A Planning grant to monitor and analyze the preservation environment in the High Point Museum’s storage and exhibition spaces.  The museum’s collections include 20,000 artifacts, 8,000 archival records, and 15,000 print photographs that document the furniture, transportation, and textile industries of High Point, North Carolina, located in the state’s Piedmont Triad region.

Through this grant, a multi-disciplinary team, including two consultants from the Image Permanence Institute, will monitor and analyze the preservation environment in the High Point Museum’s storage and exhibition spaces. The museum’s environmental systems are aging, complicating maintenance and causing partial failures. After collecting and evaluating environmental data for one year, the project team will be able to optimize the performance of the current systems for preservation and energy savings.

Planning for sustainable lighting, improvements in the storage environment, and architectural design for a new Tribal Museum and Cultural Center that would be developed on one of the oldest Native American settlements on the southern Oregon coast, known as “the Hollering Place.”  The tribe manages 100 distinct collections, including baskets, archival materials, manuscripts, and recordings of indigenous languages.

The Tribe will conduct an assessment and develop sustainable cultural preservation strategies to be integrated into the final architectural design of the new Tribal Museum and Cultural Center. The development of strategies enunciated in the resulting planning document will be integral for ensuring the Tribal Museum and Cultural Center is designed, constructed, and operated in a manner that supports sustainable preservation strategies. Specific areas to be addressed in the plan include: 1) evaluating the cos-teffectiveness of building-wide environmental control systems versus microclimate display cases and storage systems; 2) examining internal lighting options that balance preservation needs with energy stewardship (a cultural value of the Tribe); and 3) incorporating architectural and structural design elements that support collections handling processes to mitigate threats to theTribe’s cultural collections including fire, pest control, cross-contamination, and theft.

The replacement of an outdated chiller and associated mechanical controls at the Chicago History Museum’s Clark Street facility, which houses diverse collections of artifacts, archival material, textiles, and decorative arts that reflect nearly 300 years of Chicago and Illinois history.

The Chicago History Museum (CHM) requests a $350,000 Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections implementation grant to replace our aging and obsolete primary chiller with units that can reliably sustain optimal preservation conditions for our nationally significant collection. Based on a two-phase assessment beginning in 2015,CHM has developed an achievable strategy to address the preservation quality of the areas of our primary facility that house artifacts for exhibition and research. Chiller replacement has been identified as the clear priority in advancing the Museum’s near- and long-term environmental goals and will play a critical role in making our mechanical systems more efficient and effective. This proposed implementation project is the first step in establishing holistic control over the Museum’s preservation environments. By improving dehumidification and cooling performance, preservation conditions throughout the building will be improved.

Installation of a central HVAC system with digital controls for the 14,000 square-foot offsite storage space of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, which preserves and interprets the history of the Pikes Peak region.

The Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum requests a $290,000 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collection implementation grant to support its $658,933 project, Sustainable Preservation at Museum Offsite Collection Storage. This project aims to improve the environmental conditions of the CSPM’s offsite collection storage facility through installation of an efficient HVAC system with digital central controls, and low velocity fans. Critical project outcomes include: improved stability in the temperature and relative humidity readings; improved energy efficiency; a state-of-the-art space that will allow the museum to continue to collect and preserve artifacts for decades to come; and improved scholarship of museum patrons through display of its collections and associated programming.

A planning project to study the performance of heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning equipment in order to inform operational adjustments for improved climate control and potential capital improvements at the Art Museum of the University of Saint Joseph.

The Art Museum at University of Saint Joseph (USJ) requests a planning grant of $29,726 for an optimization study of the Museum’s mechanical system to determine its ability to provide a sustainable preservation climate for the collections. Consultant Jeremy Linden and a team from USJ will ascertain the capability of existing equipment, including total dehumidification and humidification; identify optimal operating conditions to support both collection preservation and energy efficiency; and develop a strategic plan for potential capital investment and renovations. A series of site visits, experimental adjustments to system operations, and project team meetings over a 2-year period will result in a final report on the documentation, analysis, and optimization process, with recommendations for operational and capital improvements. This high priority study recommended by preservation experts will position the Museum to plan strategically for long-term, sustainable collection preservation.

A planning project to develop a strategy for reuse of a historic building in order to increase capacity for collections storage, preventive conservation, and energy efficiency.

Fort Ticonderoga requests funding to assemble a collaborative team of museum staff and consultants to develop a Master Preservation and Storage Needs Plan for the collections housed in the Thompson-Pell Research Center. The Plan will provide museum staff with professional guidance and recommendations for addressing collections preservation issues within the historic building as it is converted into a dedicated Collections and Research Facility. The Plan will also include recommendations concerning the storage needs for a new 3,000-object collection that the museum will be acquiring and moving to the TPRC in 2022. This project will enable Fort Ticonderoga to move forward to fulfill its mission in transformative ways, while also serving as a model for other cultural institutions through the dissemination of a white paper report that discusses the effectiveness of the sustainable preservation strategies used.

A planning project to develop recommendations for improving the storage environment at the New York City Municipal Archives, which stewards 243,000 cubic feet of manuscripts, official correspondence, audiovisual materials, architectural records, maps, ledgers, vital records, over two million photographs, and 185 terabytes of digital records pertaining to the history of the city from 1645 to the present.

The New York City Department of Records and Information Services requests Endowment support to develop plans for improving and implementing strategies for long-term storage and preservation of archival material. Dating from the 1600s to the early 21st century, the collections provide extensive documentation of NYC municipal government and include significant intellectual content important for humanities research in American urban history, public education, criminal justice, health care, and planning. The project workplan is to engage the services of professional engineers who will undertake a comprehensive survey and analysis of the extant HVAC and storage system, produce a report on environmental conditions, prepare detailed recommendations for improvements, and produce designs for a new HVAC system with an emphasis on sustainable energy use. The project time period is 12 months.

The rehousing of 625 objects, currently held in eleven temporary storage sites, from the Detroit Institute of Arts’ European Sculpture and Decorative Arts collection.  The items would be moved into a redesigned storage space to alleviate overcrowding of collections, accommodate future collection growth, absorb vibrations due to earthquakes, and reduce exposure to ultraviolet light.

The Detroit Institute of Arts requests NEH support to renovate and upgrade a storage room to house a portion of the DIA's outstanding collection of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. These works are presently stored in eleven separate storage rooms throughout the museum. The project involves implementing environmental improvements and lighting upgrades, and installing necessary storage equipment, including powder-coated cabinets and pallet racking. Works of art will be moved into their assigned renovated, acclimatized and newly-designed storage rooms, unpacked, reorganized and properly rehoused to ensure their long term conservation and preservation. This will facilitate display, loans, scholarly study and research, photography and make the collections more accessible to the public.

A planning project to design a new collections storage area and HVAC system for the special collections held by La Casa del Libro, a museum housed in two adjoining historic buildings in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The collections consist of more than 6,000 rare books, from manuscripts to incunabula (early printed books from 1450 to 1501) to modern printed works; contemporary art books and graphic works made by Puerto Rican artists; and a reference library on the history of printing. 

La Casa del Libro Book Museum & Special Library seeks a NEH Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections planning grant to work towards the redesign of its HVAC systems and collection storage facilities which were compromised by the 2017 hurricanes to provide a secure space for the collection in its historic building using sustainable practices that will allow the museum to operate at its full capacity, improve collection care, increase energy efficiency and reduce exposure to failures that threaten or could damage the collection.

A planning project to improve climate control, security, and collections storage at Whitehorne House Museum, a Federal-period building on the National Register of Historical Places dedicated to the history and artistry of eighteenth-century Newport furniture. Pairing existing data regularly gathered through current systems and staff observations with an extensive onsite review from a team of expert consultants in a variety of fields, the applicant would develop a plan to recommend more efficient and sustainable preservation practices in order to balance the needs of the collection with more sustainable energy use.

Newport Restoration Foundation requests a $50,000 Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections planning grant to research and develop a plan that will serve as a road map to improve the climate control, security, and collections storage systems at its Whitehorne House Museum in Newport, Rhode Island. Working with an integrated team of outside consultants, we will create a planning document that will make suggestions about the best systems for addressing the museum’s current challenges in climate control, security, and collections storage in an historic building that faces its own preservation needs. The creation of this plan must also help us develop and articulate our preservation plan for the Samuel Whitehorne House itself, a Federal Period building on lower Thames Street that is, simultaneously, a significant historical artifact in its own right (listed on the National Register of Historical Places), and houses our museum and its historically significant collection.

A planning project to study HVAC system optimization for improved climate control in the Cultural Education Center building, which holds the collections of the state museum, library, and archives. Highlights include records of the colonial and state government of New York from 1630 to the present, in both the Dutch and English languages, art collections, significant Shaker collections, and eighteenth-century furniture. The Center also holds contemporary collections, including extensive suffrage materials, as well as the largest collection of artifacts pertaining to September 11, 2001.

The NYS Education Dept. Office of Cultural Education seeks a grant for HVAC optimization planning in the Cultural Center, Albany. Our 2019 on-site environmental assessment identified critical needs, including optimization of selected air handlers serving our most significant and at-risk collections. If funded, we will hire Jeremy Linden of LPS to plan optimization of air handlers serving the entire 3rd floor and the 7th-floor vault in our 11-story, 1.5 million SF building. These areas house museum collections and the most significant treasures of the Library and Archives. The LPS optimization process consists of five steps--documentation, data gathering, data analysis, experimentation and implementation, and assessment and maintenance--designed to gain a holistic understanding of the building operation, which informs strategies for improvement. Linden will work with representatives of administration, collections, and facilities from both NYSED and the Office of General Services.

The installation of an energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable geothermal power system to ensure reliable temperature and humidity control at the Glessner House Museum. This system would provide a better environment, with the ability to monitor and control fluctuations while also reducing operating costs.

Glessner House requests a Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections implementation grant of $350,000 to complete the remaining phases of our geothermal project, begun in 2015, that will reliably sustain optimal preservation conditions for our nationally significant collections. Following the well digging process and completion of zone one in early 2016, GH has developed an achievable strategy to address the preservation quality conditions required to adequately protect and preserve our collections, both in storage and on display. Completion of the project will establish holistic control of the house’s environment and will provide, for the first time, dehumidification and cooling mechanisms throughout the building, as well as improving the efficiency and reliability of the heating systems, thus optimizing preservation conditions throughout the building.

The updating of a 1968 heating and air-conditioning system in Spencer Library to provide a more optimal preservation environment for the university’s collection of rare books and manuscripts, while achieving a significant reduction in overall energy costs for the building.

The University of Kansas Libraries requests funds to implement some of the recommendations provided by environmental consultants who conducted environmental testing on Spencer Library's heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system over 18 months during a 2017-2019 planning grant. In this implementation grant, the second phase of a multi-phased project, the Libraries hope to replace obsolete, 1968-era pneumatically controlled reheats in the ceilings of collection areas of the building with modern electric reheats, variable air volume (VAV) dampers, and new direct digital controls (DDC). At the beginning and end of the project, testing and balancing will be conducted to ensure that the installed equipment is working properly. The new devices will be significantly more energy efficient, individually controllable and serviceable by technicians, and will provide a more optimal preservation environment for Spencer’s collections.

A planning project to develop recommendations for improving the storage environment at the Amistad Research Center (ARC), an independent archives and manuscripts repository located at Tulane University with extensive holdings on the history of African Americans from the 1780s to the present.

The Amistad Research Center (ARC) seeks to develop a master preservation and conservation plan for infrastructure and systems associated with collection storage at its main facility of Tilton Memorial Hall on the campus of its partner organization, Tulane University. This project will entail collaboration between Center staff and board with conservation experts and Tulane University planning and facilities personnel to document and prioritize conservation and preservation needs to 1) create a strategic plan outlining next steps for a comprehensive implementation plan based on best practices, and 2) develop a projected budget and identify funding sources to address action steps within the strategic plan. The project is guided by ARC’s Collection Development and Management Policies which outline ARC’s primary responsibility to provide a safe and secure environment for all collections and works in its custody.

The development of plans for retrofitting storage areas for the Archives of Moving Images collection at the General Archives of Puerto Rico, which includes approximately 4,000 film titles and 2,000 videotapes representing the history and culture of Puerto Rico from 1898 to the present. The project would lay the groundwork for improvements to the repository’s environmental conditions through sustainable practices that take into consideration the island’s unique environment and vulnerabilities to natural disasters.

The General Archives of Puerto Rico is the only institution on the Island and internationally whose mission is to preserve the recorded film and video heritage of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans. After several incidents with the existing storage units that jeopardized the well-being of our moving image collections and based on the recommendations outlined in two assessments performed in 2018 and 2019, we made it our main preservation priority to address these issues. Through an initial exploratory study performed by a group of experts on the preservation of moving images, preservation environments and sustainability, and the architecture of historic buildings we intend to develop a Master Plan that will inform on the next steps to improve the storage and current preservation environment to ensure the safeguard of this unique and valuable humanities collections.

A  planning project to assess collections storage buildings and develop strategies for a fire suppression system, as well as to improve environmental conditions for a collection of 100,000 objects, photographs, and manuscripts that document an original late-eighteenth- to nineteenth-century Shaker community.

Canterbury Shaker Village (CVS) will develop sustainable preservation strategies for our 100,000 item collection housed in seven historic buildings. An interdisciplinary team will conduct two studies in order to 1) Assess key collection storage buildings and 2) Determine the need and strategy to install fire suppression systems and improve environmental conditions within the collection storage areas. The external team will include a preservation architect, fire systems consultant, and conservator. CSV’s collections are of national significance as one of the largest and most comprehensive bodies of material remaining in an original Shaker community. Four of the collection storage buildings have no fire suppression systems. Additionally, environmental damage from water and humidity is an increasing concern in all buildings.

The purchase of a new climate control system for the Providence Athenaeum, which houses both circulating and special collections of rare books, pamphlets, and works of art, some of which date to the library’s origins in 1753.

The Providence Athenaeum seeks an implementation grant of $350,000 to install a new climate control system to improve environmental conditions, mitigate serious risks to the collections, and improve sustainability and resiliency. The Athenaeum is proceeding after careful consideration and after conducting numerous studies and investigations, including a series of recommendations issued in the wake of a successful NEH planning grant in 2017/2018. The installation of a new climate control system has been identified as a key strategic objective, and it is instrumental to our long-term preservation needs.

An implementation project to improve environmental conditions, install collections storage, and rehouse collections in two historic house locations that document immigrant history and daily life in the mid- to late-nineteenth century in Lower East Side Manhattan.

The Tenement Museum seeks a $350,000 grant to implement a collections storage reorganization plan. The Museum keeps its collections in 91 and 97 Orchard Street, two tenements built in the mid-late 19th century. Speculators quickly constructed these tenements to profit from large numbers of immigrants seeking housing. They did not build them with longevity or stable environmental conditions in mind. Thus, just as the Museum has innovated in its telling of the history of “ordinary” people, it has had to innovate in devising ways to care for its collections in tenement buildings. This grant enables the Museum to permanently improve its collections environment by: 1) improving environmental conditions in both storage spaces; 2) installing a high-density collections storage system; and 3) rehousing items into environmentally-appropriate spaces. The project draws upon 15 years of external assessments and staff expertise. When complete, the project will make the Museum’s collections resilient

A planning project to evaluate collection storage environments and create a Collection Storage Master Plan for the New York Public Library’s three research centers: the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

The New York Public Library (NYPL or “the Library”) requests $50,000 to convene a planning team of NYPL staff and external advisors to create a Collection Storage Master Plan. Designed to move the Library toward a more efficient and sustainable model for institutional preservation planning, The Collections Storage Master Plan will include a unified assessment of all NYPL storage locations, focusing on the Library’s three research centers: the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The project will characterize and quantify materials stored on-site, identify the most suitable spaces for storage, and indicate the types and intensity of subsequent analysis and investment required to optimize these areas for collection storage.

A project to rehouse 2,202 works of art on paper from the fine arts collection, many of them by Native American artists, in acid-free presentation mats and in new storage furniture, and to make them available through the museum’s online collections portal. 

The Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) requests $343,812 from NEH to support a three-year rehousing project focused on 2,202 works, many Native American, in MNA’s fine arts collection. Largely consisting of works of art on paper (watercolors, drawings, etc.), they are in the state-of-the-art, platinum LEED certified Easton Collections Center (ECC). The works remain in acidic boxes and mats in which they have been stored for decades in old storage. At preservation risk in these containers, they were moved to the ECC in 2019 where they are stored on temporary racks or leaning against storage walls. MNA will improve physical access to works on paper by rehousing them in acid free presentation mats and storing them in new containers in mobile storage furniture purchased during this project. Intellectual access will be improved as collection data is posted through the Argus.net public web portal to a new audience including Native American, the public, and scholars from around the nation.

A planning grant to assess the museum’s aging HVAC system and inspect the overall building envelope for a collection of over 40,000 artifacts documenting the history of Boulder, Colorado.

The Museum of Boulder’s project Planning for a Sustainable Preservation Environment will prepare the Museum to create a stable environment in which to store its diverse humanities-based collection. Currently, temperatures inside the collections storage facility fluctuate drastically throughout the year, causing damage to artifacts and endangering our unique collection. We will work with expert partners to explore sustainable methods to improve climate control and determine the specific needs of our artifacts. The Museum’s collection of 40,000 objects is the largest repository of the history of Boulder, which has long been a hub of civic engagement, the natural foods movement, and science and technology innovations. Preserving the history of this city is a crucial part of preserving the history of the American West and supporting research, education, and lifelong learning for our visitors from Boulder County and the rest of the country.

An implementation project to sustainably rehouse a collection of 500,000 artifacts from the WS Ranch Archaeological Project, an Upland Mogollon Pueblo site (occupied ca. 800 to 1300 CE) located in New Mexico and excavated from 1977 to 1994.

The WS Ranch Archaeological Project (WSRAP) Collection is an important and irreplaceable assemblage of approximately 500,000 artifacts of Late Pithouse, Classic Mimbres, and Tularosa Phase material cultures. Excavated decades ago near Alma, west central New Mexico, by the University of Texas at Austin, the unprocessed, uncataloged collection has never been fully accessible to researchers and tribal representatives. Recently acquired by DMNS, the WSRAP Collection is being moved from substandard collections storage conditions in Texas to Denver prior to the project period. NEH funds will enable project staff, volunteers, and interns to sustainably preserve and install the WSRAP collection in the Museum’s state-of-the-art collections facility. Dissemination strategies will make the collection accessible to professionals and a variety of museum audiences, including tribes.

The sustainable rehousing of archaeological wood collections at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research used in dendroarchaeological study of the U.S. Southwest.

This project will ensure the long-term sustainability of irreplaceable and culturally important wood and charcoal collections at the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. Significant progress has been made towards securing these specimens (from the ancestral sites of the native peoples of the South Western United States and beyond), following transfer from highly unsuitable conditions to a state of the art archive facility. Yet they remain at risk in old, over-packed and overweight boxes, with little or no padding leading to damage from crushing or any movement. Rehousing has been identified as the final, essential step to maintain these collections for future generations. This process builds in contingency planning and mitigation for increasing changes in humidity fluctuations that may not be sufficiently countered by the current HVAC system for even longer term sustainability and accessibility of the collections.

A planning project to study four distinct collections and the buildings in which they are housed on Buffalo State College’s campus through environmental monitoring and surveying the mechanical and engineering aspects of their air handling systems.

Buffalo State College (BSC) is dedicated to preserving the local and regional histories, cultural objects, and art of the many cultures and peoples associated with the college, the city of Buffalo, and the Western New York (WNY) region. The collections at BSC that this proposal focuses on are the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the Butler Library Archives & Special Collection Department, the Historic Costume and Textile Collection, and the study collection and studios of the Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department. All of these spaces have the same needs. Some spaces have been monitored and studied over the past 5 years. Previous data show that the spaces are not up to the standards of traditional preservation environments and detrimental to the longevity of the collections. We plan to further study and use historical data along with preservation specialists to propose concrete changes that can be made to benefit all of the college’s critical collection needs.

Planning efforts to replace the State Historical Society of Iowa’s high density compact storage system, which has been inoperable since 2017.  

The State Historical Society of Iowa seeks a National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections Planning Grant of $49,751 to assemble an experienced interdisciplinary project team to develop a plan to replace the existing archives shelving system with new high-density compact archives shelving for the 9,000 square feet of integrated Special Collections and State Archives storage within Iowa’s State Historical Building in the capital city of Des Moines. The goal will be to develop a sustainable storage solution that meets industry-standard best practices for conservation including efficiency of ongoing collection management, protection of materials while on the shelf and lighting. The final deliverables will include schematic design documents and construction documents to be used for the implementation phase of the project.