Preservation Assistance Grant for Storage Furniture, Materials, and Workshop Trainings

FAIN: PG-280946-21

Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War (Culver City, CA 90230-6520)
Christine Rank (Project Director: January 2021 to May 2024)

Purchase and installation of shelving to store collections temporarily while they are being digitized, as well as the purchase of archival storage for a collection of material culture from the Eastern Bloc following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The award also would support additional training in digitization through the Society of American Archivists for the museum’s head of collections. The museum has a demonstrable commitment to digitization and making digitized records accessible online. Its mission is to prioritize historical collections that are not collected elsewhere and therefore are at risk of total loss. Housed in its main facility, a renovated National Guard armory, these collections are accessible via educational programming, lectures, symposia, publications, and experimental and collaborative exhibits.

The Wende Museum respectfully requests $7,000 for the purchase of storage furniture and archival supplies, as well as the attendance fees for digital preservation training workshops, to support the expansion of the museum's Online Collections. Six of the Wende's feature collections of great political and historical relevance will be offered for free online to scholars and the international public.