National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Partnership
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Deadlines
- March 27, 2007 - Submit grant proposal to the NEH (Effective deadline for Dick is March 22 because of travel the next day to Savannah VAF conference.)
Background
The NEH supported the Savannah project at just over $200,000.
Review comments, March 2, 2007
Mr. Gibson,
Thanks for the chance to look at the draft. Let me offer just a couple of comments on the project, which looks to be very interesting. Butte doesn't often receive the attention it deserves, so it's nice to be so much being accomplished.
One rather large problem for me in reading the draft was actually envisioning what the content would be. There is mention of 3D renderings, documents, etc., but I had a difficult time imagining what I would actually see if I accessed the proposed website. What major ideas, questions, themes, historical patterns, etc. would be presented? Would the focus be on the history generally? On the architecture? On the various groups (i.e., Irish, et al.) who migrated there? What would I actually learn about Butte by becoming immersed in all this? Said another way, it would help if there could be some better sense of the conceptual threads that would help visitors navigate the material in some ordered fashion. That's especially where we would expect to see the input of the scholars in terms of having helped to define some of the more significant historical issues and questions that the place embodies. If this could be strengthened, I think it would help.
Some sort of working prototype or work sample would also be very helpful in terms of offering a concrete example of what is proposed. Is there any sample that could be provided, either through supplementary materials that could be sent along with the application or an existing URL that might be generally accessible?
As you know from the guidelines, one of the things that can't be done with these funds is the digitization of materials. It's not clear to me from the draft how much of the material that will be included in the final product actually exists in digital format vs. how much of it remains to be converted. Of course, it would be much better if the digital conversion had already taken place. Also, for an implementation proposal, it would be very useful to have a clear sense of the things that would be included with some specificity. If materials have yet to be identified and researched, then that makes it more difficult to judge the proposal as an implementation one. We would expect pretty much everything to already be identified and ready to go. It would also probably be a good idea to be more specific about which holdings from the archives and libraries mentioned would be incorporated.
Hope these comments are helpful. Let me know if you have any additional questions, especially about things I may not have mentioned.
John Meredith, Senior Program Officer
Eligible Projects
The grant description states that eligible projects might:
- serve as models for how libraries, museums, and archives can collaborate with other humanities organizations;
- use innovative approaches in digital technology to provide new perspectives on humanities collections, offer new interpretive contexts, and allow existing resources to be widely shared;
- have interpretive elements that can assist scholars and/or the public in gaining new understanding of ideas and questions in the humanities;
- advance the role of cultural repositories in online teaching, learning, and research;
- develop collaborative approaches involving the scholarly community and cultural repositories for the creation, management, preservation, and presentation of reusable digital collections and products; and
- examine and coordinate community-based approaches and standards for making resources available online.
Ineligible Projects
Types of projects not supported
Advancing Knowledge grant funds may not be used for:
- projects that focus primarily on digitizing existing collections;
- recurring or established conferences or professional meetings;
- creative or performing arts;
- empirical social scientific research;
- specific policy studies;
- the preparation or publication of textbooks;
- projects that focus on general pedagogical theory, research on educational methods, tests, or measurements;
- projects that focus on cognitive psychology;
- projects devoted to political, religious, commercial, or social advocacy;
- purchase of artifacts or collections;
- professional development; or* general operations, renovation, or construction.
