A Tier 1 project to develop a digital interface with a series of dynamic webpages to enhance search capabilities of archaeological field documents, images, and datasets from projects across the globe. As a test case, the project would use the Mimbres Pottery Images Digital Database, which incorporates a collection of more than 10,500 photographs and datasets on pottery dating to around 1000-1500 CE from southwestern New Mexico, eastern Arizona, and northern Mexico.

Archaeologists and other humanities scholars today can access vast libraries of digital collections.  Scholars can download these collections, and given sufficient skills and software, analyze them for research.  We will develop tools to move this marvelous capability to the next level, transforming the libraries into laboratories.  Our tools will allow line analysis and research of these collections, enhancing research and opening access to the general public. Using funding assured from other means, we will also create K-12 and higher education programs utilizing these tools.  Our work will be done in the context of a large established digital repository, the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR).  As a testbed, we will utilize the Mimbres Pottery Images Digital Database (MimPIDD), a large collection of archaeological pottery images from the Mimbres region of the US Southwest.

A three-year study focused on the impact of temperature changes, short-term and seasonal, on the moisture content of library and archive collections. The results would inform new sustainable preservation and access strategies for both large and small humanities collections.

The Image Permanence Institute is seeking funding for a three-year research project focused on the impact of environmental transitions on moisture content in library and archive collections. The potential for deterioration caused by moisture content exists in storage and access scenarios. This research will strengthen our understanding of the complex interactions between hygroscopic collection materials and their environment in response to temperature changes. Data collected has the potential to 1) determine the storage density necessary to effectively have hygroscopic materials control their moisture content, 2) provide a roadmap for controlling moisture content during periods of dryness and dampness, and 3) create a guide for temperature and relative humidity ranges that avoid mechanical damage during access and use. The results of this project have the potential to inform new sustainable preservation and access strategies for both large and small humanities research collections.

A Tier I investigation of bibliographic data for approximately 20,000 humanities serial publications preserved on microfilm and in digital form, to determine how such information could best be combined with the Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR) to facilitate acquisition and preservation decisions in libraries.

The Center for Research Libraries seeks NEH Research and Development Tier I funding for the planning phase of a major effort to mine the records of historical print serials reformatted through major humanities preservation microfilming programs and digitization efforts. During the planning phase, CRL will assemble from a variety of sources a testbed of bibliographic records, holdings information, and other documentation on an estimated 20,000 journals reformatted over the last fifty years by libraries and trustworthy publishers. CRL will assess the quality and reliability of records and information related to these reformatted serials, and will determine the extent to which the acquired information can be integrated with other existing data on print serials in the Print Archives Preservation Registry (PAPR). Finally, CRL will test the applicability of that information to library decisions on preservation and maintenance of print serial collections.

The development of capture protocols, standards, and tutorials for long-term preservation and virtual representations of aural heritage.

Aural heritage preservation documents and recreates the auditory experience of culturally important places, enabling virtual interaction through physics-based reconstructions. A form of “intangible” cultural heritage, aural heritage is captured via spatial acoustics techniques, creating digital audio data for auralizations (reconstructions for listening). This project will 1) codify a protocol for the capture, verification, and auralization of aural heritage, demonstrated in case-study application on three culturally distinct sites; 2) create extensibility pathways for the widespread adoption of this protocol, including workshops, web-based tutorials, and other freely disseminated resources that enable non-acoustical specialists to apply the method to a diversity of sites. Case study demonstrations of the method will serve as models for site constituencies, Humanities researchers, and other cultural heritage practitioners, while providing a digital archive of endangered aural heritage.

A study of the applicability of geochemical clay analyses, including portable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), for establishing the provenance of cuneiform tablets held by the Oriental Institute (OI) of the University of Chicago.

Unprovenanced clay tablets with cuneiform writing from the Near East present a legal, ethical, and scholarly challenge for cultural heritage preservation, museum collections, and scholars. The goal of this project is to prove that chemical clay analysis employing X-ray fluorescence and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy is a viable method to determine the provenance of those antique objects.

The development of procedures and tools designed for the preservation of Digital Video (DV) recordings, a highly fragile format used widely in the mid-1990s through 2000s, documenting local heritage, oral histories, arts performances and a variety of other cultural events and activities.

Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound (MIPoPS) is requesting supporting funds via a Tier II National Endowment for the Humanities Research and Development grant for a project, titled DV Rescue. [The project will] develop procedures and tools that will support migrating data from DV tapes into digital files suitable for long-term preservation. This will fill an urgent need for DV tape transfer tools that can rescue content from at-risk digital videotape formats. The DV Rescue project will entail two years of work to develop open source and freely available software, user research and testing, and create documentation to help define and perform comprehensive, automated, and easy-to-use data migration techniques. MIPoPS will collaborate with RiceCapades, a consulting and development company. They will also work with eight institutions currently collecting DV videotape to conduct research, define preservation workflows, establish standards and develop the most impactful tools f

Development of an online Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool and library for conservation and preservation professionals. When completed, this tool and library would help cultural heritage institutions evaluate the environmental and human health impacts of collection management activities, including conservation treatment, storage, loans, and exhibitions.

The Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC) will conducted Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) that will help collection care professionals to make informed choices that protect health and the environment while continuing to preserve and exhibit humanities collections. 3,500 materials, products, and processes will be researched and made available through an online Tool. Complex processes will captured in an LCA Library to guide collections care decision-making. Research results will be disseminated through articles, blog posts, presentations, workshops, and a traveling exhibit . Key research support will be provided by Northeastern University and the Pratt Institute. Principal Investigators are Matt Eckelman (NEU), Sarah Nunberg (Pratt), Eric Pourchot (FAIC), and Sarah Sutton (Sustainable Museums).

A Tier I project to study errors and paratextual noise in optically transcribed digital library texts, and the consequences of these errors on historical and humanistic conclusions measuring trends across time.

The noise associated with digital transcription has become an important obstacle to humanistic research. While the errors in digital texts are easily observed, the downstream effects of error on scholarship are far from clear. Consequential problems for the humanities often spring less from the average level of error in a collection than from the uneven distribution of noise across different periods, genres, and social strata. Uncertainty about this problem undermines confidence in research and discourages some scholars from using digital libraries at all. To address these problems, we will 1) Create paired libraries of clean, manually transcribed volumes and optically-transcribed versions of the same volumes, with or without paratext. 2) Conduct parallel experiments in these corpora to empirically measure the distortions affecting scholarship. 3) Construct a map of error and share resources that help scholars estimate levels of uncertainty in their work.

An eighteen-month research project to develop models, tools, and a strategic plan for teaching sustainability in cultural heritage conservation programs.  Funding would support a research associate for the duration of the project who would coordinate activities between UCLA faculty, Getty Conservation Institute scientists, and an outside advisory board consisting of engineers, architects, and conservators with demonstrated expertise in sustainability.

The UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Program in the Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials respectfully requests $75,000 for a Tier I National Endowment for the Humanities Research and Development Grant. We are proposing an eighteen month research project working with a Research Associate and an Advisory Committee to create a strategic plan for teaching sustainability in cultural heritage conservation. The project is the first phase of a larger initiative to integrate sustainability theory and practice into course offerings, convene a workshop of interdisciplinary experts, and create models and scalable curricular materials for publication by eScholarship, an open access publishing platform subsidized by the University of California. We will develop materials through research at UCLA and the Getty, and distribute them widely to benefit educational programs in cultural heritage conservation, library and archives preservation, and conservation of the built environment.

A three-year Tier II project to develop best practices for creating audio descriptions of humanities collections for the blind, visually impaired, and deaf-blind.

Audio Description is an emerging and novel form of the digital humanities. Media accessibility is its primary purpose, as a way to translate visual media into audible media. But for its primary audiences – people who are blind or visually impaired – it is not a feature, bonus, or an extra, it is the medium through which they understand the visual humanities, including photographs, illustrations, videos, collages, and maps. This Research and Development project, “Improving Audio Description, Improving Access to the Humanities,” strategically focuses on creating better empirical foundations based on field tests, better open-source support infrastructure, and better in-situ models of Audio Description as a way to systematically address major challenges in the field. Through this approach, the research team will simultaneously build, test, support, review, and study new models in authentic heritage contexts across the country.

A Tier II project to develop opensource software and training documentation for the preservation of digital videotape collections, a prevalent format from the mid-1980s to the late 2000s for recording news broadcasts, home movies, oral histories, and artistic and ethnographic performances.

The Digital Video Commander project seeks to reframe the paradigm of preservation as it applies to digital moving images, rather than adopting the practices used for analog videotape. It will do so by developing open source software, facilitating user testing, and creating documentation, which will result in intuitive, comprehensive and automated data migration techniques.

A Tier I project to develop a prototype Historic Spatial Data Infrastructure (HSDI) that links archival, archaeological, and geospatial data associated with Hamtramck, Michigan.

The Hamtramck Historic Spatial Archaeology Project seeks Tier 1 Research & Development funding to support early-stage development of a Historic Spatial Data Infrastructure (HSDI) that will be among the first attempts to link archival, archaeological, and geospatial data across time and space. Over 18 months, the Hamtramck Historic Spatial Archaeology Project team will produce a prototype HSDI based on the case study of the Old Hamtramck Center site. The Hamtramck HSDI will have two components: the back-end data infrastructure of the HSDI and a front-end digital deep map of Hamtramck. The HSDI will advance the humanities by demonstrating how seemingly disparate strands of historical knowledge can be evaluated, integrated and represented in a digital, open access format.

A Tier II project to develop a scientific methodology for biomolecule identification in art, demonstrated on chia oil in Mexican lacquerware and painting dating from the viceroyalty of New Spain.

Plant and animal products, especially from non-European cultures, are among the most understudied materials of cultural heritage. Yet they hold the keys to place decontextualized objects accurately in space, time and civilization, uncover their manufacturing processes, and ensure their proper conservation/preservation. As museums expand their commitment to the accurate description, classification, interpretation, and attribution of their collections, there is a growing need for new scientific tools and research strategies. This project merges science, conservation, and art history, using chia oil as a model material, which holds cultural significance through its artistic use. Our tripartite approach of lipidomics, proteomics, and DNA analysis applied to chia oil demonstrates the importance of a collaborative research platform for the investigation of any unknown biological material, and produces novel scientific protocols that can be adapted to other materials of biological origin.

A planning project to develop a risk assessment matrix for public art collections using a subset of data from the Washington State Arts Commission’s public art collection.

The Midwest Art Conservation Center (MACC), in partnership with the Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA), will support emergency preparedness in public art collections through the development of tools for remote risk assessment, mapping, and emergency plans. This phase of the project will survey emergency preparedness activities and needs for public art collections in the United States, develop a reproducible logical framework for assessing risk remotely, and use that framework to evaluate data from a subset of the ArtsWA collection. This planning phase will conclude with a draft emergency planning document for ArtsWA, a review of the success of the framework, and a roadmap for future modifications and scaling. This project will use existing and accessible technology to fill a void in emergency planning for cultural heritage; it will create a resource that can be adapted and used freely by public art collections nationwide.

A Tier II project to develop a multi-language linked data platform and a Spanish-language version of the Homosaurus, a controlled vocabulary used to describe LGBTQ+ resources by libraries, archives, museums, and other heritage institutions.

The University of Washington is seeking funding for "Developing a Spanish-language Homosaurus: Using Multi-Language Linked Data to Enhance LGBTQ+ Resource Discoverability." This project has a two-tiered goal of developing a multi-language linked data platform and creating and implementing a Spanish-language version of the Homosaurus vocabulary. The Homosaurus facilitates improved access to LGBTQ+ resources in cultural heritage institutions. This project is a three year collaboration with the Arizona Queer Archives, San Francisco Public Library, and UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. Each partner has LGBTQ+ collections that would benefit from the addition of Spanish metadata. The implications of this project for linked open data and multi-language discovery systems are considerable. This grant supports the development of a multi-language back-end architecture, a procedure for translation and partnerships, and an implementation strategy to be used for additional languages.

A Tier I pilot project using Kentucky as a case study for addressing the underrepresentation of buildings and sites associated with minority racial and ethnic groups on the National Register of Historic Places.

The challenge of preservation and access addressed in this project is the underrepresentation of heritage sites associated with minority groups in listings on the National Register of Historic Places, official federal list of properties considered important in American history. This project—based on a pilot study and focused on Kentucky—will quantify the preservation gaps in various racial and ethnic groups against census data through keyword mining; investigate the reasons for such preservation gaps of minority heritage sites through interviews with community stakeholders and preservation experts; and develop a model to close the gaps. The project is significant in determining the extent of the preservation gaps and addressing them from community perspectives, mitigating barriers to listing on the Register. More inclusive Register means a more accurate record of America’s history, recognizing the contributions of all and increasing access to diverse histories for future generations.

A Tier 1 project to research the challenges that non-traditional memory organizations face in preserving and making accessible materials created by incarcerated people.

Ithaka S+R, in partnership with the Justice Arts Coalition (JAC), requests $74,376 for a 12-month Tier 1 grant that aims to understand the challenges that community organizations like prison arts programs, books to prisons programs, and higher education in prison programs face in preserving and making accessible materials created by incarcerated people. The immediate objectives of the project are to 1) conduct exploratory desk research to identify organizations that are collecting or receiving work made by incarcerated people 2) conduct interviews with representatives of those organizations to document their partnerships, training, and resource needs in preserving and making materials accessible, 3) build relationships among key stakeholders; and 4) host a remote convening to share findings and plan for a subsequent program of research, training/resource development and implementation. The proposed period of performance is March 1, 2023-February 29, 2024.

A Tier II project to conduct a national study employing surveys, interviews, and site visits to investigate the state of audiovisual preservation.

BAVC Media respectfully requests $215,625 to complete a national study of audiovisual preservation. There currently exists no centralized assessment of exactly who is preserving large swaths of the extant archival audiovisual heritage in the United States, nor have the methods pertinent to this work been fully documented. BAVC Media seeks funding to understand the state of the audiovisual archiving field, in order to create a collective response to the coming challenges in preservation by empowering all stakeholders with tangible data and recommendations they can utilize in their work. We propose to design a study employing surveys, interviews and site visits to develop a contemporary analysis of the field’s demographics, practices, and challenges. Analyzing the current status of the field at a national level, inclusive of organizations that may be under-resourced, is vital due to the magnetic media crisis which threatens an impending loss of the world’s audiovisual heritage.

A Tier I project to develop guidelines for preserving and providing access to the content of early scholarly websites in a sustainable manner.

Scholars of the history of science and technology produced some of the first digital projects that demonstrated how websites could be used as repositories of information and documentation to support research, yet most are no longer maintained or accessible. Stanford University Libraries project, Sustaining Early Disciplinary Websites of Lasting Importance, proposes to run an inter-linked set of studies covering 1) user preferences for accessible and sustainable historical digital scholarly collections; 2) potential technical solutions recommended by library developers who regularly work with scholarly data; and 3) UX testing of wireframes or prototypes based on the received recommendations. We have selected three websites of widely recognized importance in the field of history of science, all of which are currently either inaccessible or becoming unusable. Outcomes will consist of preliminary guidelines for preserving and providing access to the content of early scholarly websites.

Establishment of a standard nomenclature and protocol for undertaking provenance research on Mediterranean antiquities, piloting of the protocol in four university test cases, and creation of a website with compiled resources and a listserv for individuals doing provenance research on Mediterranean antiquities.

The Mediterranean Antiquities Provenance Research Alliance (MAPRA) will bring together academics and museum professionals to create data standards and a protocol for undertaking provenance research on art and artifacts from the ancient Mediterranean. Mediterranean antiquities with no known provenance have been collected for decades, creating an illicit market fed by the looting of archaeological sites and museum thefts. As a result, ancient art and artifacts are damaged or lost, and archaeological sites are destroyed, depriving archaeologists of vital contextual information. MAPRA will provide training and resources for provenance research on objects from the ancient Mediterranean, in order to right the wrongs of the past and help curb the trade in illegal antiquities.

A Tier I project to survey the capacity and needs of the archives and libraries of over 500 Minority Serving Institutions located across the United States.

This grant proposal seeks funding for the Tier I project, ARCHIV-ALL MSI, which aims to investigate the state of archives, archival holdings, and practices in Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) in the United States. Through a triangulated research approach consisting of content analysis, a survey and focus groups of 400 MSI archivists, archival workers, and library directors, the project seeks to evaluate the capacity of MSI archives to represent the cultural heritage and history of the minority students they serve, as well as their challenges and needs. This research project will serve as a foundational step in creating a wider network of resources for MSI archivists and scholars working with MSI archives. This project aims to ensure that the cultural heritage and history of MSIs are preserved and centered in the wider conversation about campus archives.