the zoo’s vision for conservation action in the world’s leading biological hot spots.

Collin County Historical Society – Mc Kinney, TX
Year: 2005
Amount: $74,999  
Grant: Museums for America
The Collin County Historical Society (CCHS) is rapidly completing the transition into a professionally managed regional historical agency by systematically implementing its strategic plan. Having solved major infrastructure problems, secured increased county and private funding, created outstanding education programs, and hired a full-time curator of education, CCHS is now focusing on collections care, reinstallation of its permanent exhibit, and bringing traveling exhibitions to its History Museum. CCHS will use its IMLS grant and matching funds to sign a three-year contract with a curator of collections and exhibitions, then seek permanent funding for this position. The curator will use CCHS’s new collections management technology and storage facilities to complete a volunteer-initiated, item-by-item inventory of the collections and library. The curator will inventory the vertical files, work with the curator of education to upgrade the permanent installation (in support of the school program), and plan reinstallation of the permanent exhibition. The curator will also process all incoming donations, manage access to the library and archives, and help install the Civil War in Collin County exhibit each December. Within three years, CCHS will have fully inventoried and properly stored collections, bringing systemic change in the way it manages and uses its collections. CCHS collections will be available for use in exhibitions, for loan, and for researchers and genealogists. Familiarity with its collection will enable CCHS to make informed collecting and conservation decisions.

Colonel Eli Slifer House Museum – Lewisburg, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $7,500  
Grant: Museums for America
Slifer House is a unique home in central Pennsylvania that reflects nineteenth and twentieth century regional history and lifestyles. The museum provides educational services through exhibits, programming, and community events appropriate to the interpretation of Slifer House as a Victorian residence. The collection emphasis is on artifacts belonging to families that resided in the house, objects of local provenance or significance, and objects of the Victorian period. There are an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 objects in the museum, with an additional 20,000 to 30,000 items in its photograph and document collections. A complete collection catalog would provide intellectual control and allow the museum to maximize use of its collections in exhibitions and programming. A catalog is also essential to provide real and accurate data for insurance purposes, as items cannot be displayed or utilized until they are insured against loss or damage. This project will entail cataloging approximately 1,000 acquisitions obtained since 1998. The project will also involve digital photography of these acquisitions (a more efficient alternative to traditional photography) and an update of the museum’s catalog database and a hard copy of the information.

Connecticut Children's Museum, Inc. – New Haven, CT
Year: 2005
Amount: $48,708  
Grant: Museums for America
The Museum Multiple Intelligences Inclusion Project will infuse the Connecticut Children’s Museum and its programs with a layer of inclusive elements to broaden access for children with special needs. This project will highlight the importance of inclusion for all children, making it an expected and ordinary part of the museum’s design, thus placing inclusion on the community agenda. An in-depth review of the Connecticut Children Museum will set the tempo for this project. The museum will develop a project evaluation tool; assess the physical plant for accessibility issues; evaluate exhibits for inclusive components; analyze programs for inclusion and accessibility; and create a community conversation by partnering with children with special needs, their families, and disability consultants to place inclusion on the agenda. To move the accessibility agenda forward, the Museum Multiple Intelligences Inclusion Project will have the following components: 1) Install state-of-the-art accessibility components to the physical plant. 2) Develop an audio description CD of the museum and provide staff training in audio description. 3) Create textured maps, brochures, flyers, and annual reports and an accessible Web site. 4) Design integrated inclusion exhibits. 5) Install informational Braille handrails in hallways. 6) Create tactile engravings of museum murals. 7) Transcribe museum’s collection of children’s picture books into Braille. 8) Organize and implement series of Textured Literacy Program field trips. 9) Engage an American Sign Language interpreter for every Saturdays at 2: Creating Readers program. 10) Provide a Braille copy of each Creating Readers book. 11) Create a PowerPoint presentation documenting the Museum Multiple Intelligences Inclusion Project. 12) Establish an Inclusion Advisory Group.

Connecticut Historical Society – Hartford, CT
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) is the single largest provider of cultural enrichment programs for schoolchildren in greater Hartford. One of the CHS’s most successful school programs is We’re Making Connecticut History. Now in its eighth year, this program pairs fourth and fifth grade classes from what are almost exclusively minority urban school districts with fourth and fifth grade classes from either suburban or rural districts that are virtually all white. Partner classes convene for multiple sessions over the school year. The program is designed to enhance students’ understanding and appreciation for cultural diversity through interactions with their partners while they also learn about the diverse cultures that have thrived in Connecticut throughout history. Partner classes visit the CHS, other museums, and partner schools. Program content is tied to the academic goals specified in The Connecticut Framework: K-12. Activities improve students’ reading, writing, observation, analysis, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. An outside evaluator assesses We’re Making Connecticut History at mid-year and year end. Those evaluations, coupled with feedback from students, teachers, and parents, inform ongoing program improvements. The program is often cited as a model by state education officials and has been publicized in newspapers and professional journals such as Museum News. The number of student participants in the program has grown over the years, and there is always a waiting list for enrollment. Enrollment is limited because the program is staff intensive and costly. The CHS absorbs all program expenses, as participating school districts (whether urban, suburban, or rural) lack funding for transportation, museum admissions, and other expenses. CHS will use IMLS grant funds to enhance We’re Making Connecticut History in 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 by increasing the number of student participants by one-third (from 522 to 704) and expanding the number of sessions during which the children get together from six to seven. Expansion will be in keeping with the goals of the CHS’s long-range plan.

Core Sound Waterfowl Museum – Harkers Island, NC
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Core Sound Waterfowl Museum (CSWM) will use IMLS grant funds to strengthen and expand its community program offerings and begin implementing its final research and development phase, its facility, and its exhibits. Specifically, CSWM seeks to further develop/implement a range of specialized, thematic community programs that will strengthen and expand CSWM’s role as center of community engagement; develop conceptual designs for revolving exhibits based on community artifacts; expand development of the recently published Capital Campaign for Exhibits fund-raising booklet to include PowerPoint and other digital media for capital fundraising efforts; and implement priority board, staff, and volunteer development efforts, as outlined in its draft strategic plan. The overarching project goals are to build the museum’s long-term capacity to preserve and share the distinctive cultural heritage that defines these rural coastal communities; promote sustainable community economic development as a means of retaining and passing forward area history and cultural traditions; and promote educational programming that shares the community’s history and values throughout the coastal region and across North Carolina. CSWM will leverage IMLS funding to expand community programming to more fully engage residents, local grassroots organizations, elected officials, and businesses in land use issues and heritage tourism development; complete construction of its 22,000-square-foot facility and create revolving exhibits to showcase artifacts related to the decoy-carving, boat-building, fishing, hunting, cooking, and craft traditions of the coastal North Carolina maritime communities; expand staff (both paid and volunteer) in size and capacity; and continue to build a strong and capable board of directors that will govern the museum on behalf of the Down East communities.

COSI Toledo – Toledo, OH
Year: 2005
Amount: $148,787  
Grant: Museums for America
COSI Toledo has the following goals for its Science Café: to create a flexible public space conducive to inquiry-rich experiences; to increase capacity for facilitating open-ended experiences; to model inquiry strategies for parents; and to evaluate the Science Café model. These goals are synergistic and interrelated, all supporting the museum’s overall goal of creating an environment to promote lifelong learning. In the Science Café, science is not really “served.” Rather, families work with COSI “chefs” to serve themselves through a process of discovery and experimentation. The Science Café is themed to look like a café, with workshops, exhibits, and guests. In this relaxed yet stimulating environment, visitors will feel comfortable examining, exploring, and “tasting,” if you will, scientific inquiry, process skills, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content in an engaging, nonthreatening context. The Science Café is more than an activity area, more than a discovery room, and more than an exhibit gallery. It is a highly orchestrated, hybrid space that combines many different elements into a larger whole. Flexible in nature, it will feature open-ended exhibits, science props, experiments, and creations in various stages of completion. Change is the order of the day in the Café—each visit will entail a new configuration of experiences. Visitors can create their own learning recipes, mixing and matching available components into their own personal inquiry of science content and process.

Country Music Foundation – Nashville, TN
Year: 2005
Amount: $99,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The County Music Foundation (CMF), which operates the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the museum’s First Library and Archives, and related school, family, and public programs, seeks funding to improve physical and intellectual control of the museum’s estimated 4,000 film collections. Implementing an archival processing system will enable staff to achieve the following goals, each of which flows directly from CMF’s mission to preserve the history of country music and educate diverse general and specialized audiences: 1) Accession film collections. 2) Identify at-risk items for future restoration. 3) Use storage space more efficiently. 4) Accumulate data to provide the foundation for future cataloging. 5) Accumulate data to facilitate planning for future budgets and staff dedicated to collection, conservation, and cataloging. 6) Improve staff efficiency in serving outside researchers from the academic community, film and broadcast producers, the media, the music industry, and the public. Activities to achieve these goals will advance specific aims within CMF’s strategic plan by improving collections management and enhancing service to the institution’s various audiences.

Cranbrook Educational Community – Bloomfield Hills, MI
Year: 2005
Amount: $148,523  
Grant: Museums for America
The Cranbrook Homestead Cataloging Project should meet two critical goals enumerated in several long-range and strategic planning studies developed for Cranbrook House and Gardens over the past 20 years: 1) Develop a well-researched catalog for all artworks in Cranbrook House and Gardens, known also as the Homestead Properties of Cranbrook’s founders, George and Ellen Booth. 2) Use information about the collection to enhance educational and interpretive programming relating to Cranbrook House and Gardens. Cranbrook will meet these objectives by employing regular, volunteer, and grant-funded staff to carefully research and catalog the art holdings of the Homestead Properties in an online database—Cranbrook’s TMS Light museum catalog—and to use information gleaned from this process to improve Cranbrook’s tour offerings and other public programming. This work will be carried out over two years. The project will result in a comprehensive online catalog that will include detailed descriptions, images, condition reports, provenance, and other research information on the objects and their creators. Research will be conducted primarily in the Cranbrook Archives, with additional research in the Cranbrook Art Museum, Cranbrook Academy of Art, and Detroit Institute of Arts, among other repositories and libraries. In the final months, project personnel will evaluate the project and team with docents to bolster tour presentations and promote the holdings of Cranbrook House & Gardens to the public.

Creative Discovery Museum – Chattanooga, TN
Year: 2005
Amount: $144,903  
Grant: Museums for America
Although the Creative Discovery Museum (CDM) has accomplished a great deal with its school programming during its first 10 years, a number of critical issues remain to be addressed, particularly its school tour program. In response, CDM will use its IMLS grant to fund Strengthening the School Connection. The primary goal of this project is to create stronger and more meaningful educational experiences for students by hiring a school tour manager, who will be responsible for strengthening the connection between school curricula and the CDM tour program. During the two-year grant period, the school tour manager will rethink and revitalize the program and create innovative ways for CDM to support school curricula. Following the grant period, the manager will become CDM’s manager of school services and will oversee the museum’s school-related programs in their entirety. The school tour manager will significantly increase CDM’s capacity to work with local schools. CDM will seek candidates with a master’s degree in elementary education and at least three years experience in a classroom setting, as well as experience in writing curricula. The chosen candidate will be expected to accomplish the following goals during the grant period: 1) Develop and implement a research and evaluation program to determine the best tour programs and assess their effectiveness. 2) Design new tours and write curricula for them. 3) Develop pre- and post-visit materials and incorporate them into CDM’s Web site. 4) Train CDM staff to conduct tours and related on-site programs. 5) Pilot the tours with selected groups. 6) Work with the director of public relations to develop a marketing plan for the new tour program. 7) Establish relationships with curricula leaders in Hamilton County and other school systems.

Crocker Art Museum – Sacramento, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,993  
Grant: Museums for America
The Crocker Art Museum will use its two-year grant to create digital photographs of three-dimensional objects in its collection. This project is a distinct component of a larger Collection Digitization Project the museum is undertaking, initiated and partially funded through a grant from SBC Corporation, in preparation for the planned renovation and expansion of the Crocker’s facility. During the Collection Digitization Project, records of some 14,000 objects in the museum’s collection are being transferred to a single database. Ultimately, every object will be photographed using state-of-the art digital scanning equipment, making the entire collection available for use by curatorial, education, marketing, and development staff. Selected images will be made available to the public over the Internet. The project includes the following goals:1) To create high-quality digital photographs of the 3,500 three-dimensional objects in the museum collections, ranging from historical European porcelains to Asian art and artifacts to contemporary American ceramics. 2) To provide additional documentation of the most significant objects using a camera technology that yields a 360-degree view. 3) To acquire and install a second xServe RAID storage system to achieve the maximum storage capability and flexibility required over the long term. This project aligns perfectly with the museum’s current efforts, mandated by its Strategic Direction, to build growth capabilities that will position the staff to meet the challenges of conserving, displaying, and interpreting the collection efficiently and effectively in the renovated facility.

Delaware Agricultural Museum Association – Dover, DE
Year: 2005
Amount: $52,930  
Grant: Museums for America
As a part of overall improvements set forth in the museum’s strategic plan, the project director will hire a curatorial assistant to help Curator Deborah Wool develop and execute a research plan based on current knowledge of historic structures in the museum’s collection. Research will delve into the history of selected buildings and occupants through time, leading to a more complete interpretive plan and scripts for those structures, as well as overall interpretation of the village setting. Museum interpretive volunteers and staff will be trained in this new information. A yearlong exhibit in the galleries will be designed and installed to highlight the findings, including the methodologies and process of discovery. Visitors will be observed and polled to gauge outcomes and create new programming. The museum will use the gathering process and added information to develop a museum discovery tour for elementary children.

Denver Museum of Nature and Science – Denver, CO
Year: 2005
Amount: $118,197  
Grant: Museums for America
Project Curiosity will help people of all ages develop science inquiry skills and an appreciation of the importance of science inquiry in understanding the natural world and humanity’s relationship to it. The 13-month project will increase the museum’s long-term capacity to provide high-quality science content to general visitors, teachers, and schoolchildren. This comprehensive educational offering on scientific inquiry will include four upgraded gallery programs, a new online educator’s guide, and new teacher activities—part of the museum’s long-range strategic and annual operating plans that call for the systematic addition of programs and teacher resources. The museum has identified the following project goals: 1) Enhance the museum’s gallery programming for visitors, school groups, and teachers using scientific inquiry approaches. 2) Support pre-K through 12th grade educators’ efforts to deliver effective and inspirational science classroom instruction by providing a comprehensive, user-friendly, online teacher’s guide on scientific inquiry. 3) Increase teacher comfort and confidence levels with science instruction by providing Teacher Professional Development Programs on scientific inquiry. Project Curiosity will serve the museum’s large, broad audience. More than 1.25 million people visited the museum and participated in outreach programs in 2003, while its Web site logged some 902,800 visitors. The project will also address one of the museum’s larger, more diverse audiences: pre-K through 12th grade teachers and schoolchildren, who represent about one-third of total annual visitors. The core project team of this museum-wide effort will comprise education, technology, collections and research, exhibits, evaluation, and volunteer staff. The IMLS grant will pay for temporary staff and consultants, teacher resources, and indirect costs.

Desert Botanical Garden – Phoenix, AZ
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
This grant will enable the garden to refine current themes and identify pertinent questions that enhance understanding and appreciation of the Sonoran Desert’s history and ecology by creating a trail that weaves together botany, anthropology, and history. The trail will provide fundamental education on the real but often misunderstood richness of this desert land. Scholars will receive a project overview that explains the project’s scope and overall objectives and provides an introduction to other team members. They will be prepared for the project seminar and asked to make recommendations for additional research and programs that should be reviewed prior to the seminar. Project staff will visit the model ethnobotany program at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History before the seminar. Using a set of guiding questions, scholars will be asked to help identify the critical themes the garden should strive to develop in the new exhibits and formats. They will help the garden connect science and culture, reevaluate its goals, and clarify key messages. They will also help the garden refine exhibit concepts that will support development of programs and materials. Finally, they will help define goals for different audiences. Once this phase is complete, the garden will test the new concepts, themes, and exhibits with visitors and focus groups and then make appropriate adjustments based on their feedback. The end product of this process will be a comprehensive resource narrative and interpretive plan for taking the project to the actual fabrication and implementation phase.

Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary – Lincoln, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $61,426  
Grant: Museums for America
Drumlin Farm will use IMLS funds to implement a portion of its interpretive design master plan: the design and installation of 19 exhibit panels and increase in personnel hours necessary for implementation. This entails the second phase of Strengthening Visitor Education, an initiative aimed at creating on-site learning opportunities targeted to the tens of thousands of “casual” visitors who do not participate in formal programs and may not be exposed to the sanctuary’s mission, at the same time benefiting those who do participate in formal programs. Improved on-site interpretation was identified as a priority during Mass Audubon’s education assessment. During planning, it became clear that direct, interpersonal interpretation, while effective and deeply meaningful, was not fully capable of communicating the sanctuary’s messages to the full spectrum of visitors. The sanctuary recognized a critical need to develop a clear and achievable framework for future development of interpretive exhibits and other forms of self-guided interpretation. Bird Hill features outdoor enclosures that house native birds, while Drumlin Underground is an outdoor/indoor exhibit housing native mammals; Vernal Pool and Bobolink Field are open habitats. Drumlin Farms will create and install four interpretive panels to provide information on the cyclical nature of its critical wild habitats (Vernal Pool, Bobolink Field, Drumlin Underground, and Bird Hill), as well as 15 species identification panels that will allow visitors to learn about the habits and habitats of animals in the Bird Hill and Drumlin Underground exhibits. The museum would like visitors to increase their knowledge of native plants, animals, and their habitats; understand the specific threats to these organisms and habitats; and become motivated to take part in conservation efforts.

Dunedin Historical Society – Dunedin, FL
Year: 2005
Amount: $15,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The main goal of this project is to properly catalog the museum’s artifact and historic image collection. The project will include transfer of artifact information, originally written on catalog cards (kept by Historical Society volunteers since 1972) to a digital database using PastPerfect software. After all 1,100 artifacts are found, cataloged, and entered into the system, a detailed assessment will be done for insurance purposes and to enable the society to exhibit, interpret, and research the artifacts. The museum’s historic image collection—comprising about 2,800 items, including photographs, negatives, and slides—will be preserved in Mylar sleeves, filed in acid-free folders, and boxed in proper containers. Digital photographs of each artifact will also be uploaded into the recordsin the Past Perfect program. All data will be transferred to CD-ROM disks and stored both in the museum library and at an off-site location for safekeeping. Proper storage and preservation of the collection will follow American Association of Museums guidelines, and the project will aid the museum’s effort toward full accreditation by the association.

Eastern Washington State Historical Society – Spokane, WA
Year: 2005
Amount: $146,464  
Grant: Museums for America
The Eastern Washington State Historical Society/Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (EWSHS/MAC) plans to develop and install a comprehensive American Indian exhibit in 2009 that will feature the society’s largest and most recognized collection. To ensure that the collection is available for use during development of this major exhibition, the society must comprehensively inventory, catalog, and digitize its core North American Indian collection (12,575 objects and 17,000 historical photographs) by July 2007. The exhibition responds to community interest in both the collection and information about American Indian culture. The exhibit also responds to teacher requests for a long-term exhibition that provides specific information about American Indian culture to Washington state students (K-12 and higher). The exhibit was a priority for the museum’s American Indian Cultural Council, as well as a key component of the society’s strategic plan, based upon community/visitor surveys and input from cultural leaders of local tribes.

Easton Children's Museum – North Easton, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $84,153  
Grant: Museums for America
The three-year Urban Expansion Project (UEP) is a close partnership between the Children’s Museum in Easton (CME) and the Boys and Girls Club of Brockton (BGCB), building on one another’s complementary assets while also expanding each organization’s long-term capacity. The central purpose is to expand services to the growing, but underserved communities of color in Brockton, a low-income city about 20 miles south of Boston. UEP will provide high-interest, interactive learning activities for minority (mainly Latino and African-American) children in Brockton. It will also build ties between CME and these communities and engage the target population to a greater degree in new and existing CME programs. Meanwhile, BGCB will enhance its capacity to serve preschool children and parents and provide interactive education. UEP will also build CME’s capacity to work in close partnership with a grassroots organization to expand use of high-impact interactive learning activities for children and families, thus leading to future capacity-building partnerships. Learning activities will be held at both sites. The program will include a range of classes for preschoolers and concurrent support groups for their parents. It also offer classes for school-age children in leadership and environmental education using BGCB curricula and CME resources. Various field trips, revolving exhibits, special events, and family activities will round out the activities. UEP will utilize a range of skills already existing at one or both partners or added by staff, consultants, volunteers, and partners (e.g. community outreach, cultural programming, early childhood education, interactive education, and parent education). Throughout this process, CME will pursue its long-term goal of developing a satellite museum facility in Brockton’s inner city—conducting a feasibility study, finding a site, raising funds, and opening the facility shortly after the end of the three-year UEP project.

EdVenture Children's Museum – Columbia, SC
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,700  
Grant: Museums for America
A long-term, hands-on exhibit at EdVenture Children’s Museum, “Family Across the Sea: West Africa and Me” will explore the cultural heritage of West Africa, enabling museum visitors to experience and understand its impact on life and culture in South Carolina and across the United States. On exhibit from October 2006 until August 2008, the exhibit is expected to attract more than 400,000 visitors to EdVenture, the South’s largest children’s museum. Following the close of the on-site exhibit, “Family Across the Sea” will begin a four-year national tour to children’s museums across the country, with a projected attendance of 600,000. The exhibit will enable EdVenture to encourage lifelong learning for children ages 12 and younger and their adult caretakers and to build new community partnerships and audience participation. In addition to the exhibit design and fabrication, core project activities include the following: planning for community and school educational programs; and employment of West Africans as exhibit interpreters; use of exhibit rental fees to create a revolving fund for future traveling exhibit development, fabrication, and management.

Elk City Museum – Elk City, OK
Year: 2005
Amount: $138,100  
Grant: Museums for America
Elk City is in far western Oklahoma, 40 miles east of the Texas line. It straddles old U.S. Route 66 and I-40, a primary east-west cross-country thoroughfare with five on/off exits to Elk City. According to the 2000 census, the population of Elk City is 10,510. Over the past 10 years, the city, the Chamber of Commerce, the Western Oklahoma Historical Society, museum board, retail merchants, and countless volunteers have made a concerted effort to make Elk City a tourist destination. This effort led to development of the National Route 66 Transportation Museum at the Elk City museum complex, which also includes Old Town, the Old Town Museum, and the Farm & Ranch Museum. Upon completion, the National Route 66 Transportation Museum will be the first interactive museum at the complex. Interactive displays will include a Size G model train, a 1917 Rio fire truck, two 1950s car displays, and an archive room. Other displays will include a vintage motorcycle display, vintage bicycle display, 1933 Corben airplane display, and a 1950s Airstream travel trailer display. The grant will fund technical setup of the displays. The project goal is to provide an environment of lifelong learning by focusing on subjects that appeal to a wide audience and creating innovative ways to capture its attention.

Emily Dickinson Museum – Amherst, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $105,703  
Grant: Museums for America
The Emily Dickinson Museum consists of the Homestead, home of poet Emily Dickinson, and The Evergreens, home of her brother, Austin. Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) is now considered one of the world’s greatest poets, but in her own lifetime her work was unknown outside her limited social circle. The two houses, including the remarkably well-preserved Evergreens, tell a compelling story about this unusual artist’s life. This project stems from interpretation and program goals laid out in the museum’s strategic plan and vision statement. Over three years, the grant will fund the following interpretive goals: 1) Conclude an interpretive plan of the Homestead and The Evergreens. Components will include a furnishings plan for The Evergreens and a furnishings and exhibit plan for the Homestead. 2) Research significant unexplored materials at two Dickinson-related archives: the Houghton Library at Harvard University and the John Hay Library at Brown University. 3) Substantially implement plan recommendations. 4) Evaluate and revise museum’s primary tour upon completion of plan. 5) Create an interpretive plan for the historic landscape, based on the landscape plan in the museum’s master plan. 6) Develop and produce an interpretive audio tour of the landscape. 7) Update Web site to include major findings and themes. 8) Develop and implement staff training programs for each of the above projects. This project will deepen the museum’s ability to interpret the poet’s life story and will ensure the long-term sustainability of this institution.

Erie Art Museum – Erie, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $55,660  
Grant: Museums for America
The Erie Art Museum will use IMLS grant funds to continue an innovative and successful educational program. The museum trains teachers from three middle schools—inner city, rural, and suburban—to use museum exhibitions as a powerful instructional medium. In weeklong workshops, teachers learn to apply the processes of the collector, curator, exhibition designer, educator, and other museum personnel to engage students in the basic concepts of their curricula . Participating teachers then take their students on a tour through the museum. Drawing on this experience, and with guidance from their teachers, the students create their own “Kids-As-Curators” exhibit. The museum then mounts each school’s exhibit, sharing the work with other students, teachers, and the public. As part of this program, the museum works in partnership with the Erie Times-News Newspapers in Education Program. Student writers for the “Fresh Ink” section of the newspaper review the student-created exhibits. Together, the exhibits and newspaper features will generate interest among young people and their families, introduce new arts integration concepts to teachers, and encourage other schools to participate in the program. New partner schools will then join the following year’s teacher training and contribute to the “Kids-As-Curators” exhibit.

Explore and More...a children's museum – East Aurora, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $70,211  
Grant: Museums for America
Explore & More (E&M) will use grant funds to develop the museum’s exhibit program. As a noncollecting children’s museum, E&M is most often evaluated on the quality of its exhibits. This quality is seen in the depth of content, appropriateness for the target audience (children up to age 10), the appeal of individual exhibit components, and the durability of those components. Based on evaluations done by an outside consultant and goals and strategies highlighted in the museum’s updated strategic plan, this project encompasses the museum’s overall exhibit program for the next few years. There are several major goals: 1) evaluation of all existing exhibits and improvements of exhibits as determined by the evaluation; 2) planning, research, and implementation of new exhibits; 3) long-range exhibit program planning in the existing facilities and at a potential new site; and 4) addition of needed equipment to construct and maintain exhibits. Perhaps the most important goal is to make the position of exhibit coordinator more permanent, fully integrating this essential job into the museum structure. As a small institution that has experienced rapid growth over the past four years, E&M realizes that providing topnotch learning experiences to its visitors through quality exhibits is essential. This grant will enable E&M to balance execution of that mission with the economic realities of a depressed economy (especially relevant to upstate New York).

Explorit Science Center – Davis, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $74,800  
Grant: Museums for America
Explorit Science Center is a hands-on museum devoted to science discovery for children, families, and teachers. The center’s service region includes three of California’s fastest-growing counties and is ranked as one of the nation’s most diverse areas. Early in its 22-year history, Explorit took hands-on science on the road through mobile classroom programs and traveling exhibits. These outreach programs serve audiences in a 12-county region around Explorit’s home base in Davis. Mobile outreach is very effective in reaching underserved rural and urban communities and more diverse audiences than those that typically visit the center. In a long-range plan developed in 2000, Explorit’s staff and board reiterated and expanded their commitment to outreach as a core program strategy. The primary goal established in the plan was to boost outreach programs for K-6 students, with an emphasis on reaching underserved children and schools. The center has met and in some cases exceeded measurable objectives established for this goal.

Fairfield County Museum – Winnsboro, SC
Year: 2005
Amount: $66,175  
Grant: Museums for America
The museum will use its three-year grant fund to address limitations inherent to having one paid staff member. The Fairfield County Historical Commission recently adopted a long-range strategic plan. This project would allow the museum to pursue several goals in that plan: 1) Hire a collections consultant to develop a collections management program. 2) Secure two public history graduate student interns each year. 3) Partner with university graduate program to further professional experience with faculty. 4) Purchase supplies such as storage furniture and materials, as well as maintenance equipment such as hydrometers and a small vacuum. 5) Conduct a complete collection inventory. To reach a wider audience in the schools and community, the museum will purchase a laptop computer and projector for PowerPoint presentations Digital programs will be produced to curriculum standards of K-12 classrooms. Begun in 2003, the oral history project needs additional resources, including five camcorders. To help interested educators incorporate the project into classroom curricula, the grant will also fund annual oral history workshops geared to teachers. New exhibits and outreach programs cannot be facilitated without an increase in staffing capacities and resources. The grant will set the groundwork to advocate funding of additional professional staff. The director and consultant will develop new programs and collections management policies, as well as coordinate training of volunteers, summer high school interns, and graduate students. The strategic plan calls for committees to assist with this project.

Fallingwater – Mill Run, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
This project has three primary objectives: 1) to create a permanent exhibit on the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed Fallingwater, 2) to create a permanent exhibit on the regional landscape, and 3) to create Web pages that expand and extend the interpretive messages of these exhibits to a broad audience. The overarching goal is to update Fallingwater’s interpretation to comprehensively reflect the mission stated in its strategic plan: “Connecting people with nature by showing how architecture can exist in harmony with nature.” The new exhibit on Fallingwater will replace a 25-year-old exhibit. Focusing on the house as a symbol of what can be achieved through a sensitive design approach that springs from an understanding of the natural world, the exhibit will provide more detailed analysis and speak to all visitors, including those who do not tour the house. The exhibit on the regional landscape will be installed in the Barn at Fallingwater, a gateway to the surrounding 5,000-acre Bear Run Nature Reserve. To instill a conservation ethic, the exhibit will contextualize Fallingwater and reveal the rich story of the now-vanished Bear Run community, the importance of small watersheds to regional ecology, and the WPC’s role in regional conservation. The first exhibit, “A Fallingwater Homecoming,” engaged the local community as visitors, advisors, and volunteers and sparked interest in further research and interpretation of the Fallingwater landscape. The Web site will showcase both exhibits and draw upon the best existing interpretation, enriching and expanding the information and making it accessible to a broad audience with varying degrees of interest. Ninety-five percent of respondents to a recent Fallingwater survey said they regularly surf the Internet, but the current Web site is inadequate, difficult to navigate, and sets a tone that does not reflect Fallingwater’s mission and philosophy.

Florence Griswold Museum – Old Lyme, CT
Year: 2005
Amount: $44,786  
Grant: Museums for America
This grant will fund a completely new and innovative interpretation of the National Historic Landmark 1817 Florence Griswold House as a boarding house for artists (ca. 1910). This project, entitled “Presenting the Past: Interpreting America’s Home of Impressionism,” will support development of materials fundamental to the new interpretation. The interpretive materials will incorporate a variety of new learning theories, such as multiple intelligences, to communicate and present educational content to the broadest possible audience. Funds will also support creation of the exhibition tour script, orientation DVD, guidebook, and teacher packets. The interpretive materials will provide meaningful artistic and historic context with regard to the Lyme Art Colony and help to broaden the understanding of the art colony movement in America. By placing regional subjects in the larger historical context, the museum hopes to stimulate visitors to learn about topics that touch on American art and culture.

Folsom Childrens Zoo and Botanical Garden – Lincoln, NE
Year: 2005
Amount: $61,615  
Grant: Museums for America
The zoo and its partners—the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UN–L) and Lincoln Public School (LPS)—will use this grant to empirically measure the science inquiry mastery outcomes of the Our Zoo to YOU: Animals in the Classroom program in 20 elementary classroom. Four years of anecdotal evaluations of this program indicate the impact is substantial. A research protocol will be set up to compare 20 elementary classrooms that use live animals to teach inquiry science with 20 that do not. Pairs of same grade, same school elementary teachers will be chosen to participate in this study. One teacher in each pair will receive animals for his/her classroom, the other will not. Zoo staff will visit all 40 classrooms once a month to introduce animal concepts and evaluate and extend existing inquiries. Teachers with animals in the classroom will be loaned a variety of zoo education animals, one at a time, for six-week periods throughout the school year. When zoo staff visit these classrooms, they will check the animals’ health and deliver supplies. Kathleen Wilson, Ph.D., and Guy Trainin, Ph.D. (UN–L College of Education and Human Sciences), will create writing prompts for use by all teachers and design rubrics that evaluate student writing. They will evaluate children’s writing from all 40 classrooms to gauge the use of science vocabulary, application of science concepts, and comprehension of the inquiry method. After analyzing their findings, they will publish the results. David Brooks, Ph.D. (UN–L College of Education and Human Sciences), will design and implement a supplement to the zoo Web site that will support the use of live animals to teach inquiry science in elementary classrooms. This Web site supplement will include inquiry ideas, animal care standards, supplementary resources, and science writing assessment tools.

Fonthill Museum – Doylestown, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $39,265  
Grant: Museums for America
The grant will fund a collections care and management project for this National Historic Landmark’s extensive collections. Specifically, the museum seeks staff support to complete a collections inventory and catalog the 14,200 objects in the home of Henry Chapman Mercer, a significant Arts and Crafts-era artisan. This effort will consolidate several previous projects and enter those records and new data into a new collections management software system. Cataloging will increase staff knowledge of the collection, while the database will enable the museum to retrieve and share that knowledge with various audiences through information provided to interpreters, themed tours, and through its Web site. This project aligns with the museum’s commitment to responsible stewardship and is a critical part of its long-range plan.

George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film – Rochester, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $129,441  
Grant: Museums for America
The George Eastman House/International Museum of Photography launched the Image Quarterly Project to extend the reach of this country’s seminal scholarship publication in the history of photography. Image, the George Eastman House journal, was published through the last half of the twentieth century. This project will index, digitally capture, and convert for open online distribution 50 years of formative scholarship in the history of photography and film. The project will include article-level indexing of the quarterly’s entire run, full-text canning to downloadable PDF files of each issue (for optical character recognition), linking of each issue with affiliated records in the museum’s collection management database, and open publication on the Internet, with contemporary annotations and a table of contents for each issue. The project will observe the functional requirements of the Registry of Digital Reproductions of Paper-based Books and Series, published by the Digital Library Federation, and will mount appropriate resources for national-level distribution through agencies beyond the museum. Eastman House will also directly distribute project materials free of charge via the Internet and observe best practices in maintaining and housing archival digital masters.

Georgia Southern Botanical Garden – Statesboro, GA
Year: 2005
Amount: $73,601  
Grant: Museums for America
Georgia Southern Botanical Garden is a unique public garden that preserves the 6.5-acre farmstead of Daniel E. Bland, a subsistence farmer who lived quite well during the Depression Era and who was a naturalist with a keen interest in native plants. Farm life has changed much since Bland settled this parcel of land in 1916. Today, both the natural resources and rich cultural heritage of the South are disappearing, and millions of acres of the longleaf pine ecosystem that once covered this area have been destroyed. The garden has a most important story to share about these vanishing resources. The garden will use its two-year IMLS grant to fund a project entitled Interpreting the Garden’s Cultural and Natural Heritage to Enhance the Visitor Experience. Staff and faculty recently completed an interpretive plan guided by an overarching message of stewardship. They also created supporting educational concepts for both the cultural and natural areas of the site and developed a prototype sign program. In a team management approach, garden staff and university faculty with expertise in the content areas covered by this project will research, write, evaluate, and install 50 interpretive signs for the garden’s exhibits; develop evaluate and publish eight interpretive brochures; train 20 to 30 docents to lead regularly scheduled tours of the garden; and label 310 prominent plants in the collection. The project management team hopes to 1) improve the visitor experience, 2) give visitors a greater understanding of the multiplicity of messages contained in the exhibits, and 3) develop a planning process that can continue as funds are raised for new garden exhibits.

Golden Pioneer Museum – Golden, CO
Year: 2005
Amount: $137,475  
Grant: Museums for America
The Golden Pioneer Museum will use IMLS grant funds to serve the public through a set of three interconnected projects. First, using an interpretive plan developed in 2004, the museum will continue to develop, build, and install new exhibits in the permanent exhibit galleries. In the meantime, a series of public programs and two temporary traveling exhibits have been installed, and a series of teacher training workshops, specialized tours, and education programs will be developed to correspond with Colorado Model Content Standards and grade-specific curriculum. This project will enable the museum to address several areas identified by its board of directors as priorities in its strategic plan. Implementation of these changes will strengthen the role of the Golden Pioneer Museum as an active resource for lifelong learning and a center for community involvement by allowing visitors to explore and sustain the unique cultural heritage of Golden and the surrounding region.

Great Lakes Children's Museum – Traverse City, MI
Year: 2005
Amount: $35,862  
Grant: Museums for America
The Great Lakes Children’s Museum is a hands-on facility designed for children and young people. Its theme is water, broadly interpreted through science, social studies, and arts-based exhibits and activities. The museum encourages children and their adult caretakers to explore and discover the importance of water to the Great Lakes and in their own lives. Installed in the gallery soon after the museum opened, a water table has proven unsuitable in support of this mission, as it lacks opportunities for meaningful inquiry. In its place, the museum will install a better designed water table that engages children of all ages with authentic, inquiry-based activities. The Water Discovery Center Project will incorporate a water table with moveable accessories that is aesthetically appealing, demonstrates many physical properties of water, and allows visitors to manipulate water flow and pressure to do work . Combined with innovative programming created for causal visitors, school groups, and out-of-school groups, this exhibit will support the presentation of the museum theme in an imaginative, hands-on manner. During regularly scheduled monthly meetings, museum staff will train volunteer presenters in the use of the dams, water well, Archimedes screw, turbines, and locks. Staff will also solicit program suggestions from teachers and generate their own ideas, using best practices of informal science education and featuring relevant educational content standards and benchmarks to filter and refine them. Evaluation will include formal and informal surveys that will ask visitors to evaluate exhibits and activities, identify problems, and suggest improvements. The staff already makes regular observations of how exhibits are used and shares observations at regular meetings. Visiting teachers are also given questionnaires.

Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum – Sault Sainte Marie, MI
Year: 2005
Amount: $24,790  
Grant: Museums for America
This IMLS grant will fund completion of a maritime museum exhibit describing the story of the United States Life-Saving Service. IMLS-funded work will take place concurrently with installation of interpretive panels funded by Michigan Humanities Council and fabrication and installation of a replica U.S. Life-Saving Service beach cart funded by a private donor. The exhibit will be housed in its own historic building at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, a Historic Site on the National Register. The building is an original surfboat built in 1923 by the U.S. Coast Guard for its Whitefish Point Rescue Station. Its exterior and interior have already been restored to U.S. Department of Interior Standards, as approved by the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office. The grant will fund the following: mannequin of beach patrolman; display cases and kiosk; Plexiglas exhibit covers; video equipment; and installation costs. Grant funds will be supplemented by a 1:1 match of state funds from the Michigan Humanities Council, a project-specific private cash contribution, and applicant cash.

Hancock Shaker Village – Pittsfield, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
Hancock Shaker Village (HSV) is an internationally renowned living history museum that welcomes diverse cultural tourism audiences, local constituencies, and school groups. HSV seeks to develop an innovative agricultural education initiative through historic farm interpretation. Through curriculum-based and family-friendly experiences with historically appropriate livestock breeds, the farm program will establish a unique educational showcase for historic and contemporary farming, using the Shaker farm as a model to connect visitors with America’s agricultural past, present, and future. Over three years, the historic farm program will significantly expand the scope and public impact of farm-based learning and recreational experiences at HSV. The program will be geared to attract and engage local audiences, particularly families—a key growth area for visitation. It will also appeal to adult visitors, primarily urban/suburban tourists whose direct experience of agricultural practices and rural life is minimal to nonexistent. Based on continuing strategic planning and visitor surveys, HSV trustees and staff have assigned the highest priority to this new program, which will 1) advance the village’s mission, vision, and objectives, 2) enhance educational programs for schoolchildren and the general public, 3) broaden the visitor/audience base, and 4) reveal the Shakers’ largely unknown role as innovators in agricultural practices. The working farm at HSV will show visitors how the Shakers developed a sustainable, environmentally sound farming system and offer visitors unique opportunities to participate in hands-on-farming activities and learn the basis for these techniques, how they changed over time, and how they are relevant to contemporary agricultural practices. The program will highlight the full scale and importance of the Shakers’ agricultural story to relate their experience within the broader context of American and world history.

Handweaving Museum & Arts Center – Clayton, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $12,962  
Grant: Museums for America
The Handweaving Museum & Arts Center (HMAC) will use its IMLS grant to help transfer its paper-based collection catalog to a digital database. The objective is to improve documentation of and access to the Berta Frey Collection, which comprises about 1,400 objects, or 7 percent of the accessioned permanent collection. The Northern New York Library Network has offered HMAC free PastPerfect software, and HMAC will purchase a multimedia add-on package for PastPerfect, a computer, hardware to run the program, software necessary for efficient record collection, a scanner, camera, and digital voice recorder to further document the collection and its provenance. HMAC also sending museum staff to a PastPerfect training session administered by the Pastime Software Company. Key project participants will create data entry policies and procedures for project volunteers. Volunteers will then begin data entry of the Berta Frey collection and digital photo documentation of about 10 percent of the collection’s artifacts. The volunteer curator’s knowledge of selected collection items will be collected via digital voice recorder and transcribed using voice recognition software. Records will be entered into the database, and accompanying digital photos, audio files, and their transcriptions will be attached to database records for selected goals. The assistant director and other staff will provide initial supervision and periodic follow-ups to ensure consistency in data entry and photo documentation. Evaluations will take place during the data entry process to identify unforeseen problems and correct them prior to continuation of data entry.

Health Adventure – Asheville, NC
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,364  
Grant: Museums for America
The Health Adventure (THA) plans to build on its successful history of using theatrical assembly programs to engage and involve regional school audiences in science education. It will develop and produce an original assembly program that teaches the scientific method and the history of science through original songs, physical science demonstrations, and active audience participation. This assembly will travel to elementary schools throughout western North Carolina, expanding the Health Adventure’s audience to include students in more rural areas. The Health Adventure will produce a multimedia CD of original music and classic science demonstrations for distribution to participating schools and will encourage replication of the program by other science centers. It will create hands-on science classroom activity packages (for preparation and follow-up to the assembly programs) for teachers and conduct on-site teacher training at participating schools. It will also develop activities for students to take home for family involvement. Participating schools will then be offered assemblies and museum programs targeted to students in grades one through five. All outreach assemblies and museum programs will meet specific competency goals in science from the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. THA President and CEO Todd R. Boyette, Ph.D., will oversee the program, including research, development, and implementation. Director of Programs Jim Taylor will write songs and create the assembly program with the assistance of THA Educator Myra Lynch. An additional outreach educator will be hired to help coordinate the assembly programs with Mr. Taylor and Ms. Lynch. Students from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, under the direction of Mark Harvey, Ph.D., will conduct evaluations.

Henry Ford (The) – Dearborn, MI
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Greenfield Village Visible Glass Storage and Study Gallery Project will, for the first time, provide village and other glass artisans with access to The Henry Ford’s extensive and comprehensive collection of American glass, which provides artistic inspiration for heritage glass production operations. The gallery will present a large portion of the world-class collection in a way that appeals to broad audiences and supports both informal exploration and formal study. The 6,600-piece glass collection ranks among the top in the nation, but has enjoyed little public visibility. The gallery will be the first large-scale collection displayed in Greenfield Village and will be integrated with the village’s entire glass operation and experience (production, retail, and ancillary public programming). The gallery will be housed in the McDonald & Sons Workshop, a historic structure next door to the Glass Product Shop in the newly transformed Greenfield Village Liberty Craftworks District.

High Desert Museum – Bend, OR
Year: 2005
Amount: $75,000  
Grant: Museums for America
“Desert Waters: Linking Life and Land ” is a riparian ecosystem exhibit and programmatic play by the High Dessert Museum that examines the cultural history of the West and its relationship to water. Through the combined stories of human and natural history, the museum hopes to show visitors how these histories do not exist separately, but rather have been affecting one another since the beginning of human existence. The following project activities will begin in August 2005, with completion scheduled for July 2006: 1) Complete design plans for “Desert Waters” and the wildlife precinct project, which will highlight the importance of high desert riparian ecosystems, the relationship of indigenous people to wetland areas and wildlife, exploration and settlement history, water management history, and human impact on these environments. 2) Create final exhibit design and construction documents for the first phase of “Desert Waters,” a revitalized otter habitat, with a concept design plan to incorporate additional riparian species such as beaver, waterfowl, and a variety of fish in the future. 3) Develop an interpretive story line in partnership with regional tribal groups, with consultation from scholars and advisors in the field of Western water resource management, led by Charles Wilkinson, J.D., a leader in environmental law and professor at the University of Colorado. 4) Contract with the Institute for Learning Innovation to conduct front-end evaluation of the exhibit community advisory group, which will guide efforts to engage underrepresented audiences and communities. 5) Broaden the museum experience for all audiences through various methods (visits, outreach, lectures, Web site, and publications).

Hill-Stead Museum – Farmington, CT
Year: 2005
Amount: $143,520  
Grant: Museums for America
Hill-Stead Museum comprises a 152-acre country estate designed and built in 1901 by pioneer female architect Theodore Pope Riddle (1867-1946) for her parents, Alfred and Ada Pope. Hill-Stead’s 33,000-square-foot 36-room house, one of the country’s most significant examples of Colonial Revival domestic architecture, showcases the Popes’ extensive collections of paintings, furniture, and decorative arts, including masterpieces by Monet, Manet, and Degas. This project will broaden Hill-Stead’s exhibits and interpretive offerings from a focus on the historic landmark and fine arts collections to include the historic cultural landscape. That landscape, inspired by master landscape architect Warren Manning, includes lawns, a pond, a tree-lined drive, trails, miles of stonewalls, orchards, meadows, a former golf course, a farm complex, and gardens, including a ca. 1920 Beatrix Farrand–designed sunken garden and a 1.5-acre wild garden now overgrown with invasive plant species. This project will begin to address the imperatives of a recent historic landscape report, which suggested use of Hill-Stead’s landscape to teach valuable lessons on the historical and ecological evolution of the New England landscape. The project will also more fully leverage the property’s inherent natural, ecological, and geologic teaching opportunities. To accomplish this, the museum will restructure the present curatorial/education staff, hiring a landscape manager/horticulturalist to provide for exhibition upkeep and development, as well as a museum educator/specialist with expertise in historic gardens and landscapes and the natural sciences. The latter will research, develop, promote, pilot, and evaluate three to four new outdoor programs and develop interpretive signage for outdoor elements and guides to the gardens and grounds. This project will also seek to develop the garden/trail volunteer program, attract new audiences, and leverage new grant/funding opportunities.

Historic Hillsborough Commission – Hillsborough, NC
Year: 2005
Amount: $48,787  
Grant: Museums for America
In 1837, Anna Burwell opened one of North Carolina’s first women’s academies in Hillsborough. She wrote that her aim was to make her students “thorough scholars and useful members of society.” Today, the story of the Burwell family, the enslaved members of their household, and the Burwell School is preserved and interpreted at the Burwell School Historic Site, owned and operated by the Historic Hillsborough Commission since 1965. The overarching goal of the exhibit “Thorough Scholars and Useful Members of Society: The Students of Burwell School” is to sustain cultural heritage by strengthening the Burwell School Historic Site’s interpretation with new tools focused on its students. The project comprises four objectives: 1) Digitization of The Book of Burwell Students. These two unbound volumes contain biographical sketches of 130 Burwell School students. Student letters, photographs, and artwork augment the biographies. The digital document will be preserved, accessible, searchable, and ready for editing and publication. 2) Further research on the young women in The Book of Burwell Students to uncover more information about them and reconnect their families and the Burwell School Historic Site. 3) Design and fabrication of an exhibit on Burwell School students to be housed in the site’s original classroom building (ca. 1837). The exhibit will consist of text and graphic panels and interactive stations. It will enhance the existing elementary heritage education programs that use this space, as well as the overall visitor experience. 4) Publication of The Book of Burwell Students. The existing manuscript will be augmented by new research, edited, and contextualized by an introductory chapter.

Historical Museum of Southern Florida – Miami, FL
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Historical Museum of Southern Florida (HMSF) is one of the largest private regional history museums in the Southeast. Founded in 1940, HMSF collects, preserves, exhibits, and interprets materials relating to the history and culture of southern Florida and the Caribbean. The IMLS grant will enable HMSF to increase public access to and intellectual control of its archives and object collections. HMSF’s collections, digital imaging, and metadata strategic plans are major multiyear cataloging, inventory, and digitization projects. Project activities will fulfill many of the plans’ goals, including the following: 1) retrospective MARC cataloging of 4,000 books; 2) original cataloging for a backlog of 50 books, 250 serials, 1,000 maps, and 1,000 prints; 3) conversion of Research Center finding aids to encoded archival description (EAD) format; 4) conversion of archaeological records to digital format; 5) shelf-by-shelf inventory of 75 percent of the 12,000-artifact Object Collections, including research, records checking, and digital photography; 6) development of collections guides and finding aids for subcollections in the Object Collections; 7) selection and digitization of 2,000 to 3,000 prints and photographs; 8) accessioning and indexing of primary resources generated by the Folk Life/Community Research Program; and 9) digitization of HMSF periodicals. Work will continue after the grant period has ended. Ultimately, HMSF will implement an online digital resource, providing public access to comprehensive information, images, and interpretive materials regarding the institutional collections, possibly with access to collections from other institutions elsewhere in Florida and the Caribbean. Greater access to and knowledge of HMSF’s collections will advance understanding of local history and stimulate greater interest in the region’s rich cultural heritage.

Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center – Maitland, FL
Year: 2005
Amount: $6,100  
Grant: Museums for America
A survey completed last year identified collections management as the center’s top priority. Grant funds will pay for a professional conservator/consultant to assist in cataloging materials and developing policies to enhance access to the collections while improving the long-term preservation of the collection.

Huguenot Historical Society – New Paltz, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $83,283  
Grant: Museums for America
The Huguenot Historical Society (HHS) will use its IMF grant to meet its primary strategic goals in collections management. This two-year project aims to catalog and rehouse the entire object and archival collections, including thousands of textile objects, by 2006. The project will also translate and catalog hundreds of Dutch-American documents, as well as catalog and index of HHS’s Bible records, pamphlet collection, and sheet music collection.

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston – Boston, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
In advance of the its move to a new, 65,000-square-foot facility on Boston’s waterfront in spring 2006, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) will use IMLS funds to develop exciting new ways to attract and engage its visitors in meaningful contemporary art experiences. The ICA will introduce innovations to several areas of its public programs. The ICA’s transformation will not be solely a difference of degree (i.e., the same sort of programs, only bigger), but a fundamental evolution that will enable the museum to think about programs in entirely new ways. Offerings will include a performing arts program, as well as such programs as Creativity in Civic Life, Community Days, and Teen Nights. While the ICA will attract and engage audiences of all ages and backgrounds, the transformation will directly target the surrounding communities of South Boston, Dorchester, and Roxbury—neighborhoods for which the ICA will serve as an accessible cultural and educational resource. The ICA has a history of conducting successful educational outreach programs in association with the schools and community centers in these neighborhoods. The ICA’s presence on Boston’s Fan Pier will help it build upon existing partnerships to involve schoolchildren, teens, teachers, adults, and families. The ICA’s transformation will take place over several years, though it will incur most significant expenses between August 1, 2005, and July 30, 2007. Ultimately, the changes will help enable the ICA to function as a community hub, where people of all ages can gather to experience the pleasures of reflection, inspiration, provocation, and imagination that contemporary art offers.

James A. Michener Art Museum – Doylestown, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $98,803  
Grant: Museums for America
The Michener Art Museum (MAM) is the only institution open to the public devoted to preserving, interpreting, and presenting the rich artistic and cultural heritage of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The unique and rich artistic legacy of the area is a significant educational resource, as well as an important source of community pride. In addition to caring for a significant collection of art and presenting challenging and long-term exhibitions that celebrate the creative genius and achievements of regional and national artists, both historic and contemporary, the museum offers innovative educational programs that explore themes in exhibitions and engage the community in the creative arts in general. These programs are a vital component of MAM’s activities and have been attended by growing audiences. MAM will use IMLS grant funds to develop and expand Beyond the Art Door, its educational outreach program, and advance the museum’s educational mission to offer lifelong learning opportunities for visitors of all ages and backgrounds. Key expansion activities include building institutional capacity by expanding the education staff; integrating and using senior museum educators as consultants for program development and evaluation; increasing public access to the museum’s collection and exhibitions through expanded partnerships and educational offerings throughout Bucks County; enhancing and promoting art appreciation throughout the community through improved interpretive materials for students, educators, families, and underserved audiences; and establishing professional installation procedures and expanded marketing for the Children’s Gallery. Expanding Beyond the Art Door will help MAM fulfill its goals to increase educational outreach activities and educate the community about Bucks County artists. With an expanded program, MAM will strive to reach more than 25,000 individuals annually.

Jepson Herbarium – Berkeley, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $70,234  
Grant: Museums for America
A privately funded museum on the UC Berkeley campus, the Jepson Herbarium is dedicated to the study and conservation of California plants. The combined collection of the Jepson and University Herbariums comprise 365,000 plant specimens. Jepson is the primary source of taxonomic and systematic information for California plants. Smaller institutions, public agencies, professional biologists, and private citizens all rely on it for authoritative data. In 1993 the herbarium published The Jepson Manual: Higher Plants of California, an authoritative floristic reference for the state and primary resource for plant identification. The manual is also widely used as a conservation and teaching tool. More than 24,000 copies of the manual have been sold, and the work has been cited in 500 scholarly publications. The manual’s content forms the core of an extensive set of electronic resources developed by the herbarium for public use (available on the Web, free of charge). About 47,000 Web pages list the herbarium’s home page. In 2003, the Jepson Herbarium initiated a five-year project to produce a second edition of the manual, as it has fallen out –of date as a result of the phenomenal progress in the field of plant systematics. About 72 percent of the content will change to reflect new scientific understandings. Because accurate plant identification is essential to guide responsible land use and conservation decisions, revision of the manual and online companion material is a priority. Funding has already been obtained to support three of five staff positions needed to complete the project. The IMLS grant will fund the remaining 40 percent of the position of managing editor for two years (the other 60 percent has already been procured). The managing editor will contribute original text to the book and Web site and oversee the work of 200 authors and illustrators.

Jewish Museum of Maryland – Baltimore, MD
Year: 2005
Amount: $141,500  
Grant: Museums for America
The Jewish Museum of Maryland (JMM) will use the IMLS grant to research, plan, design, fabricate, and install a core exhibition as part of the museum’s efforts to sustain cultural heritage. The JMM project is predicated on the idea that sustaining cultural heritage involves both the conservation of cultural resources and their effective interpretation. The exhibition will explore the overlapping worlds of several ethnic groups, demonstrating their interconnections and reciprocal influences. This project will serve as an emblem of institutional identity, frame the museum’s interpretation, and provide needed context for the site and programs. The exhibition will directly advance two JMM strategic goals: 1) maintaining excellence and 2) developing new audiences. In addition, the exhibition will relieve pressure on the museum’s limited financial resources by enabling JMM to reduce the number of original exhibitions produced each year. The project will enhance JMM’s capacity for long-term growth while serving the needs of two critical audience segments—public school students and family visitors. The project is informed by a multicultural interpretation; a variety of evocative settings, immersive environments, hands-on discovery activities, and media presentations will make that interpretation accessible and engaging for an intergenerational audience. The exhibition will be developed over two years (beginning in August 2005) by a highly qualified and proven team of JMM professional staff, scholar-advisors, design and media consultants, and fabrication contractors. IMLS’s investment in this project will materially advance institutional goals, increase JMM capacity, and break new ground in the interpretation of Jewish cultural heritage, while serving a variety of new and growing audiences.

Kern County Museum – Bakersfield, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $60,000  
Grant: Museums for America
With funds from its 2005 IMLS Museums for America grant, Kern County Museum will be able to realize an important step in its 2003 master plan: installation of an updated and cohesive interpretive overlay throughout the 16-acre outdoor museum. The overlay will consist of 556 signs for historic exhibits; three thematic kiosks; three orientation maps/kiosks; a new full-color visitor guide; and a new self-guided school tour packet. All aspects of the interpretive overlay will be visually appealing yet simple, focusing on the stories of people associated with the buildings and other artifacts on display. The graphically rich interpretive materials will make excellent use of the museum’s extensive collection of historic photographs and other archival materials as appropriate. The theme kiosks will explore important subjects currently conveyed in the museum’s three exhibits: “Living in Kern,” “Water and Agriculture,” and “Black Gold.” Once the interpretive overlay is in place, visitors will start their tours at a map and orientation kiosk at the museum entrance. Adult visitors will be provided with a free visitor guide upon admission. This guide will also be available in Spanish, Japanese, German, and French versions. Two differing site maps at the east and west ends of the grounds will provide additional orientation information. In between will be a unified system of buildings, large artifacts, signs, and three thematic kiosks to help visitors learn more about the exhibits. The visitor guide will not repeat this information but rather provide the broadest site overview, so that it also serves as an educational souvenir and promotions piece. School tours will have access to the same materials, as well as pre- and post-visit information that will tie their self-guided tour to state education standards.

Laguna Art Museum – Laguna Beach, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,998  
Grant: Museums for America
The Laguna Art Museum (LAM) will use its 2005 IMLS grant to fund California Art of the Century II: Reclaiming a Museum’s Cultural Identity and Legacy. This plan will benefit the museum’s regional public image and support art historical scholarship and preservation of the state’s unique cultural heritage. The initiative will also send a message to the museum’s constituency and wider art world that it has recovered from a recent merger and is ready to reemerge as a leader in its field. The three-year initiative will culminate in the institution’s 90th anniversary celebration in 2008, when it will launch a capital campaign to build its endowment and renovate the building. LAM plans to expand the site to create a community art resource center, including a small auditorium, an activity space for art projects, and a study center that houses the library and archive. As a precursor, LAM is launching a pilot program, The Learning Lab, a dedicated space that teaches children and adults about art and the museum collection through a variety of educational and art-making programs The museum will also add a café-style rooftop restaurant. These changes will greatly enhance and expand museum visitation. They will also facilitate an increased level of art education and exchange as the museum implements two major new exhibitions: “William Wendt: A Retrospective” and “An Idiosyncratic History: Laguna Art Museum’s Permanent Collection of California Art.” The museum will produce catalogs and education programs for both exhibitions, which will be centerpieces of the 90th anniversary celebration.

Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences – Peoria, IL
Year: 2005
Amount: $140,985  
Grant: Museums for America
Since 2000, the Museum Collaboration Group (a coalition of local museums, businesses, and organizations led by Lakeview Museum) has been planning the development and construction of a regional, interdisciplinary museum facility. Scheduled to open in 2008, this new facility will serve many pressing regional needs, including improved educational opportunities, quality of life, and economic development. It will be a place for both residents and tourists to engage in the disciplines of art, history, science, and nature. Audience feedback is essential to plan and construct the best possible facility and tie the project to the community and audiences it will serve. Thus, each step of the 10-step planning process will be accompanied by appropriate audience research and evaluation.

Lehman College Art Gallery – Bronx, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $107,161  
Grant: Museums for America
Lehman College Art Gallery (LCAG) will use IMLS grant funds to expand and sustain the partnership between LCAG and Bronx High School for the Visual Arts (BHSVA), a New Visions school. Funding will allow LCAG to fully participate in this partnership by providing more opportunities for the students, families, and teachers of BHSVA while effectively meeting the mission of both institutions and furthering LCAG’s strategic plans. Proposed activities include tours of all LCAG exhibitions, with related studio projects and slide presentations; studio workshops in specialized art media; a Museum Studies Program to emphasize career fields within the museum community; gallery internships for BHSVA students; curriculum planning sessions and professional development seminars for teachers and administrators; presentations by artists, art educators, art historians, and professionals in art handling; invitations to students and parents to LCAG receptions; an after-school and Saturday program for students and families; and museum/studio visits during which BHSVA students will meet artists and see their studios. The proposed activities will promote LCAG as a center for exhibition planning and community engagement for BHSVA students, their families, and the broader community.

Lincoln Children's Museum – Lincoln, NE
Year: 2005
Amount: $77,600  
Grant: Museums for America
The Lincoln Children’s Museum ( LCM ) will use its 12-month IMLS grant to fund advancement of the LCM Community Engagement Initiative, a three-step program focused on community outreach, educational programming, and capacity building. The museum believes that play is a child’s work and that no child should be denied the opportunity to explore, learn, and play at the Lincoln Children’s Museum. These two principles are the guiding force behind the LCM Community Engagement Initiative (CEI). This initiative will expand and enhance programming LCM has provided for several years and found to have an impact in the community. IMLS support of the Community Engagement Initiative will make possible the addition of a full-time professional staff member, who will coordinate and conduct outreach to cultural, ethnic, and underserved populations in the area. Funds will also support improved coordination and implementation of service and value-added educational programs for all LCM patrons. Finally, the grant will fund a data collection and management system that will serve as a master database, as well as track and evaluate museum member and donor use, participation, and support.

Lincoln Park Zoological Gardens – Chicago, IL
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,540  
Grant: Museums for America
Lincoln Park Zoo will use a two-year IMLS grant to fund its Education Inclusion Initiative. This project will evaluate and adapt education programming in five targeted areas, making them more accessible and engaging to young children, students, and adults with disabilities (e.g., physical impairments, learning disabilities, cognitive/behavioral/emotional disorders). The five programs are 1) public lectures, 2) docent training, 3) on-grounds curiosity carts, 4) Project N.O.A.H. (a literary program), and 5) the Zoo Intern Program (ZIP) for teens. The zoo chose these programs because they are broadly representative of all programming in the zoo. This sharp focus will help the zoo reach the widest range of audiences while keeping the initiative realistic and achievable within a two-year time frame. Although the zoo is proud of the array and depth of its formal and public education opportunities, only one program, Hands-On Zoo, specifically addresses visitors with disabilities. While this program is excellent, adaptive, and well received, the zoo is aware of the limited scope and variety of programs for this audience. The Education Inclusion Initiative will address this deficiency by developing and implementing inclusive components for visitors with disabilities. Led by Vice President of Education Dr. Robert Davis and Manager of Formal Programs Dr. Marlene Meisels (Ph.D. in special education), this initiative seeks systemic change to improve the zoo’s ability to fulfill its mission in the best possible manner. Instead of one separate program to accommodate visitors with disabilities, the project will create a wide circle of inclusion for this audience across a range of zoo’s most important and popular education programs.

Living History Farms – Urbandale, IA
Year: 2005
Amount: $79,220  
Grant: Museums for America
Living History Farms (LHF) will use its grant to develop the Martin Flynn House and Barn (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) into the Flynn Farmstead. As a part of LHF’s created 1875 “town” of Walnut Hill, the house and barn stand on their original sites and overlook 15 other businesses, shops, and homes that make up this rural community. The farmstead will serve as a cornerstone of LHF’s interpretation of changes in agriculture from 1850 to 1875 and the story of the interdependent relationship between farmers and townspeople. Research from earlier restorations was used to develop a Victorian decorative arts theme chosen for the house. However, to reestablish the property as the innovative, cutting-edge farm it was in the 1870s, LHF must complete more in-depth research on all materials relating to the original farmstead, the Flynn family, and the family’s agriculture-related businesses. This research and planning phase will result in 1) a more complete history of the Flynn family, house, barn, and grounds; 2) a grounds plan that will map locations of the original root cellar, gas plant, tenant houses, and brick factory; 3) a building assessment for further restoration and structural maintenance of the house; 4) an interpretive plan for the farmstead; 5) a training manual for interpretive staff and volunteers; and 6) a strategic plan for the physical development phase of the Flynn Farmstead, including a fundraising plan.

Long Beach Museum of Art – Long Beach, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $137,077  
Grant: Museums for America
The Electronic Cataloguing and Web Access Project will strengthen the museum’s organizational capacity to preserve, conserve, and exhibit works of visual art in its collection and to collect extensive information about these works. The project will update and expand the means by which the museum exhibits its works and otherwise shares its collection and knowledge with its diverse audiences. To make the project more manageable, the museum will focus on its ceramics pieces. Ceramics has become one of the museum’s significant artistic focuses, and Web access to the ceramics will be most utilized by the museum’s communities. The project seeks to upgrade the museum’s electronic collections database, photograph/digitize and catalog the entire ceramics collection, include extensive contextual information about each work, and enhance the Web site by making these cataloged works accessible online. The project will directly upgrade and improve collections care and management to promote long-term preservation of the artwork, increase registrar and curatorial staff efficiency, and improve “institutional memory.” Completion of the project will give staff (particularly the education staff) greater access to the collection, thereby facilitating development of traditional and Web-based educational programming and materials. Making the collection Web-accessible will expand direct public access and increase public utilization of the collection. The project will take 18 months to complete. The museum will measure outcomes by achieving several project goals, including consistently higher levels of traffic on the Web site, broader geographical representation of online visitors, increased numbers of substantive inquiries about the collection, and increased lending and joint endeavors.

Longmont Museum and Cultural Center – Longmont, CO
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,693  
Grant: Museums for America
The Longmont Museum will complete the design of and implement the new long-term exhibit “Boundary Lines: The World of the Rocky Mountain Front Range” and create educational programming to accompany the exhibit. Completion of this exhibit will reshape the museum’s interpretation and provide an exhibit grounded in scholarly research, designed to meet the needs of museum visitors. Based on the concept that the interaction between mountains and plains in Colorado has been a major force shaping human history and culture, the exhibit will survey the history of the northern Colorado Front Range, with Longmont as the case study area. Using a large central relief map with a state-of-the-art projection system, the exhibit will interpret the complex interplay between humans and the local environment. An artifact-rich presentation and reproduced building facades are designed to give the visitor an immersive experience. “Boundary Lines” will engage visitors in an exploration of local history and the forces that shape that history. Over two years, the museum will prototype interactive displays, test educational programs, build casework, and work with an exhibition fabricator to create the most complex exhibit elements. Museum staff will install the exhibit in time for a September 2007 opening. An audio tour, available in both English and Spanish, will allow a broad range of visitors to fully experience the exhibit.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art – Los Angeles, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $65,358  
Grant: Museums for America
In April 2003, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LAA) launched Arts for NexGen (formerly titled NexGen Arts) to reach children and families by offer an engaging core of family and educational programs. NexGen membership provides complimentary admission for any child under 18 and an accompanying adult. Children receive discounts on art classes and in the museum’s café and free admission to Family Days, held every Sunday. LACMA is now engaged in a plan, aligned to its strategic mission, to make the museum not only accessible but engaging to Los Angeles’ Latin American community through enhanced gallery experiences and bilingual materials. The museum will provide free busing, bilingual gallery tours, bilingual children’s guides, and bilingual audio tours of its permanent collection through Arts for NexGen. The museum will also offer free youth memberships (complimentary admission for children under 18 and an accompanying adult) to families that participate in the Latino outreach initiative. To accomplish these goals, LACMA has developed family and education programs that include special exhibition openings; audio tours; interactive, Web-based artistic/educational games; on-site experiences tailored to children and families; and free bus transportation for underserved communities.

Louisa May Alcott Memorial Association – Concord, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $30,000  
Grant: Museums for America
Orchard House has hosted Educational Programs for Young People for nearly 30 years. At the heart of every programming idea is a direct connection to the Alcotts, their interests, and involvements. Youth learn largely through hands-on interaction, often with living history portrayers, and emerge with lasting memories of life in a bygone era and a consciousness of the example set by the Alcotts. Once thought of as site only for those able to read Little Women, Orchard House has responded to change over time by offering meaningful programs for preschoolers, as well as coordinating offerings with the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for Language Arts and Social Studies. In 2003, more than 5,600 students visited the site and participated in one of its 10 tours in specialized programs. Orchard House expanded its programs in 2004 to include collaborations with a professional theater company (Theatre Espresso) and the Revere, Massachusetts, Public School System. The association’s goals are threefold: 1) to continue to present meaningful educational experiences for young people, 2) to reach students in underserved areas, and 3) to host 7,000 visitors by 2006.

Maine Historical Society – Portland, ME
Year: 2005
Amount: $122,682  
Grant: Museums for America
The Maine Historical Society (MHS) will use the IMLS grant to convert its card-based collections catalog to a digital collections management system. The project will enable MHS to provide staff, researchers, students, and the public in Maine and beyond with detailed information about its collections through Maine InfoNet, a prominent, statewide, Web-accessible cataloging database. The electronic records, as well as online access to the records, will support a broad range of MHS activities, including exhibit design, development of education resources, acquisitions decisions, and publications. It will also provide the public with unprecedented access to MHS’s research collections, fulfilling a major institution-wide initiative in the current strategic plan.

Maryland Science Center – Baltimore, MD
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Maryland Science Center (MSC) will use IMLS grant funds to develop “Cellular Universe,” an immersive cell exhibit that will introduce visitors to the structure and function of cells, the basic building blocks of the human body and basis of all life on Earth. The target audience for this exhibit is families with children nine and older, school groups in grade three and up, and adults. The exhibit will fill an important place in our new human body initiative, one of MSC’s core content areas. This cutting-edge cell biology exhibit will be the connecting link between human physiology—how our organs work together so we can breathe, feel, smell, and protect ourselves—and the micro-world of the research scientist, who improves our health and welfare by studying life under the microscope. The exhibit will combine the excitement of an immersive, interactive walk-through cell environment with dramatic footage of living cells in action, taken by researchers using the latest cell visualization techniques. Project goals are aligned with the age-appropriate learning objectives of the National Science Education Standards. “Cellular Universe” is the final piece of MSC’s four-part strategic initiative to make human health both understandable and exciting for visitors of all ages. The first three pieces of this initiative are as follows: 1) BodyLink, a health sciences update center opened in 2002; 2) “Your Body: The Inside Story,” a hands-on, 6,000-square-foot human physiology exhibition that opened in 2004; 3) WetLab (opened in 2004), a functional lab where visitors and school groups can perform actual scientific experiments under the watchful guidance of trained science center staff. Additionally, in 2005 the Maryland Science Center will apply for National Institutes of Health funding for a major related exhibition on stem cell research.

Mattatuck Museum – Waterbury, CT
Year: 2005
Amount: $67,600  
Grant: Museums for America
This project will enable the museum to re-examine its traditional collections of decorative arts, industrial products, and historical artifacts and link them with stories of interest to contemporary audiences. Project staff will reconsider the collections in the context of global influences in Waterbury during the colonial, industrial, and post-industrial periods. These new perspectives will inform the presentation of the collections in the museum’s ambitious new history exhibit and an illustrated online database. Over 12 months, a cataloger and photographer will work on the collection, preparing an illustrated digital collection catalog that incorporates the new perspectives.

Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens – Fort Bragg, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $39,655  
Grant: Museums for America
Retirees and other area residents find the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens (Gardens) an exceptional place to volunteer. IMLS grant funds will enable the gardens to further engage its community via increased volunteer involvement and more effective use of volunteers. By increasing involvement and deepening ties with volunteers, the Gardens will build even stronger community links and be able to serve a broader audience. The Gardens is a small, community-based organization. Its volunteer staff has grown from 75 to 150 over the last three years, even though the Gardens has no volunteer coordinator. To address that need, the Gardens will recruit and hire a volunteer coordinator—the most effective means of reaching out and engaging a broader audience. The Gardens will transition this position onto its payroll, spreading the impact over several fiscal years, a strategy it has used to hire an education coordinator and plan recorder.

Mercer Museum – Doylestown, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $68,836  
Grant: Museums for America
The extraordinarily diverse collections of the Mercer Museum represent a vast resource for the study of southeastern Pennsylvania regional history, the Arts and Crafts era, everyday life in early America, pre-industrial American trades and crafts, and global craft traditions informed by objects the museum’s founder gathered from West Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. Grant funds will improve public access by making collections records more widely accessible to museum visitors and the public at large. The project represents the latest phase in a long-term effort to improve collections data storage and retrieval, an effort begun in 2003 with acquisition of powerful the powerful STAR software system from Cuadra Associates. The project seeks to accomplish the following: 1) Make both library and museum collections data available to patrons and visitors via Online Public Access Catalog terminals housed in the museum library. 2) Review, clean up, and render consistent certain data transferred from the museum’s old system into STAR. 3) Enter catalog information for certain discrete collections that exists only in hard copy form into STAR. 4) Launch a Web-based search capability, providing off-site public access to information about the museum’s and library’s collections, linked to the museum’s existing Web site. 5) Plan for digitizing images of museum objects for eventual inclusion on the public-access database. 6) Partially fund the salary of a part-time curatorial assistant (30 hours/week), who will perform the data review and cleaning and catalog data entry necessary to provide accurate and useful information to the public. The assistant will also train and direct a small number of volunteers to assist with data entry.

Michigan State University Museum – East Lansing, MI
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,979  
Grant: Museums for America
This IMLS-funded educational media and technology project is a component of Carriers of Culture: Living Native Basket Traditions, a multifaceted project led by the museum in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and major Native basket makers’ organizations in North American and Hawaii. The project focuses on early twenty-first century Native basketry, both as a significant component of the expressive artistic heritage of the United States and Canada and as key cultural and artistic forms within distinct tribal groups. It examines the ways in which baskets and their makers are literally and symbolically “carriers of culture.” The overall project includes a nationally touring exhibition and a special program at the 2006 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. An integral component of the exhibition and festival design, the Carriers of Culture educational media and technology project will result in stand-alone Web-based educational resources. Together, the educational media components will extend the reach of the exhibition and festival and serve multiple audiences, including weavers and their communities, as well as those interested in Native American culture. Specific project goals include the following: 1) Create inventory of existing documentation on living Native Hawaiian and North American Indian weavers and weaving traditions. 2) Conduct videotaped interviews with selected weavers. 3) Photo-document selected weaving activities. 4) Produce a minimum of seven media portraits in the format developed by the Michigan State University Museum/MATRIX for Quilt Treasures (www.centerforthequilt.org/treasures); portraits will be posted on the Web and showcased in the exhibition. 5) Produce a series of 20 interpretive displays to be showcased on the Web, in the exhibit, and at the festival.

Milwaukee Public Museum – Milwaukee, WI
Year: 2005
Amount: $136,925  
Grant: Museums for America
The Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) will use the IMLS grant to convert its paper-based anthropology collection catalog records to electronic form. The 13-month project will use on-site data entry technicians to convert the 125,000 existing catalog cards to a KE EMu Collections Management System, which the museum has already purchased and configured. The need to computerize MPM’s anthropological collections records was established in a series of surveys following a 1991 report from external consultant Barbara Roberts (now conservator of New York’s Frick Collection), and subsequent assessments have repeatedly identified this need. In 2003, the museum’s strategic plan identified digitization of cultural collections records as a key priority. Selected fields will be Web-accessible, opening MPM’s collections to new audiences and better serving a series of strategically important audiences who need easy access to collections data.

Minnesota Children's Museum – Saint Paul, MN
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,999  
Grant: Museums for America
The Minnesota Children’s Museum initiative Community Faces and Places seeks to establish deep, enduring relationships with culturally rich neighborhood communities as a way to increase the value and impact of culturally significant experiences for all the museum’s audiences. The museum will actively collaborate with the West Side Citizens Organization (WSCO), a nonprofit community organization located close to the museum in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the Twin Cities. For the first two years of the initiative, the museum has set the following goals: 1) The museum will foster WSCO’s stated goal to create a “culture of learning” by providing expanded outreach programs that will serve at least 400 children, families, and teachers in the West Side neighborhood each year. 2) The museum will revitalize its Our World gallery, renovating 50 percent of the gallery with specific input and programmatic support from its West Side neighbors. 3) West Side community presence at the museum will be visibly increased with expanded staff and volunteer opportunities for community residents, adding a part-time outreach instructor, two interns, and eight new youth volunteer positions, together with a measurable increase in Museum membership for West Side families. The initiative’s focus on complex neighborhoods, rather than specific ethnic groups, represents a sustainable and replicable approach to the challenge that many museums face: how to become authentically culturally inclusive in an increasingly diverse society.

Missouri Botanical Garden – St. Louis, MO
Year: 2005
Amount: $147,495  
Grant: Museums for America
In one of its most innovative and transforming projects, the Missouri Botanical Garden set aside a 2.6-acre tract for a unique Children’s Garden. The goal is to attract and engage children and their families in a compelling and enjoyable experience that underscores the importance of plants in their lives. Construction is under way on this garden, which will open to the public in September 2005 for a sneak preview. The first full season of programming will commence in April 2006. An investment in the institution’s capacity to serve children and their families, the Children’s Garden will also provide another venue in which to carry out the education components of its overall mission. The Children’s Garden Environmental Education Initiative will launch the interpretive and educational programming component of this new attraction. Focus is on development of curricula, materials, and assessment tools, followed by the testing and launch of an environmental education program. The narrative section of the initiative defines six learning themes for the garden. Project activities include creation of interpretive signage, development of classroom materials for teachers and students, structured tour or self-guided settings, family events and workshops, and a Web site. This project clearly demonstrates the garden’s progress toward achieving its strategic objectives, which include continued development of its nationally recognized environmental education program and a boost in garden attendance by broadening the visitor experience.

MIT Museum – Cambridge, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $101,150  
Grant: Museums for America
The goals of the museum’s Collections Information Management Project are to enhance the collections management system, expand system capacity, provide wider and more efficient access to collections, and plan for future digital collections management. A primary goal is to provide access that contributes both to MIT’s educational mission and to lifelong learning for the widest possible audience. Thus, the project will address information architecture and digital technology, keeping in mind the needs of all collections users. Project participants will evaluate the current collections management system, develop and implement improvements, and produce a comprehensive and scaleable five-year information plan for the museum’s five collections. The plan will address both information architecture and digital technology. Participants will include the museum’s five-member collections department: 1) the registrar/office manager, who will serve as project manager, 2) the curator of architecture and design, 3) the curator of the Hart Nautical Collections, 4) the curator of science and technology, and 5) the curatorial assistant. The museum will also engage the services of a highly experienced information science consultant.

Montpelier Foundation – Orange, VA
Year: 2005
Amount: $116,951  
Grant: Museums for America
The Montpelier Foundation has embarked on a comprehensive fund-raising campaign to restore James and Dolley Madison’s home to 1820s condition. The grant will support Montpelier’s Historic Interiors Initiative, a project to furnish and interpret the home, in particular the central drawing room—Montpelier’s main public space. James Madison, “the Sage of Montpelier,” and Dolley, “the Nation’s Hostess,” used the central drawing room for formal introductions; as an intimate gathering place for scholars, diplomats, and politicians; and for Sunday fetes with friends and neighbors. The room reflected James Madison’s character and his achievements as a Founding Father. Grant funds will support a yearlong effort to thoroughly research and furnish this room, aiding interpretation by lending historic context to the space—an important first step in the visitor experience. Grant funds will not be used to purchase original Madison items or items for the permanent collection; they will be used to conduct research, engage consultants, and acquire reproductions necessary to embellish the room (drapes, wall coverings, window coverings, and carpet), all to lend context to both the historic objects and the space. Funds will also support development of interpretation materials, including guide references and special thematic tour concepts.

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden – New York, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $74,895  
Grant: Museums for America
The Mount Vernon Hotel Museum (MVHM) will use IMLS grant funds to support and expand two of its museum-theater programs for underserved audiences in its community. Fare for All at the Mount Vernon Hotel is a full-scale, interactive musical based on historical facts and geared to children in grades 2-6. Directly aligned with New York state teaching standards in the arts and social studies, this program engages children through role-play with objects and onstage participation with actors. An integral part of a multi-visit curriculum offered by the museum, the play touches on issues of race, class, and gender equality and has been used as a model by other museums to develop and evaluate their own museum-theater projects. Developed in 1996, the play has received both local and national recognition for its leadership example and has served as a foundation for many of the museum’s other living history programs. The IMLS grant will fund 15 performances for 1,800 children, 75 percent of whom attend Title I–funded schools (with a majority of students living at or below the poverty line). The funds will enable MVHM to replace worn costumes and props, hire a professional photographer/videographer, and develop and pilot an in-school program component with a teaching artist. Launched in 2000, People of our Past is an outreach program that reaches thousands of seniors and the disabled in nursing homes and senior centers throughout the five boroughs each year. Characters from early nineteenth century New York are brought to life in first-person performances that integrate objects from the museum’s permanent collection. Audience interaction is a key component, and special amplification, large-print text, and foreign-language interpreters expand access. The IMLS grant will support the existing program and the development of new character, enabling MVHM to reach more than 4,000 seniors a year.

Museum of Chinese in the Americas – New York, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Museum of Chinese in the Americas (MoCA) will use its IMLS grant to fund the second phase of its organizational expansion. The ongoing first phase entails the lease and renovation of an additional 12,500 square feet of ground floor and basement space a few blocks from the museum’s present 2,500-square-foot site on the second floor of a historic former public school building. Scheduled for completion in November 2005, the first phase of the expansion was made possible with a $1.3 million grant from the September 11th Fund. The IMLS-funded second phase (Oct. 2005–March 2007) involves the planning and implementation of marketing, programmatic, and educational initiatives with two goals: 1) to develop and expand programming and activities best suited for each of the two sites, and 2) to build a stronger foundation for financial stability by expanding MoCA’s audiences. The latter effort will be geared particularly toward families, teachers and school-aged children, and MoCA’s local and regional Chinese American constituencies. The main project activities are as follows: 1) Plan and develop programming and marketing strategies that will connect MoCA’s two separate, yet complementary, locations. 2) Develop the Mulberry Street site as MoCA’s primary venue for local/regional historical exhibits and educational programming. Activities include 1) Expand and modify current historical exhibit to appeal to school groups and families. 2) Hire and train additional education staff to engage walk-in visitors and conduct group tours. 3) Develop the Lafayette Street site as MoCA’s site for broader Chinese American arts, educational, and historical programming. Activities include 1) Develop MoCA Lounge marketing and programming. Hire a program associate/events manager to cultivate relationships with Asian American community arts and nonprofit groups and coordinate the MoCA Lounge program calendar and public relations. 2) Develop a school program curriculum and resources for use outside the permanent exhibit site.

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego – San Diego, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
Crossroads is a two-year initiative focused on expanding community engagement for young adults and Hispanic audiences to the Museum of Contemporary Art’s new Downtown San Diego facility (MCASD Downtown), which will open in mid-2006. This facility will significantly strengthen the museum’s role as a center for community engagement and allow it to address an important target audience that is often difficult for museums to reach. The museum will use IMLS grant funds toward the design, planning, and implementation of Crossroads, a series of programs geared to people in their 20s and 30s on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border—young adults who hold in their hands the future of both the museum and their communities. The museum will capitalize on both demographic shifts in the region and the geographic centrality of MCASD Downtown to expand and better serve these young audiences. The museum has already initiated a number of pilot programs that foreshadow those that will take place in the new facility. IMLS funds will enable the museum to intensify these efforts and implement them when the facility opens. Proposed activities include planning and research, creation of exhibits and related multidisciplinary programs, development new opportunities to bring young people into the museum, and augmented use of the Web site and e-communications. The museum’s ultimate goal is to make MCASD Downtown a cultural beacon for the neighborhood, the city, and the region—a place that nurtures the next generation of museum and arts patrons, drawn from the increasingly diverse communities of San Diego/Tijuana and the binational region. In many ways emblematic of the twenty-first century, this pluralistic place will offer a forum where cultures clash and hybridize; where global is local and local is global; and where culture, technology, and mass communication remove historic barriers and open new doors.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – Boston, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) will use its two-year IMLS grant to fund a project entitled Fine Art of Service. Developed over the past two years by an interdepartmental team of staff members and volunteers, this project seeks to strengthen customer service in every area of the institution to connect people to the MFA, increase return visitation, and foster lifelong affiliations. This major museum-wide customer service initiative recognizes that each individual and family that enters the MFA should encounter a gracious, knowledgeable, and respectful environment. In a first for the museum, this comprehensive program will train staff and volunteers in customer service; teach managers how to reinforce service skills; improve internal communication; and offer incentives to staff and volunteers to provide outstanding service. The project’s main focus is to establish a permanent service-training program to foster committed staff and volunteers who will ensure the highest level of service to the museum’s visitors. By January 2005, the MFA will have hired a full-time training and development manager to implement the Fine Art of Service, run the training program, and ensure that staff and volunteers make visitors feel welcome and informed. The MFA committed $100,000 in institutional funds to cover this position and other program costs through June 30, 2005, while IMLS grant funds will support the position in FY 06 and 07.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston – Houston, TX
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) will use its IMLS grant to fund Gateway to Art/De Puertas al Arte, the public programming and outreach component of a museum-wide initiative to collect, exhibit, research, and interpret twentieth century Latin American and Latino art. IMLS funds will support an outstanding array of 12 outreach programs designed in collaboration with 18 community partners, including schools, libraries, parks, and social service agencies. These off-site programs will reach an audience of more than 450,000 each year. The MFAH will exhibit original artworks at inner city, suburban, and rural sites; engage residents in art-making activities and bring them to the museum; provide new curriculum resources for teachers; and offer an internship and a residency. Children’s programs will include summer art camps, city park mural projects, art classes for children and adults with special needs, and the off-site Art Space Exhibition program that showcases student work inspired by art in the MFAH. Parent workshops at inner-city schools will present art as a family activity to be enjoyed together at home. Accompanied by related programs, Library Exhibitions drawn from the MFAH collection will tour 12 city and county libraries. The Beeville Project will send MFAH education programs to a rural community 180 miles from Houston. Community Family Days will provide free bus transportation from community sites to the MFAH for art activities. These programs, like all MFAH community partnerships, are designed around three guiding principles: 1) connecting people with great works of art, 2)engaging in collaborations that meet the needs and missions of both the MFAH and its partner organizations, and 3) building community partnerships and audiences through ongoing activities. The museum embraces these principles, and using successful programming formats and strong collaborations developed over more than a decade, the museum will continue to serve as a center of community engagement.

Museum of Northern Arizona – Flagstaff, AZ
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,976  
Grant: Museums for America
The goal of this two-year project is to gain intellectual and physical control over the Museum of Northern Arizona’s collections in preparation for moving the collections to a new storage facility in 2008/2009. To ensure control, the museum must know what it has, how much it has, where it is, how it was acquired, and how it is used. To meet this goal, the museum proposes several objectives: 1) Centralize and refine registration records related to possession and control of holdings. 2) Obtain an accurate count of collection holdings. 3) Determine space and cabinetry needs—essential for planning the new collections storage facility. Objectives will be achieved through the following activities: centralization of accession records; merging of loan systems; research into and documentation of accession, loan, and de-accession records; linking of object records to appropriated accession records; completion of physical inventories of collections; backlog cataloging of uncataloged collections; and entry of all data into Argus databases. This two-year project will require two additional collections personnel to supplement existing collections staff. One of the new positions will be a registrar, who may become permanent upon project completion. The registrar will centralize accession records and merge departmental loan systems, thus bringing these records to the same high standard of attention and documentation. The registrar will work full-time on these files with collections staff, students, interns, and volunteers. Argus records will be updated, legal paperwork consolidated, and the registration forms and procedures manual expanded and refined. The other position will be a collections assistant. Both positions will work with collections staff to expand inventory and backlog the cataloging project, as well as oversee and work with volunteers and students.

Museum of Science, Boston – Boston, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,484  
Grant: Museums for America
Serving as a center for community engagement, the Museum of Science, in partnership with Cambridge Public Schools, WBZ TV Channel 4, and the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, has developed a major project on the topic of weather that will serve both school and public audiences in greater Boston communities. Entitled Predicting the Future: The Science and Technology of Weather Forecasting, this integrated project will involve a permanent exhibit at the Museum of Science, a Web site, television spots, live programs for public audiences, and specially designed programs for students and teachers, aimed at helping tem understand the science and technology of weather forecasting by learning to make short-term forecasts, called “nowcasts.” The IMLS grant will fund the project’s formal education aspects, which include a professional development program for teachers, a pilot program with a local public school district, integration of project activities into school curricula, and development of assessment instruments.

National Constitution Center – Philadelphia, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
In January 2006, Benjamin Franklin will be the first Founding Father to turn 300. This occasion will be honored in six cities in the United States and Europe. These cities will also host the new exhibit “Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World” and related events, coordinated by the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, a private, nonprofit coalition. The National Constitution Center (NCC), a new museum and education center, will serve as the celebration’s opening venue, premiering the exhibit from December 2005 through April 2006. The 8,000-square-foot exhibit will help put NCC on the world stage and provide an opportunity for its innovative, mission-driven programming. The exhibition will showcase the largest collection of historic items related to Franklin ever amassed. It traces his life story, illuminates his character, and highlights his achievements as an author, scientist, statesman, diplomat, and civic leader. The final section of the exhibit encourages visitors to view themselves through Franklin’s eyes and ask, “What good shall I do this day?” NAC will address this last interpretive message, linking Franklin’s past with our present through such special programs as a regional volunteer fair; a symposium on the latest forms of citizen self-expression; and a nationwide contest to identify a current-day Benjamin Franklin. The center will host other programs relating to Franklin’s historical role in the Constitutional Convention and to constitutional issues in Franklin’s other professions (e.g., continuing legal education in copyright law or advice on patenting inventions). NAC will use its IMLS grant to provide partial support for exhibit rental and program costs for this million-dollar project.

New Britain Museum of American Art – New Britain, CT
Year: 2005
Amount: $121,346  
Grant: Museums for America
The mission of the New Britain Museum of American Art is to become known as one of America’s most welcoming, distinguished, dynamic, and educationally ambitious art museums. To that end, in July 2004, the museum began construction on an addition that will expand the physical space allocated to education tenfold and better meet visitor demands. The expansion will include a 4,000 -square-foot ArtLab dedicated to art education. The museum will use its IMLS grant to fund the design, development, installation, and evaluation of interactive multimedia learning stations and associated activities for the ArtLab. Project staff will design, develop, install, and evaluate tools and activities to expand self-directed learning opportunities for young ArtLab visitors. Geared toward young audiences (pre-K through 5th grade students and their families), the project will engage consultants to work with museum staff to evaluate, design, and produce new activity stations that interpret the museum’s collections and special exhibitions for children, families, and schools. The museum seeks to strengthen the interpretive tools available to young audiences in order to engage diverse learners and deepen their understanding of visual literacy, the humanities, and science.

New York Botanical Garden – Bronx, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
Over a 12-month period commencing on August 1, 2005, the New York Botanical Garden will use its IMLS grant to fund an expanded and enhanced range of activities that constitute the Family Fun Project, an integral part of the garden’s Children’s Education program. Held in two learning facilities—the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden (with a focus on plant science) and the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden (with a focus on gardening)—this project will reach out to families and children, especially from the Bronx, and bring them to the garden in increasing numbers. The project will feature a series of 23 Family Fun programs (13 in the Adventure Garden and 10 in the Family Garden), providing unparalleled, proven opportunities for children and families to learn together about plants and their importance to humankind through informal, hands-on activities that use an inquiry-based methodology. The grant enables the garden to provide both fun activities and lifelong learning opportunities, as the project will stimulate children and engage families in plant science. The garden also seeks to build visitation among this target audience and maximize use of its innovative children’s learning facilities. During the grant period, the museum will also enhance existing programs and develop new ones.

North Carolina Botanical Garden – Chapel Hill, NC
Year: 2005
Amount: $59,700  
Grant: Museums for America
The proposed Orientation and Interpretation Plan comprises a six-phase project that will lead to installation of new wayfinding and interpretive signage at all five garden sites. Consultants from Design Dimensions will work closely with garden staff to implement this plan. During phase one, the garden will review its goals and priorities to develop and outline signage needs by category (orientation, wayfinding, and interpretation). Project staff will draft a preliminary master plan by the end of this phase. Development of schematic designs will be the focus of phase two. Project staff will produce several alternative signage “families” (including graphics, materials, and color palette) and continue to revise the master plan. After reaching consensus, project staff will install signage prototypes and review the effectiveness of design and content with garden staff, volunteers, and visitors. In phase three, the garden will develop a schedule and budget for construction and installation of signs. Phase four will entail development of an owner’s manual, including specifications, standards, style sheets, and implementation guidelines. Project staff will also draft construction and installation documents. By the end of phase five, project staff will have completed the final owner’s manual, signage family design, and construction documents, as well as the signage program final report and master plan. Finally, in phase six, orientation and interpretive theme signage will be constructed, delivered, and installed at all five garden sites.

North Carolina Museum of History and North Carolina Museum of History Associates – Raleigh, NC
Year: 2005
Amount: $126,750  
Grant: Museums for America
The North Carolina Museum of History will use IMLS grant funds to upgrade and integrate essential educational technology, which will be used primarily to boost museum access for underserved audiences and to attract statewide and national, lifelong-learning audiences. The grant will fund hardware and software for two-way videoconferencing and interactive online streaming, video and audio equipment for programming spaces, digital integration and connecting equipment for the control room, installation, and training. The museum will integrate this education technology into the full range of existing high-quality programs for preschool through senior adult audiences. These educational programs highlight the broad range of artifacts in the museum collection, which comprises more than 150,000 objects spanning six centuries. The museum has set the following project goals: 1) Hire a distance learning coordinator to integrate use of this technology into existing educational programs. 2) Request and receive bids on hardware and software contract. 3) Install and troubleshoot technology upgrade. 4) Test educational technology with museum programs and remote audiences. 5) Introduce new technology to all staff, volunteers, and advisory board members through an internal open house. 6) Train education program staff and volunteers in use of technology to broadcast existing and planned programs. 7) Integrate program availability (now widely available through technology) into the annual marketing process. 8) Introduce the new technology to the press and community through community open house. 9) Offer a wide range of current school and family/adult programs to statewide and national audiences. 10) Sustain the half-time distance learning coordinator position through program and rental fees, while continuing to offer free and low-cost programs both in North Carolina and nationally.

North Carolina Pottery Museum Inc. – Seagrove, NC
Year: 2005
Amount: $57,256  
Grant: Museums for America
Over two years, this grant will fund a process and tools for gathering biographical information on potters and implementing public access to that information. This project, to determine a sustainable information-gathering process and share knowledge within communities and across generations, is a critical investment toward fulfilling the museum’s mission now and in the future. Project activities will establish criteria and guidelines to systematically document potters working in the state during the twenty-first century. Tools will be developed to manage the collection of information and to use that information to create a body of primary reference materials and a public document. In the first year, the museum will create criteria and guidelines for documenting North Carolina’s diverse potters and pottery traditions and begin documentation. The museum will invite a panel of professionals in the pottery and folk life fields to develop criteria for selecting artists and guidelines, thus defining a systematic process for gathering biographical information. Documentation will be twofold: 1) a baseline biographical index of potters and 2) an in-depth oral history and photographic record of 20 potters who have made substantial contributions to the field, the latter conducted by oral historians and professional photographers. The criteria and guidelines will be used to create tools to implement documentation, including written and oral interview guidelines. Written interviews will be distributed statewide to potters who meet the criteria. Project staff will follow up with phone calls and e-mails. Once the documenting process has been determined, the recording process will begin. Baseline biographical information will be entered in a database at the Pottery Museum. Given the time and complexity of determining project parameters that first year, the museum foresees inclusion of 100 potters in the biographical index, and eight in-depth histories.

North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences – Raleigh, NC
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,982  
Grant: Museums for America
The North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences strives to serve not only the people who walk through its front doors (913,000 in FY 2003-2004), but also people who live in areas of the state with few opportunities to learn about the environment. Many counties in eastern North Carolina have few economic resources and lack environmental education opportunities, yet many of these counties are rich in natural resources. In partnership with the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and community agencies, the museum will use IMLS grant funds to continue its nature and environmental outreach programs to between five and ten low-resource counties. Called Outreach NC, this targeted environmental education initiative provides a series of proven programs to teachers, students, and rural and inner-city families. Programs include site-based teacher training, educational displays and materials, interactive learning activities, and Spanish language programs. Specific programs geared to the project goal include School-Based Programs; Girls in Science; Nature Journaling; Live from the Museum/Distance Learning; Museums in the Schools (MITS); Community Programs; Museums in the Libraries; Museum exhibits and reference materials; and Spanish-language programs.

Oakland Museum of California – Oakland, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $74,918  
Grant: Museums for America
The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) will direct its IMLS grant funds to better serve California’s increasingly diverse, multicultural population. By 2020, the state population will be 43 percent Hispanic, 34 percent white, 13 percent Asian, 7 percent black, and 3 percent other. The museum seeks to integrate cultural diversity more fully into the its vision, culture, and long-range plans. This project will take place within the context of a five-year capital project to renew the museum, including reinstallation of OMCA’s permanent galleries of California art, history, and natural sciences. The state’s rapidly changing demographics, combined with the museum renovation and reinstallation, provide a unique opportunity to engage a new generation of multicultural Californians. The IMLS grant will fund meeting facilities, enrichment speakers, and workshop leaders that will increase the institution’s competency, effectiveness, and collaboration with diverse communities. The museum has identified five project goals: 1) Strengthen the role of advisory committees in collaboration with a new Museum Innovation Team to advance positive institutional changes. 2) Increase staff awareness and understanding of the dynamics of cultural interaction and value of institutional diversity and strengthen the museum’s cultural competency. 3) Consider diverse communities when planning the renovation, reinstallation, and reinterpretation of the museum’s permanent galleries. 4) Build common knowledge through a series of enrichment speakers for advisory committees and museum staff on issues of cultural diversity and best practices in museums. 5) Better equip community advisors with the messages and tools they need to tell the museum’s story effectively as they recruit new members and volunteers, and build interest in and commitment to OMCA’s capital plans.

Oberlin College – Oberlin, OH
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,687  
Grant: Museums for America
The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) of Oberlin College will use its IMLS grant funds to acquire, install, and implement a new collections management system with Web interface. The project will make the collection and educational materials much more comprehensive and accessible for use by educators, students, researchers, and the public. Integration of the collections management system and Web site will make far more extensive, educationally valuable, and current information available to museum visitors and varied off-site audiences. The AMAM was established in 1917 as a teaching museum to collect and exhibit art for the education of Oberlin College students and the broader community. With a comprehensive permanent collection of about 12,000 artworks, the AMAM is one of the finest college art museums in the country. It is guided by the belief that the study of art is an indispensable part of education. The museum is open to the public free of charge and offers six to eight special exhibitions a year, gallery talks, lectures, symposia, community days, programming for children, and school and adult tours. Another form of public outreach is its Web site (www.oberlin.edu/allenart/), which includes images of and information about selected major works from the collection, thanks to grants from IMLS and the A.W. Mellon Foundation. The museum’s current collections management system (CMS) database, Classic Argus (Quest or System), was installed in 1988 and is no longer adequate. Text-based, it does not have digital imaging capabilities and is thus incapable of managing an image archive or the associated descriptive and structural metadata to make collection records available online. The Web site is currently run on a separate FileMaker Pro database, requiring content to be downloaded from Classic Argus, modified, and manually reentered. This unwieldy process increases the possibility for errors and often results in a significant time lag before new information is available to the public. The AMAM will capitalize on this need to significantly upgrade its CMS and choose a system that will integrate collections records with a Web-based, database-driven publishing system. This will enable more meaningful, extensive use of technology in programming and directly advance the AMAM’s mission as a teaching museum and its strategic plan to broaden and enrich outreach to audiences of all ages.

Old Jail Art Center – Albany, TX
Year: 2005
Amount: $37,269  
Grant: Museums for America
This grant will enable the center to improve interpretation of its Asian collection, among the most significant areas of its permanent holdings. First, the collection will be authenticated, appraised, and professionally photographed. Next, an Asian scholar will develop didactic material, including labels and wall text for the exhibition galleries, plus text for a public gallery guide. Guided by the scholar’s research, museum staff will redesign the Asian galleries, and the museum’s preparatory staff will reinstall the collection. The education staff will develop teacher resource materials and hold a teacher workshop devoted to the newly interpreted collection. Finally, the didactic material and photographs will be disseminated through the museum’s Web site. The project also calls for an expanded registrar’s position, which will assume some curatorial duties.

Olmsted County Historical Society – Rochester, MN
Year: 2005
Amount: $15,031  
Grant: Museums for America
The Olmsted County Historical Society (OCHS), a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) institution, is leading heritage resource center in the Rochester area. Due to the number and size of OCHS’s facilities, as well as the volume and significance of its collection, it is imperative that the organization develop a Comprehensive Interpretive Plan to define and prioritize interpretive programs. The plan will include statements of significance, primary site-wide themes, audience categories, long-range vision of programming, and implementation summaries (Individual Service Plans) with action steps. This planning process will identify the various interpretive services (exhibits, trails, brochures, etc.)that most effectively interpret primary site-wide themes. Extending over 12 months, the project is divided into three phases. Since this planning is dependant on community input, the first phase will focus on recruiting stakeholders to participate in the workshops. Phase two will convene workshops to identify audiences, theme, and programs. Phase three will finalize components of the plan, including the matrix (a five-year chart of programming), narrative, and Individual Services Plans for 2,000 interpretive programs. The final plan will help OCHS create and improve interpretive programs, thereby appealing to broader audiences and making personal connections between visitors and the organization’s resources.

Oregon Zoo – Portland, OR
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,864  
Grant: Museums for America
The Oregon Zoo will use IMLS grant funds to plan, develop, implement, and evaluate the Farm Animal Care Team (FACT) at the zoo’s newest exhibit, Trillium Creek Family Farm. The zoo will create two two-year educator/mentor positions that will help develop program learning materials and mentor teenage youth in the program. The farm is the fourth of five major exhibits in the zoo’s Great Northwest (GNW) teenage youth program. GNW connects local citizens and visitors with the diverse habitats along the western slope of the Cascade Mountains. It encourages active stewardship and lifelong learning by integrating each visitor’s varied exhibit experiences with his or her own real-life experiences. This process is vital to the zoo’s ability to accomplish its mission of inspiring the community to create a better future for wildlife. Themes at the farm address the regional importance of agriculture, environmentally sound modern agricultural and gardening practices, and issues associated with the interface between wild and human-built habitats. As visitors understand their personal connections to the land, they will be inspired to take individual action and become stewards of the land to ensure its health. FACT will be central to delivering and demonstrating these stewardship messages and practices. When fully implemented, FACT will consist of trained high school–age youth who are responsible for managing most operations at Trillium Creek Family Farm, including animal care, staffing, and public programming. FACT members will meet their academic education requirements for career exploration, gain real-world work experience, and provide community service. They will also acquire organizational, decision-making, and teamwork skills as they operate with greater autonomy, assess their work environment, and determine appropriate actions.

Pacifica: A Garden in the Siskiyous – Williams, OR
Year: 2005
Amount: $57,264  
Grant: Museums for America
Pacifica seeks to double the number of K-8 students who participate in its natural resources education outreach program, which makes site visits to local schools. This program logged more than 5,600 student contacts during the 2003/2004 school year. The balance of the activities are intended to increase visitor education, awareness, and accessibility to Pacifica’s nature center. This will be accomplished through development and implementation of an interpretive plan, including installation of interpretive stations and kiosks, installation of wayfinding signage to direct visitors along the trail system, and improved access for the physically impaired by applying a universally accessible, all-weather tread material to a significant portion of the trail system.

Paley/Levy Galleries – Philadelphia, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $50,562  
Grant: Museums for America
The Paley/Levy Galleries at Moore College of Art and Design will use IMLS funds to hire, train, and support education interns. The interns will be expected to help staff research, develop, and implement a full roster of educational programs, which will, in turn, extend the impact of the galleries’ programs within both the local community and the international art world and provide opportunities for lifelong learning to our diverse constituencies.

Park City Historical Society and Museum – Park CIty, UT
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
Park City has begun a sweeping renovation of its historic downtown district. The Park City Historical Society and Museum (PCHS&M) is in the 1885 City Hall, the city’s oldest landmark building and centerpiece of the renovation effort. In conjunction with this initiative, the museum has undertaken a major expansion project that encompasses 1) facility renovation and expansion, 2) exhibition development, design, and fabrication, and 3) a recasting of all education programs. The IMLS grant will fund this expanded space. Increased gallery sizes, rotating exhibitions, and permanent exhibitions geared toward families will create a prominent attraction that celebrates the cultural heritage of downtown Park City. The project will involve the following activities: assembling the interpretive team (comprising staff, volunteers, stakeholders, and scholars); developing new exhibition themes; front-end evaluation; revising exhibition themes based on evaluation findings; creating a concept document; soliciting feedback; creating an exhibition design document; fabricating and installing new exhibitions; and performing summative evaluation and remediation. The Our Stories, Our History Project encompasses the planning, design, fabrication, and installation of new permanent exhibitions for the PCHS&M. Through the exhibition development process outlined above, museum staff will identify new ways to explore Park City’s unique cultural heritage through an effective combination of scholarly research, artifacts from the collection, and input from community stakeholders.

Parrish Art Museum – Southampton, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Parrish Art Museum will use its three-year IMLS grant to fund a project essential to achieving a long-range goal articulated in the existing strategic plan and integral to the museum’s mission: to position the institution as the definitive resource for the internationally known art of the east end of Long Island. To reach and serve visitors and students both on-site and online, the museum will purchase a robust Web-based application capable of delivering engaging, animated display and producing the information infrastructure needed to support its mission. When fully realized, the Access Lifelong Learning project will grant broad public access for all audiences to the Parrish collection and provide learning resources tailored to educators, students, adult museumgoers, and researchers. Radiating from this unique body of knowledge on artists of the Long Island’s east end will be connections to the long-term installation of the permanent collection, opening in a new facility in 2008, which in turn will enhance the museum’s established collaborative school programs, which refer to works from the collection in their projects.

Peabody Museum of Natural History – New Haven, CT
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,800  
Grant: Museums for America
The Peabody will use IMLS grant funds to expand the scientific scope and reach of the 2005-07 cycle of the Peabody Fellows Program. Since 1997, the Peabody and several local school districts have collaborated on this program, which is a professional development initiative. Participating teachers will attend a summer institute in 2006 and then use museum specimens in two portable science laboratories (BioAction Labs) to teach hands-on lessons. The BioAction Labs also contain a computer workstation, as well as dissection, compound, and video microscopes, and other scientific instruments. The labs draw on the museum’s resident expertise and materials and provide stimulating subject matter upon which basic science competencies can be developed. This project will build upon the existing strengths of the Peabody Fellows Program to enhance the professional development of grade 4-8 teachers and enrich the science learning environment for students in the New Haven and surrounding school districts. In response to needs assessments, the program will have a new content focus. It will promote the integrated teaching of earth and life sciences around the theme of biodiversity and global change and will include intensive instruction and practice in inquiry-based teaching.

Philadelphia Museum of Art – Philadelphia, PA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Library and Archives of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) form one of the country’s premier art historical research collections. By making these materials more accessible to current and future audiences, this project will advance the goal of sustaining cultural heritage. The PMA’s strategic plan calls for moving the Library and Archives to a new state-of-the-art facility, fully cataloging the collections, and making them available online. This project will help catalog and safely house the collections before relocation to the new facility. The project has several goals: 1) proper housing of the earliest portion of the important collection of art auction catalogs; 2) transfer of several unprocessed records to cartons for safe transport to and housing in the Perelman Building; 3) processing these archival records, adding finding aids, and making them accessible online; 4) electronic cataloging of a backlog of recent acquisitions and gifts of library materials; and 5) bar-coding of cataloged books and periodical volumes to facilitate inventory, circulation, and tracking. Upon completion of the project, all Library and Archives collections will be available for use by staff members, scholars, students, and lifelong learners, whether they conduct research on-site or online. Project development, including the schedule and budget, has been informed by experience gained through a series of recent successful grant-funded projects.

Plains Indians and Pioneers Museum – Woodward, OK
Year: 2005
Amount: $36,889  
Grant: Museums for America
The Plains Indians and Pioneers Museum will digitize its photographic collection for visitors, genealogists, and researchers who request images from the museum, and will develop a photographic exhibit to coincide with Oklahoma’s centennial statehood celebration in 2007. The IMLS grant will fund an employee to catalog and scan the photograph collection into PastPerfect. Once the original photograph is entered and scanned, interpretative material will be prepared using information from the Web site and exhibits. Using the digitized collection, the museum will develop an exhibit that relates a comprehensive history of Woodward. Through its endowment, the museum has already begun an ambitious Web site development project to post its digitized artifacts collection online, along with an outreach project to interest nontraditional users in the collection. The museum believes that improved public access to the its collections will encourage remote and on-site museum visitation. Upon completion of the Web site project, the museum will collaborate with local schools and educators to develop educational curricula on northwest Oklahoma history. Woodward will be the primary target, as the majority of photographs detail local history. The project addresses the museum’s goal to maintain better conditions for storage and preservation of its collections. Museum staff has begun to limit access to original photographs, and digitization will enable them to provide enhanced care for those photographs in the permanent collection.

Pratt Museum – Homer, AK
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,278  
Grant: Museums for America
The Pratt Museum’s Kachemak Bay: An Exploration of People and Place Education Project will make it possible to coordinate and expand its education programming, relating it more closely to its dynamic new exhibits. This lifelong learning project will introduce to all audiences, and better utilize, the phase one master exhibit, as well as infuse and inform phase two master exhibits under the themes “Stewardship” and “People and Culture.” In 2005, the museum is scheduled to complete the installation of phase one, a 10-year exhibition designed to awaken a sense of connectedness between people, animals, and place. The principal idea is that we are defined by the interplay of shaping and being shaped by our environment. IMLS funding will enable the museum to renew and revitalize its education program to better relate to and reflect the new exhibits for students, volunteers, and its audiences. Throughout this cross- and multigenerational education project, the Pratt will foster lifelong learning with the following goals in mind: approach learning through innovative programs using exploratory, multidisciplinary techniques and mentorship; enhance classroom learning and develop social communication skills through a variety of informal learning opportunities; instill in regional residents and visitors a deeper understanding of community and each other; inspire creative thinking and action; and provide dynamic multigenerational programs that ask universal questions about people and places, seek local answers, are co-developed with community, and awaken a sense of connectedness between people, animals, and place. The project will create new and revitalized elder, adult, student, and preschool programs to broaden and deepen existing education programs and relate them to the museum’s Master Exhibit Plan 2005-2009.

Queens Botanical Garden Society – Flushing, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $138,529  
Grant: Museums for America
The Queens Botanical Garden will use its two-year IMLS grant to fund lifelong learning through a wayfinding project designed to engage the garden’s multicultural community and introduce visitors to its award-winning green buildings and landscapes project. This project addresses several specific goals in the garden’s strategic plan for marketing, education, and cultural research. Located in one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States, the garden is dedicated to being a place where “people, plants, and cultures meet.” IMLS funds will go toward a wayfinding program for the 39-acre site in preparation for the opening of new facilities. Welcoming more than 301,000 annual visitors, the garden has a powerful story to tell about the importance of plants to diverse cultures and about the wise use of natural resources. Site interpretation is among the institution’s highest priorities and presents a unique challenge, given that 75 percent of visitors speak a primary language other than English. Preliminary estimates suggest this grant will fund design, fabrication, installation, and translations for four orientation kiosks, 15 trailside directionals, two roadside signs to the parking garden, the main building identifier, wall and elevator signage in the visitor building, fence signs to keep visitors informed during construction, Web site improvements, and a new visitor guide. The garden will explore using environmentally friendly, durable materials that are culturally significant, such as bamboo. This wayfinding program will provide visitors with more than clear directions and basic site information—it will also highlight the garden’s cultural vision and sustainable mission.

Racine Heritage Museum – Racine, WI
Year: 2005
Amount: $62,704  
Grant: Museums for America
The Racine Heritage Museum (RHM) is dedicated to telling the stories of the people of southeastern Wisconsin—their diversity, inventive genius, productivity, craftsmanship, and forward-thinking spirit. Through fresh, bold interactive exhibits and multigenerational programming, RHM creates educational, engaging, and entertaining experiences. The primary purpose of the Get on Board: Racine County’s Underground Railroad Project is educational. The project has two components: 1) an exhibit focusing on the Underground Railroad in Racine and its maritime connection and 2) school, adult, family, and child-centered programming related to the exhibit. This project continues RHM’s commitment to education for audiences of all ages and learning styles. Using hands-on, walk-through, and interactive elements, the exhibit will emphasize Racine’s importance as a stop on the Underground Railroad. School groups, scouts, program participants, and other visitors will learn about stops on the “railroad,” Racine abolitionists, the area’s role as a gateway to Canada, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, differing perspectives from the period, and more. They will also learn about traditions escaping slaves brought with them and how those traditions have shaped the community today. This exhibit will generate related programming geared to students, scouts, adults, families, and children. While families will enjoy the make-and-take activities available to all weekend visitors, adults can attend talks that highlight maritime escapes, well-known Racine abolitionists, and related topics. Other programs will meet students’ curricular needs through the use of various props, games, and archival materials, allowing new findings on each visit.

Rochester Museum and Science Center – Rochester, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $107,875  
Grant: Museums for America
A major initiative of the Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC), Serving Rochester: Strengthening Lifelong Learning Through a Deeper Understanding of Audiences will boost the museum’s knowledge of the surrounding community and audience it must serve to accomplish its mission and vision. Over the two-year project, staff, , volunteers, representatives of audience groups, and consultants will build and organize a body of knowledge about the museum’s audience and integrate it into the work of the institution. Serving Rochester is a deliberate, systematic approach toward implementing one of eight key strategies of the museum’s strategic plan while significantly advancing three other strategies. The effort will help coordinate and strengthen RMSC’s overall strategic work The project’s overarching goal is to effectively support, serve, inspire, and create a passion for lifelong learning among its audience. Specific goals are as follows: 1) Improve staff understanding of the RMSC community and the audience it serves. 2) Employ an information-based approach to selecting strategic audience groups RMSC must serve to accomplish its vision. 3) Integrate knowledge of RMSC’s strategic audiences into the institution’s core processes and procedures. 4) Build a model for engaging audiences in shared learning experiences. The project reflects RMSC’s commitment to lifelong learning and will change how RMSC sees, serves, and engages its audiences, ultimately building its capacity to serve its audience.

Rome Area Historical Museum – Rome, GA
Year: 2005
Amount: $54,050  
Grant: Museums for America
The Rome Area History Museum is a small local history museum with a staff of one full-time director, a part-time gift shop manager, and a part-time administrative assistant. The Programs, Visibility and Audience Development Initiative will enable the museum to hire a full-time staff member to handle educational programming, audience development, and marketing. IMLS funds will support the staff position for two years. As the new staff member boosts attendance and visibility for the museum, revenue from admissions and donations should increase to support the position on a permanent basis. The museum will match with funds to support benefits for the position, indirect costs, and the printing and postage of marketing materials. Educational programming directly relates to our mission, and audience development applies to almost every initiative in the museum’s strategic plan.

Rotunda Gallery – Brooklyn, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $97,487  
Grant: Museums for America
The Rotunda Gallery will use its two-year IMLS grant to fund school-based education programs for students, teachers, and parents. These programs focus on serving grades 3-8 in Brooklyn’s most economically disadvantaged, culturally diverse communities. The gallery works on-site in public schools, bringing the visual arts directly into environments where there is virtually no expertise or experience in arts instruction. Its programs draw on the enormous resources of Brooklyn-based teaching artists to blend academic curricula and the visual arts, providing a seamless cultural and educational experience customized to the needs of each audience. The artist/educators are professional artists with teaching experience. IMLS support will be used to deepen the gallery’s impact by offering more programs to participating schools and bringing programs to schools not currently served. The gallery’s specific objectives are to increase the number of in-school multi-session programs to serve 9,000 students annually (increase of 2,000 per year); expand the number of teacher workshops to benefit 2,500 per year (an increase of 1,000); and increase the number of parent workshops to impact 750 per year (an increase of 400). A total of 24,500 students, teachers, and parents will be impacted during the two-year grant period, thus addressing the gallery’s mission as a center for contemporary art and lifelong learning in Brooklyn. Administering the programs are Director of Education Meredith McNeal and Education Coordinator Hawley Hussey, both working artists and teachers. McNeal is in the field about 50 percent of the time, and Hussey close to 75 percent, during which time they observe and supervise artists on-site; serve as liaison with schools, regional offices, and arts coordinators; and promote the programs through presentations and meetings with potential participants.

Round Lake Area Park District Prairie Grass Nature Museum – Round Lake, IL
Year: 2005
Amount: $38,530  
Grant: Museums for America
The museum will use IMLS grant funds to design, develop, and implement an education outreach program to area schools. This three-year project will feature three traveling exhibits that highlight the prairie, woodlands, and wetlands, with curricula that support state learning standards for science. The prairie will be represented by a section of earth, the woodland by a tree trunk, and the wetlands by a muskrat den. Year one will entail development of the exhibits and curriculum, while years two and three will focus on implementation of the outreach program. The program will be presented to second and fourth graders at five local elementary schools and is designed to reach more than 2,400 students over the term of the grant.

San Diego Archaeological Center – Escondido, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $20,291  
Grant: Museums for America
The center will serve as the San Diego regional administrator of Project Archaeology, a national, comprehensive archaeology and heritage education program for everyone interested in teaching about our nation’s rich cultural legacy and protecting it for future generations. The overall project administrator is the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Heritage Education Program (HEP), a federally sponsored program whose goal is to educate students to take responsible and thoughtful action toward preserving America’s archaeological heritage. Bringing together a renowned team of professionals—including HEP’s national coordinator, BLM’s chief Heritage Project manager, the San Diego County historian, a noted regional archaeologist, and center staff—the project will tailor the carefully designed, tested, and actualized Project Archaeology program to the region’s archaeology, which is represented in the center’s collections. Two Project Archaeology representatives from HEP will spend 10 days in San Diego to help the center integrate the program. A cornerstone of Project Archaeology is facilitator training. The center will host a facilitator training session for 12 teachers statewide, as well as 12 archaeologists, historians, and environmentalists. This training will to teach professional educators how to convey the program to teachers. Following completion of the training program, the center will host regularly scheduled teacher training workshops to teach educators how to teach the programs to students. This 12-month IMLS grant will fund two workshops. Through a partnership with San Diego State University, teachers can earn continuing education credits and have their hours count toward state in-service requirements. One workshop will be held at the center, while the other will be held in a remote region of Southern California.

San Diego Historical Society – San Diego, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $51,896  
Grant: Museums for America
The San Diego Historical Society will use its grant to digitize, catalog, and make available to the public 5,000 photographic images in the society’s Edward H. Davis Collection (1904–1940), which documents the lives of Native Americans in San Diego County and throughout the Southwest during the early twentieth century. Project goals are as follows: 1) Digitize, catalog, and make publicly available 5,000 photographic images in the society’s Edward H. Davis Collection. 2) Supplement images in the priceless Davis collection with copies of the existing originals in order to preserve them for future generations. Project activities are as follows: 1) Purchase and install photo scanning equipment and software. 2) Form an advisory committee, including representatives from local Native American tribes. 3) Digitize 5,000 images and print surrogate copies on archival paper. 4) Catalog images in ContentDM software, mapped to Dubline Core metadata element set. 5) Make images publicly accessible through society Web site.

San Diego Museum of Art – San Diego, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $124,500  
Grant: Museums for America
The San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA) is now in the fourth phase of Two Together: Celebrating San Diego’s Binational Culture, a five-phase, institution-wide audience development effort focused on strategic outreach to the region’s Spanish-speaking population. This project will move SDMA from episodic support of bilingual programs to systematic, ongoing support for the most ambitious and engaging Latino/a cultural programming. Project goals are twofold: 1) to introduce the traditional museum-going audience to the achievements of Latin American artists, and 2) to develop Spanish-speaking audiences by implementing strategies that attract interest, build participation, and eventually help support the museum at every visible level, including membership in the governing board of trustees. SDMA has made significant progress toward these goals and will use its IMLS grant to fund the final phase of this effort, one that promotes collaborations, encourages local leadership, and ultimately provides the broadest conceivable support of both new Spanish-speaking audiences and longstanding members of the San Diego Museum of Art.

San Diego Natural History Museum – San Diego, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $139,804  
Grant: Museums for America
San Diego Natural History Museum’s (SDNHM’s) project goal is to increase the value and accessibility of its existing botanical specimens by making data available for basic and applied research. The museum intends to expand its electronic database by capturing collection data from specimens not yet in the database and assigning geographic coordinates to existing records that do not have such data. Georeferencing methods are based on those implemented at other institutions. This project will implement several objectives from the museum’s 10-year strategic plan by increasing its capacity for collections-based research, upgrading management of collection data, improving the level of data capture, expanding Web-based accessibility of botanical specimen data, preserving information about the region’s natural history, and promoting understanding of plant diversity in southern California. The project comprises three main tasks: 1) Electronically capture information for existing San Diego County botanical specimens to improve accessibility for research. 2) Georeference records that do not include geographic coordinates to enhance usability of the data. 3) Make data from all San Diego County records accessible online. The intended audience includes educational institutions, land managers, land-use planners, conservation and environmental groups, decision makers, governmental resource agencies, private landowners, and interested members of the public. Staffing assistance is critical to the success of this labor-intensive project, so $150,000 in grant funds will cover the salaries of three two-year positions: a data entry technician, georeference specialist, and database manager. San Diego County has the greatest floristic diversity in the continental United States, and SDNHM has the most extensive collection of county plants. Once the data are captured and made available, they will represent an incredible resource for research, education, conservation, and land-use planning projects.

Science Museum of Minnesota – Saint Paul, MN
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) will use its IMLS grant to fund programs associated with the national traveling exhibition “Understanding Race and Human Variation,” currently in development. The lead agency on this project is the American Anthropological Association (AAA). The AAA contracted SMM to share in the planning and assume implementation of the exhibition (i.e., design and fabrication). SMM will also be the premiere venue for the exhibition and is in negotiations with the AAA to manage the national tour. “Understanding Race” is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Ford Foundation. The exhibition will open in fall 2006 for a three- to six-month run at SMM prior to a five-year national tour. The IMLS grant will fund development and presentation of local programs in support of the exhibit (before, during, and after its run in St. Paul) that will maximize the project’s educational impact by linking it directly with the concerns of the Twin Cities’ diverse communities. (The NSF and Ford Foundation grants do not cover such local programs.) SMM considers these ancillary programs critical to fully realizing the exhibition’s educational opportunity and preparing the community to receive it. Programming will include a weeklong summer institute for 30 K-12 teachers in summer 2006; community conversations about race and identity in anticipation of the exhibit premiere in fall 2006 and during its run at SMM; forums and speakers (during the exhibition run in St. Paul, SMM and AAA will arrange a variety of local and national speakers and public forums on topics related to the exhibition); and a youth summit about race, planned and hosted by a paid team of eight to ten multicultural teenagers with adult guidance.

SciTech Hands On Museum – Aurora, IL
Year: 2005
Amount: $110,992  
Grant: Museums for America
The ability to attract and engage its visitors in the exploration of science is the key to SciTech’s success. The Reaching Out grant will enable SciTech to embrace the entire community, not just a portion of it. The museum will use IMLS funds to extend its outreach to the Hispanic community, sharing the importance of science and technology in our modern world and the employment possibilities therein. A higher participation rate among Hispanics in science and technology will also serve the larger society. Drawing on the knowledge and contacts of the SciTech Hispanic Advisory Board (SHAB), the museum will develop and deliver improved educational and community programming and signage to engage both English- and Spanish-speaking attendees in a hands-on exploration of science. The expanded relationship with the Hispanic community will allow other initiatives to grow, as they often do in successful partnerships.

Seattle Art Museum – Seattle, WA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Seattle Art Museum’s (SAM’s) new, expanded downtown building, opening in the first half of 2007, will be a welcoming civic space and lively museum. Key to its success will be broad community ownership and museum experiences that are both memorable and meaningful to the lives of visitors, as emphasized in the museum vision statement, “SAM connects art to life.” The museum will use the IMLS grant to fund interpretive tools that will “connect” with visitors on two floors of expanded, newly installed galleries devoted to the permanent collection. SAM’s collection of 23,000 objects is distinctive in its diversity, making it imperative that the museum provide multiple-choice learning tools to engage the visitor in a varied and surprising journey of discovery while keeping art in the forefront. Using extensive research and audiovisual interviews gathered from cultural specialists, community advisors, artists, and historians, SAM will create a handheld guide that enables visitors to choose from a variety of minute-long perspectives about the works of art they view; media displays (Web-based touch screens or projections) that provide a means for intensive exploration of artistic techniques, artist profiles, and cultural themes; a modest number of large-format projections that transform galleries by creating alternative environments for contextualizing art; and extensive online resources through SAM’s Web site that promote familiarity prior to a museum visit, direct exploration of the collections while at the museum, and imaginative investigation following a museum visit. Over the two-year grant period, SAM will purchase audiovisual equipment for the galleries and support new media staff as they design and develop compelling tools. Funding will provide a long-term, lifelong learning resource for SAM’s growing regional and online audience.

Shaker Museum and Library – Old Chatham, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $123,489  
Grant: Museums for America
The museum will use grant funds to update its collections records by transferring data from paper to a computerized database. This project is an integral part of a planned move to Mt. Lebanon and will boost access to the collection among scholars, researchers, visitors, and staff. Most records now rest on index cards begun in the 1950s; new research and changing museum standards require that information be updated and professionalized. Goals include the following: conducting a complete inventory of the object collection; reviewing records for accuracy and completeness; completing necessary research; upgrading object storage to prepare for the move to Mt. Lebanon; and entering information into PastPerfect software to create the institution’s first complete computerized catalog. Each year of the grant, two full-time collections assistants, one part-time collection assistant, two museum volunteers, and two graduate interns will work on the project, with assistance and supervision by the museum curator. Project research supported by the museum’s director of research. The completed project will provide important technological capabilities, enabling the museum to efficiently execute the following steps in its strategic plan: 1) Improve collections management. 2) Increase research capabilities. 3) Enhance the educational value of the collection. 4) Simplify lending and traveling exhibition administration. Two new research stations will provide public access to collections information, and the project will also enable meaningful collaboration with other museums, including Shaker museums engaged in similar projects.

Slate Valley Museum – Granville, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $64,126  
Grant: Museums for America
The Slate Valley Museum, which interprets the history of the local slate industry, is engaged in a three-year project to build a slate technology and visitor center on museum grounds. Designed to resemble a slate mill, this center will highlight the evolution of heavy lifting technology used to move slate from quarry to market and will direct visitors to related points of interest in the slate region along the Vermont/New York border. The building will house an exhibit of large-scale machinery, a demonstration area, a covered picnic area, and a visitor information area. Design and construction of the $200,000, 1,400-square-foot building and exhibit have been funded by a $160,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Scenic Byways Program and $40,000 in donations from other sources. The project timeline is January 2005 to January 2008. In concert with the building project and exhibit, the museum will launch a three-year project (Aug. 2005–Aug. 2008) to expand its educational services for youth, families, and adults by creating new programming for the slate technology and visitor center. (Current public/educational programs about immigration, geology, and slate milling support exhibits in the existing museum building.) The museum has also taken advantage of declining opportunities to offer actual slate quarry tours to school and adult groups to introduce quarry technology in its programs. The new programming will simulate the experience of being in a slate quarry and yard through sounds, quarrymen’s voices, audiovisuals of historic and modern machinery, and demonstrations that help visitors comprehend how historic and modern technology have relieved the heavy human burden of moving slate from pit to yard to mill to market.

Sloan Museum – Flint, MI
Year: 2005
Amount: $74,479  
Grant: Museums for America
Flint Cultural Center Corporation and the Sloan Museum will use IMLS grant funds for Retelling Our Story: Sloan Museum’s Community Engagement Initiative. Retelling Our Story will build upon Sloan’s several years of successful efforts to engage a broad cross section of the community in exploring the history, present, and potential future of the Flint area. Sloane launched the initiative with its ongoing two-year community engagement activity A View from the Front Porch, which engages Greater Flint residents in documenting the history of diverse Flint neighborhoods through story circles, oral histories, photography, and historic research. Expected to serve 20,000 people, Front Porch will be a major part of Flint’s 2005 Sesquicentennial Celebration. A six-month Sloan Museum exhibit will highlight the histories of representative neighborhoods and feature a community gallery in which area residents can create their own exhibits and performances. Retelling Our Story will run from August 1, 2005, through July 31, 2007, and encompass the final phase of the Front Porch project, including completion of the neighborhood story collection and presentations in the community gallery. Through Retelling Our Story, Sloan Museum will also work with grassroots citizen groups and project partners to evaluate Front Porch and other community engagement activities and develop recommendations for future efforts; examine what constitutes the geographic boundaries of the Flint metropolitan area and how the Front Porch Community Advisory Group can be expanded for future regional community engagement activities; analyze project participation among former Flint residents, the stories collected from this group, and the ties these stories can potentially create between city and suburban residents; determine how Sloan can serve as a permanent home to such community engagement activities; and work with local citizens and the Community Advisory Committee on ways to refine and expand Sloan Museum’s multifaceted community engagement strategy.

Smart Museum of Art – Chicago, IL
Year: 2005
Amount: $95,527  
Grant: Museums for America
The Families at the Smart initiative well enable the Smart Museum to deepen its relationships with the local community, expand the geographic framework of that community, and become a true center for community engagement. The initiative allows the museum to reach beyond the Hyde Park–Kenwood neighborhood and University of Chicago campus and engage residents in a wider area on Chicago’s Mid-South Side, home to some of the most underserved communities in terms of access to the arts, arts education, and accessible, family-friendly cultural venues. The museum already serves as a resource for these communities through its family programs and nationally recognized public school programs. Now the Smart seeks to become a place where students, teachers, and families from across the Mid-South Side can come not only to learn about art, but also to engage with each other and members of the university community, together sharing traditional and new art experiences in a safe, stimulating, and education-oriented environment. Goals for the Families at the Smart initiative include the following: 1) Conduct audience research to better understand the local community. 2) Engage a broader geographic audience in existing family programs. 3) Implement new family programs linked to partner schools and community groups. 4) Strengthen communication with parents and community groups affiliated with partner schools. 5) Increase parental involvement the museum’s governing bodies. 6) Improve online and print materials for families. 7) Create a distinct graphic identity for the Families at the Smart programs. 8) Produce new interpretive gallery materials for families. 9) Hire a family and community outreach coordinator to oversee all related efforts.

South Coast Railroad Museum – Goleta, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $23,700  
Grant: Museums for America
The project is a comprehensive reformulation and revitalization of the South Coast Railroad Museum’s volunteer program. The overall project goal is an improved and strengthened volunteer program, one better able to meet audience needs and other current and future challenges confronting the museum. The project addresses the Sustaining Cultural Heritage goal of the Museums for America program, underscoring the many important ways in which the museum’s volunteers help to preserve, share, and attach value to the cultural heritage objects and ideas that are the museum’s responsibility. The project focuses on six main areas of volunteerism: 1) recruitment, 2) orientation, 3) continuing education, 4) supervision 5) evaluation, and 6) retention. Within this framework is a series of specific project goals considered most vital to the success of the volunteer program. There are two project audiences: 1) the general public and 2) the museum volunteers themselves, who are recognized as special subset of the broader museum audience. A distinction is also made between current and potential audiences. The project will explore ways in which the different needs of each of these audiences can be met by improvements and other changes to the volunteer program.

Speed Art Museum – Louisville, KY
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Speed Art Museum will use its IMLS grant to produce A Companion to the Speed Art Museum, a handbook of the permanent collection. Funds will be used to organize and prepare texts and layouts, develop marketing plans, and produce the publication in print, Web-based, and CD-ROM formats. While the museum has published small monographs that detail individual works of art or groups of objects from its holdings, the latest permanent collection catalog was published more than 20 years ago and contained only black-and-white photos and brief texts that examined the objects in isolation. Subsequent scholarship and research has rendered the information obsolete in many cases. The permanent collection now comprises more than 13,000 works of art spanning 6,000 years of civilization. Nearly a quarter of the objects have been acquired since the last handbook was published. Not only will an updated handbook feature important new acquisitions, it will also include new research, reattribution, and rediscoveries of significant interest to the field of art history. The goals for the project are as follows: 1) Make available new insights into the collection that have been and are being identified through scholarly research in key areas. 2) Incorporate layout and copywriting approaches that promote discovery of the collection. 3) Enhance awareness of the collection and its quality. 4) Offer the handbook in print, Web-based, and CD-ROM formats to reach target audiences. The project directly addresses the museum’s mission of discovering, together with its communities, the joy and power of great art. The process of researching the collection and developing the handbook will provide invaluable knowledge about the collection and new ways of presenting it. Not only will the handbook serve as a major “ambassador” for the Speed as the museum seeks to raise its national and international stature and recognition, it will also make exciting new scholarship and information about the collection available in useful and accessible ways.

Staten Island Children's Museum – Staten Island, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $24,999  
Grant: Museums for America
In 2003, the Staten Island Children’s Museum completed a $13 million capital project that expanded the museum to 40,000 square feet. As part of the expansion project, the museum began the strategic planning process to plan its future goals. One recommendation stemming from that process was that the museum ensure the suitability of exhibits for its youngest visitors while maintaining their appeal to school groups. With that goal in mind, the museum will restore and expand its oldest exhibition, “Bugs and Other Insects.” A popular draw among elementary school groups, the exhibit—with the exception of a kid-sized anthill—lacked appeal among the museum’s youngest visitors. The Bugs and Other Insects Restoration and Expansion Project will double the size of the exhibit, incorporating activities consistent with the cognitive and physical development of the museum’s youngest visitors while maintaining its relevance to school groups. The reinvigorated exhibition will provide an important platform for understanding important scientific concepts. The exhibit will consist of several different sections (Social Insects, Taxonomy, The Environment, Life Cycle, and Adaptation), each presenting another bug’s-eye view into the insect world. It will invite children to apply what they learn indoors to what they find the museum’s spacious front yard—the East Meadow. Such outdoor components as a butterfly garden and a pond that attracts dragonflies will challenge visitors to take in and study the tiniest details of their natural surroundings. As with all of the museum’s exhibitions, “Bugs” will challenge children to investigate and learn, while providing parents with tools to continue the process at home.

Strawbery Banke – Portsmouth, NH
Year: 2005
Amount: $73,108  
Grant: Museums for America
Strawbery Banke will use a two-year grant to fund a lifelong learning project essential to its mission and strategic plan. Designed for families, children, teachers, and adults, “When We Were Young ... : Continuity and Change at the Yeaton-Walsh Discovery Center” promises interactive, intergenerational experiences that recreate children’s culture in New England from 1690 to the present. The project accomplishes several goals: 1) It creates a discovery center around which the museum’s 2006 sitewide “Childhood” theme will revolve. 2) It orients families to “change over time” by engaging them in hands-on activities. 3) It makes history fun and compelling. 4) It dramatically steps up the strategic plan to establish interactive, experiential learning models. 5) It encourages the collection of children’s folklore. 6) It focuses scholarship and interpretive activity on the theme by building a dynamic environment that continues to grow and diversify by virtue of participant engagement. Strawbery Banke Museum welcomes more than 50,000 guests annually. At least 12,000 children (grades K-12) visit the museum with their teachers and homeschooling parents as part of their regular curriculum. They will be invited to use the discovery center as a “time travel” laboratory in which they can explore four centuries of children’s culture through activities that meet curriculum standards in science, math, language arts, and social studies in New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. In year one (summer 2006), the museum will hold activities in an ample greensward and beneath a tent. In year two (summer 2007), the project will coincide with restoration of the historic Yeaton Walsh House; consequently, activities will be held both inside and out. In 2007, the house will be staffed full-time from peak summer season through October.

Strong Museum – Rochester, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
In support of lifelong learning, Reading Adventureland is a highly interactive, artifact-rich, 12,000-square-foot, two-story learning environment that explores the spectrum of juvenile literature. Scheduled to open in July 2006 as a permanent installation, it forms the cornerstone of 40,000 square feet of space under construction to accommodate new exhibits and related programming, including expanded school offerings. It is also a dynamic complement of the museum’s Grada Hopeman Gelser Library, a leading branch of the Rochester/Monroe County Library System and one of only a few museum-based public library branches in the United States. In addition to the library, the Strong’s previous exhibits of the works of authors and illustrators, its interpretive programming, and extensive educational networks have positioned the museum as a dynamic, multidimensional center for promoting reading and literacy as a critical adjunct to the museum experience. Its target audience includes students, teachers, children, and their families, including parents, grandparents, and other adults. Reading Adventureland is an integral and critical interpretive component of the Strong’s mission of exploring play to encourage learning, creativity, and discovery. It is also a key element of the museum’s 2004-2006 strategic plans. Institutional goals for the exhibit are to provide a unique and memorable exhibit to drive school lesson enrollment, general attendance, and membership; educate and inform American cultural history; provide a forum for innovative educational programming; draw community attention to the critical role of reading; increase library patronage at the museum and throughout the region’s public libraries; promote intergenerational, lifelong love of reading. Educational and interpretive goals of the exhibit are to create a world of children’s stories to explore; make reading exciting for children; provide opportunities and books for guests to read together; use children’s stories and books to promote social, psychological, and intellectual development; and equip guests with tools to think critically about children’s literature by 1) showing how books convey messages and morals, 2) explaining how stories reflect the time in which they are created, 3) illuminating some of the important structural elements of stories, and 4) creating experiences that are fun, memorable, and repeatable.

Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens – San Francisco, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $121,686  
Grant: Museums for America
The San Francisco Botanical Garden Society will use its grant to fund a two-year project that will substantially expand its school year and summertime Children’s Garden programming. The Children’s Garden is an 11,500-square-foot section of the Botanical Garden that consists of an herb garden, a butterfly garden, and planting beds, where children plant and maintain vegetables, fruit, and flowers. During the school year, classes from nearby schools make multiple visits to the garden to learn about plants and the environment. In the summer Acorn to Oak program, children enrolled in day camps and neighborhood recreation centers use the garden. This project has the following goals: 1) Create a new position of children’s garden educator that will be responsible for coordinating the Children’s Garden programs. 2) Expand programming, providing hands-on horticultural and environmental educational experiences to K-6 classes in nearby schools, with a focus on serving an entire grade level at a school. 3) Reach out to outlying areas of San Francisco whose schools record low test scores, thus extending program benefits to underserved students. 4) Double program capacity through these combined outreach efforts and serve a total of 1,000 children during the school year. 5) Maintain the Acorn to Oak program while developing new summertime programs that will provide additional educational opportunities for groups visiting from similar agencies. The society will approach the first year of this two-year project as a laboratory, both for introducing expanded programming and for integrating the new position and its duties. The project will undergo extensive evaluation during this period. By leveraging IMLS support to increase private-sector funding for the program, the garden hopes to make the new position permanent.

Tamarack Nature Center – White Bear Township, MN
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,948  
Grant: Museums for America
Tamarack Nature Center (TNC) will use IMLS grant funds to create Enter Active: Discovering Nature through Self-Directed Exhibits. Following the distinctive story of Tamarack Nature Center, visitors will explore nature through the eyes of scientists, naturalists, artists, and anthropologists in a series of immersive exhibit components. The ultimate goal is to increase visitors’ awareness of the many benefits of nearby nature and make it a part of people’s everyday lives at each stage of their lives. The center hopes to blur the lines between inside and out, nature and humans, play and learning. The project includes a 1,500-square-foot permanent indoor exhibit; related programs and discovery kits intended to build parents’ and educators’ comfort with and awareness of sharing nature with children; and an awareness/marketing campaign. Visitors will make a wide variety of interesting discoveries at Enter Active. A life-size oak tree with a gently winding interior staircase will lead to a breathtaking view of the prairie through TNC’s signature two-story atrium windows. Resident animals will be displayed within the context of their natural habitats while children dress up in animal costumes and role-play nearby. Visitors will let their fingers do the walking on a 3-D topographic map, tracing routes on grooved trails and maneuvering animals and people through TNC’s three major habitats. Finally, a touch-screen computer monitor will allow visitors to enter their home address and find out what the plants and animals are up to the their neighborhood.

Thomas J. Boyd Museum – Wytheville, VA
Year: 2005
Amount: $71,000  
Grant: Museums for America
In the summer of 1950, Wythe County suffered a poliomyelitis epidemic that produced the highest number of cases per capita in the country and brought nationwide attention to the community. Articles in national newspapers and Look magazine detailed the severity of the epidemic and the community’s response. During the 2001 anthrax scare, Wytheville was cited as a model for communities to follow when facing twenty-first century public health threats. The goal of the IMLS-funded Summer of Polio Exhibition and Education Project (Oct. 2005–Dec. 2007) is to support lifelong learning opportunities for visitors to and residents of Wythe County, Virginia and the surrounding region. Project activities are as follows: 1) Create a permanent exhibition on Wythe County’s 1950 polio epidemic. 2) Develop and present related educational programs for school and adult audiences. 3) Evaluate the effectiveness of the project in achieving its goals and objectives. Development of this exhibition and educational programs represents the third component of a comprehensive examination of the 1950 epidemic initiated by the Department of Museums and its project partners, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Rotary International, and local civic organizations. Phase one began in 2002 with the collection of oral histories from survivors and their families, and a panel discussion was held in June 2004. The project will serve to chronicle this significant event in Wytheville history and provide lifelong learning opportunities.

Tobacco Farm Life Museum – Kenly, NC
Year: 2005
Amount: $17,250  
Grant: Museums for America
This grant will fund the creation, development, and implementation of a living history exhibit entitled “Forging Ahead: Blacksmithing on Eastern Carolina Farms During the Automotive Age” and associated public programming. This exhibit and corresponding programs will be based on the traditional techniques of metal forging and farm equipment repair practiced by rural families during the period of transition from to mechanization. The exhibit and programs will be carried out on the restored Iredell Brown Farmstead on the grounds of the Tobacco Farm Life Museum. To enhance the exhibit, authentic equipment will be used for living history demonstrations, workshops, and classes. A second set of equipment will be preserved in the museum’s permanent collection. The exhibit area will serve as a site for regularly scheduled demonstrations and youth and adult workshops, as well as a place for members of local chapters of the Artists and Blacksmiths Association of North America and Mid-West Tool Collectors Association to practice their skills. Creation of this living history exhibit will enable the museum to pass along more of the region’s heritage through exhibits, programming, and reverse archaeology. This grant will fund exhibit planning, finalization of the design and architect drafts, and implementation of the exhibit. It will enhance the museum’s farmstead restoration and farm life exhibits, having a lasting effect on the museum and the community it serves.

Travellers Rest Historic House Museum – Nashville, TN
Year: 2005
Amount: $11,084  
Grant: Museums for America
This IMLS grant will fund collection management activities. The six-month project will create an electronic database for the museum’s object, photographic, and archival collections and digitally preserve the object and photographic collections. The project director of the four-person team will upgrade the site’s PastPerfect software from version 2.6 to 3.5. One team member will digitally record and create condition reports for 1,286 objects for which no records exist. Another will scan and catalog 2,447 photographs and slides. Another team member will label, organize, and catalog 25.5 linear feet of archival materials. current Travellers Rest staff will account for three of the four team members. This project will address three key strategies on the museum’s 2003–2006 strategic plan: conservation, programming, and marketing. The effort will provide greater security and enable monitoring of the collection, aid staff training and new program development, and provide better access to the collection for both on-site and online visitors.

Treehouse Children's Museum – Ogden, UT
Year: 2005
Amount: $74,999  
Grant: Museums for America
The Treehouse Museum’s Family Literacy Center project will enhance its ability to serve as a center for family literacy and community engagement. Because of the museum’s focus on family literacy (reflected in both its mission statement and strategic plan), this project is especially appropriate and will cement its position in the community as a leader in and advocate for family literacy. In response to low scores on standardized literacy tests given to all entering kindergarten students, the local community has banded together to confront the issue. This project is a key component in a citywide effort to ensure that preschoolers are ready to read. The Family Literacy Center will serve as a gathering place for parents and preschoolers and will inform parents about the importance of daily literacy activities in the home for children from birth to age 5. The center will offer engaging, developmentally appropriate activities that model family literacy interactions and will provide resource materials for parents. Trained staff and volunteers will facilitate the activities and mentor parents. The center will also serve the community as registration point for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library effort, which is being funded by foundations and businesses. Beginning in 2005, each month the Imagination Library will mail a free, hardbound book to each registered child. Every preschooler in Ogden is eligible to receive the books. The Family Literacy Center will support the initiative by offering six free Read Aloud Parties at the museum, featuring celebrity readers, storybook characters, and other family literacy activities. The Family Literacy Center project team will also develop On Track to Kindergarten, setting aside a house for a final community party to celebrate with children entering kindergarten. Treehouse will also expand its highly successful family literacy programs, which currently serve more than 200 children and parents each week.

Uintah County Western Heritage Museum – Vernal, UT
Year: 2005
Amount: $17,864  
Grant: Museums for America
As part of a plan to relaunch its Western Heritage Museum, Uintah County must hire a professional collections consultant to help define collection mandates, develop collections policies, review the current collection in light of a new agenda and interpretive plan developed during a recent feasibility study, and create appropriate templates/forms. As the county prepares to move the collection to a new location, the consultant must assess the first few rotating exhibits for the new Heritage Gallery, work with architects and exhibit designers on new storage spaces, develop specifications for exhibit display casework, and develop a plan for moving objects to the new location. Before it hires a collections consultant, Uintah County will hire a planning consultant to help to establish a museum board. The museum has never had a board, and the county believes one should be in place prior to establishing collection policies and procedures.

University Art Museum – Long Beach, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $134,102  
Grant: Museums for America
The University Art Museum (UAM) will use the IMLS grant to fund museum/school Eye to Eye to Ear programs; a Teen Docent Program, which works with university art education students to present programs in middle school classes and assist with museum tours for those classes; and Envision-Art, a 10-session program with selected elementary school classes that emphasizes visual thinking strategies, using works from UAM’s permanent collection as a basis for discussion. In addition to exposing children and at-risk youth to the arts, these programs focus on training current and future teachers, as well as familiarizing high school students with career options and university life. During the two-year grant period, UAM staff will develop an Art to the Schools program committee linked to the museum advisory board (dedicated to raising funds for all museum needs) . This committee will identify major gift and foundation funding possibilities to ensure a continuous resource stream that will maintain the museum/school programs for the foreseeable future.

University Museum – Carbondale, IL
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,715  
Grant: Museums for America
The grant will fund the University Museum’s 21st Century Collection Management Project, which will computerize the museum’s manual records. Since 1999, museum staff has entered just 13,000 of 54,000 records, and the museum cannot wait another 15 years to update its records system. This project aims to complete this task and move forward with collection-based initiatives. This aggressive 17-month plan will computerize the remaining 41,000 records and enable record editors to quickly troubleshoot any data problems, thus maintaining consistency. Only permanent staff familiar with the collection will serve as record editors, further ensuring accuracy. Grant-funded staff will include a 15.5 -month, full-time project coordinator with fringe benefits, one half-time 16-month graduate assistant, and two 1,850-hour student assistants. Funds will cover three computers, printers, scanners, and appropriate software. The museum will match with staff time, one 16-month (25 percent) graduate assistant, and one 100-hour student assistant. The museum’s collections curator will function as half-time project director to ensure that all actions are initiated and the schedule followed. This project will enable the museum to share its resources with both in-house and online communities and constituencies and will foster long-range benefits in distance learning, research, exhibits, and programming.

University of Arizona Museum of Art – Tucson, AZ
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,662  
Grant: Museums for America
The University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) will use the IMLS Museums for America grant to renovate its electronic collection management system. The goal of this two-year project is to make the collection data accessible internally to all staff members and docents within the UAMA building in a format that is intuitive and easily retrievable. By the end of the grant period, accessible data on each accessioned object will include basic data and an identifying image. This will enable curatorial, registration, educational, marketing, and administrative staff to plan programs and projects in their areas of expertise more efficiently and effectively in pursuit of the museum’s mission as a “forum for teaching, research, and services related to the history and meaning of the visual arts for the university community, the citizens of Arizona, and visitors from around the nation and the world.” The long-range effects of this project are as follows: 1) Implement user-friendly collection management software that integrates basic data and identifying images. 2) Establish security ground rules and expand access to collection data from the current three staff members to 10 access computers. 3) Set the groundwork for public access by establishing digitization policy and creating Internet pilot projects. 4) Expand and enhance curatorial, educational, and related collection-based programming as a result of improved data access. 5) Improve collection management standards through formalized procedures. 6) Implement a museum information technology position the university has agreed to maintain into the future. The project will facilitate communication and productivity in all departments by making accessible UAMA’s greatest strength—its collection.

USS Constellation Museum – Baltimore, MD
Year: 2005
Amount: $44,893  
Grant: Museums for America
As part of the Constellation’s 150th anniversary celebration, the museum will create a meaningful and engaging exhibit entitled “Damn the Torpedoes!: Leadership at Sea During the Civil War.” Presented in the vessel’s wardroom and warrant officer’s quarters, the exhibit will celebrate the dauntless spirit of officers who guided the ship through one of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history. Creation of the exhibit will comprise three phases: 1) research, 2) restoration, and 3) exhibit installation. The museum’s curatorial department will oversee the research phase, using primary and secondary resources from several notable maritime repositories. Their efforts will be directed by the exhibit’s themes of leadership, perseverance, and adaptation, as well as by community input solicited during a series of focus groups and forums that will be conducted as part of the museum’s participation in American Association of Museums’ Museum Assessment Program (Public Dimension Assessment). Curators will compile information garnered from the research and plan the space in conjunction with the museum’s exhibit fabrication team. The fabrication team will restore the wardroom, and the ship’s manager and curator will oversee the project to ensure historical accuracy and full compliance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Vessel Preservation Projects. Once the space is ready, the curatorial department will supervise the installation of interpretive panels and historically accurate furnishings. When complete, the exhibit will provide visitors with an understanding of the trails faced by the leaders of the U.S. Navy leadership as they sought to preserve the union, and it will relate these challenges to those we face today. The blend of nineteenth century history with twenty-first century applicability will make the exhibit a cornerstone of the museum’s educational programming, as students learn to apply the lessons of the past to the decisions of the future. The exhibit will also serve as a valuable tool in the museum’s docent job-training program by creating an immersive historical environment in which docents can develop and practice their skills.

USS Constitution Museum Foundation – Charlestown, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
This strategically important research project will compile a body of knowledge about the ordinary sailors aboard the USS Constitution during the War of 1812. The museum’s current core exhibit tells the story of the ship’s history; this research will add the human dimension and fill in what, until now, has been a significant void in the interpretation the museum shares with its audiences. This research will form the foundation for a second core exhibit entitled “Sailors Speak: Life Aboard Constitution in 1812,” scheduled to open in 2008. The starting point of the research is a database of skeletal information on 15,000 former Constitution crew members, 1,200 of whom served during the War of 1812. A research coordinator will direct two research assistants to mine repositories in Boston; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; New York City; and other locations to uncover the stories of who the seamen were, where they came from, what families they left on shore, and what happened to them after their service. This research will fuel nearly all of the museum’s programmatic objectives for the next three years, including adding a new chapter to its online curriculum and reaching the three target audiences defined in the strategic plan: 1) visitors to the ship, 2) a national audience, and 3) residents of the greater Boston area, especially African Americans. Although 10 to 15 percent of the crew were free African American, surveys suggests this audience does not perceive the Constitution story as part of their history, while visitation statistics show this audience is underserved by the museum. Stories uncovered by this research will help the museum build bridges to this community and receive valuable input that will inform the exhibit design.

Walker Art Center – Minneapolis, MN
Year: 2005
Amount: $84,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Walker Art Center will use its IMLS grant to support and expand weekly Free Thursdays, one of the museum’s most popular and vital programs. Free Thursdays advance lifelong learning by offering our audiences a variety of free, multidisciplinary artistic and educational experiences, ranging from gallery tours to lectures, artists’ talks, poetry readings, art-making activities, and films. The scope of weekly activities is designed to engage a broad and diverse audience and is appropriate for all levels of expertise and learning styles. In April 2005, the Walker will realize one of the key strategies of its 1999-2004 Long-Range Plan: to open an expanded facility with audience engagement and experiential learning at its core. Visitors to the expanded museum will encounter a series of new, energized social and educational spaces. These spaces will enhance the artistic, educational, and social experiences for visitors of all ages and provide additional opportunities to develop Free Thursdays programming, including the Artist’s Bookshelf and Community Forums.

Walter Elwood Museum – Amsterdam, NY
Year: 2005
Amount: $25,000  
Grant: Museums for America
The Walter Elwood Museum (WEM) will creatively interpret the life and unique collections of Walter Elwood, exploring his insatiable curiosity as a lifelong learner, his fascination with other cultures, his passion for collecting, and his commitment to bringing unequalled educational opportunities to his students and community. This two-part project will feature a new exhibit and expanded educational activities that will allow physical and intellectual access to a teaching resource unrivaled in the region. This project speaks directly to the museum’s mission by presenting its collections so that visitors can explore issues, debate ideas, understand diversity, and learn from the past to help shape the future.

Washington State Historical Society – Tacoma, WA
Year: 2005
Amount: $76,301  
Grant: Museums for America
In 2003, the Washington State Historical Society (WSHS) launched its Education Digital Initiative (EDI), which will provide Web access to theme-based online curricula aligned with the state’s Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EARL) and Classroom-based Assessments (CBA). The digitization of unique primary source materials from the society’s collections will compliment the online curricula. Through EDI, WSHS will demonstrate how a museum can develop Web-based instructional materials that directly and measurably impact teacher and student response to state-prescribed learning requirements in social studies. This assessments model project will fulfill two EDI goals: 1) Formally evaluate WSHS instructional program effectiveness. 2) Expand the society’s capacity to serve students statewide. The project will prepare the society for EDI’s next phases by establishing a formal assessment model for overall program production, one that emphasizes design, construction, and implementation of EDI products using quantifiable, instructional-outcome assessments. With advice from expert consultants, WSHS will develop user-based assessment models focused on classroom activities and independent user interaction with the Web site. The project will develop evaluation methodologies founded on well-established product design and development principles incorporated in the ADDIE model of instructional design. The society will use and refine this methodology in meetings and conferences over the 10-year program period. Through EDI, the society will directly and measurably support Washington’s teachers and provide them with proven Web-based tools for educating our state’s children. This strategic initiative will dramatically increase the society’s capacity to serve learners of all ages by utilizing the Web to transcend economic and geographic barriers.

Winston Churchill Memorial Museum and Library – Fulton, MO
Year: 2005
Amount: $123,890  
Grant: Museums for America
The Winston Churchill Memorial and Library (WCML) at Westminster College will use its IMLS grant to fund the development, creation, and implementation of outreach and on-site education programming that stimulates interest in the foundations of Churchill’s leadership. The goal of the Exploring the Foundations of Churchill’s Leadership Project is to provide lifelong learning opportunities for mid-Missouri school-age children, college students, families with children, and older adults. The project will incorporate those resources unique to the WCML: its collections (including the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, the only Christopher Wren–designed building in the U.S.) and the new Winston Churchill Gallery (the only highly interactive, media-rich, informal learning experience in mid-Missouri). Grant funds will support a systematic, sustainable transformation of the WCML. In 2004, the WCML identified as its project partner Project Explore, one of the Midwest’s most respected and accomplished museum curriculum and program developers. The four-phase, two-year project will begin in August 2005. Phase one will focus on the research, planning, and assessment of educational opportunities that will supply the framework to support programming (both outreach and on-site). Phase two will entail development of an outreach education and awareness program designed to work Churchill-inspired leadership lessons into the curricula of Westminster College and area schools. Phase three will launch development of on-site programming for students and general visitors. Phase four will involve programming implementation and assessment.

Worcester Art Museum – Worcester, MA
Year: 2005
Amount: $36,200  
Grant: Museums for America
The Worcester Art Museum will use its Museums for America grant to fund the first phase of a project to catalog its significant collection of Japanese prints. Few collectors and scholars are aware of the museum’s John Chandler Bancroft Collection of Japanese woodblock prints, as the works have not yet been cataloged and researched, steps that will facilitate their exhibition and publication. The project will provide, for the first time, a complete record of these early ukiyo-e prints. At the end of this one-year pilot project, the museum’s curator of Asian art will have the information and a project team in place to plan a major exhibition and comprehensive print catalog.

World Bird Sanctuary – Valley Park, MO
Year: 2005
Amount: $70,240  
Grant: Museums for America
The O.W.L. Curriculum Enhancement Project is intended to establish the World Bird Sanctuary (WBS) as a resource that supports lifelong learning. Using the Missouri Show-Me Standards for Education as a guiding framework, WBS staff and local school representatives will create a progressive series of year-round programs that incorporate and present the required educational concepts for ecology and conservation in grades 1-12. With targeted input from participating teachers, these programs will effectively convey key scientific concepts and seamlessly incorporate them into a wide range of year-round curricula at each grade level. Combining classroom visits and field trips to WBS’s nature park, these programs will build on each other over the course of the school year, allowing for a wide variety of concepts and the maximum use of creative educational techniques. Once it has developed the programs, the project team will pilot test the series in each of the participating school districts. Several classes will be identified at the appropriate grade level in each district, allowing for more detailed outcome-based evaluation of the program’s effectiveness.

Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center and Museum – Bethel, AK
Year: 2005
Amount: $149,945  
Grant: Museums for America
To reach its project goals of protecting and preserving cultural knowledge, promoting museum participation, and expanding its education services, the Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center and Museum will identify institutions and private collections across the United States that contain significant holdings of visual images and recorded data documenting Yup’ik culture and tradition; work with institutions to access genealogical data about and visual images of areas that families of six middle Kuskokwim communities used for subsistence, as well as to modernize Yup’ik spellings for today’s audience; gather, translate, and transcribe regional elders’ oral histories that pertain to genealogy and subsistence land use; develop maps of traditional villages, camps, trails, and portages; develop a source binder for each of the six communities; develop a curriculum and teacher training program; open a regional exhibition of visual images, documents, and maps in Bethel and smaller exhibits in each of the villages, mentored by community elders, who will lead research activities; and maintain records and issue a final report to help other Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP) tribes develop genealogy projects.

Zoological Society of San Diego – San Diego, CA
Year: 2005
Amount: $150,000  
Grant: Museums for America
Each year, the San Diego Wild Animal Park motivates nearly 1.5 million individuals of all ages and walks of life toward a deep love and commitment to the natural world. It features exhibits for more than 3,600 animals of 416 species and 3,500 species of plants within it 2,141 acres and provides guests with opportunities to observe the natural behaviors of animals as they relate to species with which they coexist in the wild. To enhance guests’ understanding and appreciation of wildlife, the Wild Animal Park has embarked upon a redesign of its educational railway tour. The new system will transform the existing five-mile railway route into two distinct two-mile tour routes; one route will focus on African animals and the other on Asian animals. The Museums for America grant will fund educational materials, video equipment, interpretive training, and evaluation of the guest experience. The educational materials will include graphics at the railway loading areas and curriculum materials for thousands of schoolchildren. The zoo will use video technology to share behind-the-scenes footage of its collection and conservation efforts worldwide. The grant will also provide training sessions for narrators, enable the zoo to conduct visitor studies to learn how to best reach our guests, and provide opportunities to meet with curriculum specialists to discuss the new educational materials and their connection to classroom curricula.

An * indicates that the grant is statewide.