Apply for the Free IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in cooperation with the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH), is offering 2,000 free copies of the Connecting to Collections Bookshelf, a core set of books, DVDs, online resources, and an annotated bibliography that are essential for the care of collections.
The IMLS Bookshelf will be awarded free in two application periods: September 1 - November 15, 2007 (recipients announced in February 2008) and March 1 - April 15, 2008 (recipients announced in July 2008). Instructions, qualifications, and the content of the IMLS Bookshelf, along with the online application, can be found at www.aaslh.org/Bookshelf.
Priority will be given to smaller institutions, but large museums and libraries with special collections are also eligible to apply. Federally operated institutions, for-profit institutions, and libraries that do not hold special collections are not eligible to receive the Bookshelf. For more information on the IMLS Bookshelf, email Terry Jackson at jackson@aaslh.org, or call 615-320-3203.
The IMLS Bookshelf focuses on collections typically found in art or history museums and in libraries’ special collections, with an added selection of texts for zoos, aquaria, public gardens, and nature centers. It will address such topics as the philosophy and ethics of collecting, collections management and planning, emergency preparedness, and culturally specific conservation issues.
Recipients of the Bookshelf will also receive a user’s guide, including an annotated bibliography. Heritage Preservation is developing a guide to online resources on collections care that will be posted on the IMLS Web site.
Two panels of experts, convened by Heritage Preservation, made recommendations to IMLS on the contents of the Bookshelf. Among the publications selected were Heritage Preservation’s Field Guide to Emergency Response, Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel, Capitalize on Collections Care, and Caring for Your Family Treasures.
Expert advisors for the non-living collection texts included: Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa, director of the William and Margaret Kilgarlin Center for Preservation of the Cultural Record, University of Texas, Austin; Jeanne Drewes, chief of Binding and Collections Care of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Cathy Hawks, private conservator specializing in object conservation; Melissa Heaver, registrar at the Fire Museum of Maryland, Lutherville, Maryland; Wendy Jessup, private conservator specializing in preventive conservation; and Debra Hess Norris, Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts and Chairperson of the Department of Art Conservation at Winterthur/University of Delaware, Winterthur, Delaware.
Expert advisors for the living collections texts included Sylvan Kaufman, conservation curator of the Adkins Arboretum, Ridgely, Maryland; Bill Langbauer, director of Science and Conservation, Pittsburgh Zoo; Brandie Smith, interim director of conservation and science, Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Silver Spring, Maryland; and Dan Stark, executive director, American Public Gardens Association, Wilmington, Delaware.
The IMLS Bookshelf has received support from the Getty Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation and is part of Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action, a three-year initiative to help improve the care of our nation’s collections. IMLS began the initiative in response to A Public Trust at Risk: The Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America’s Collections, a 2005 Heritage Preservation study supported by IMLS, which documented the dire state of the nation’s collections.