Funding Websources

There are so many different types of funding available for library institutions it is hard to know where to begin. The Marvin E. McKee Library at Oklahoma Panhandle State University, has been lucky enough to be the recipients of two preservation grants, "Threats to Your Collection" from the Oklahoma Historical Records Advisory Board (a state grant) and a Preservation Assistant Grant for Small Institutions from the National Endowments for the Humanities (a national grant). We also collaborated with six other Oklahoma Universities for an Information Literacy Planning Grant from AT&T. Our story began with an email posting on a list serve and yours could too.

But Grants are not "Free Money." There are matching grants where the grant agency expects the recipient to match the amount awarded with matching funds; grants where the amount of time donated to the project must match or exceed the amount of funding awarded. It really depends on the type of grant and the rules of the grant foundation.

Listed below are many sources for national preservation funding opportunities

• National Endowment for the Humanities: Preservation Assistance Grants help small and mid-sized institutions—such as libraries, museums, historical societies, archival repositories, cultural organizations, town and county records offices, and colleges and universities—improve their ability to preserve and care for their humanities collections. These may include special collections of books and journals, archives and manuscripts, prints and photographs, moving images, sound recordings, architectural and cartographic records, decorative and fine art objects, textiles, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, furniture, historical objects, and digital materials.

• Grants.gov: Grants.gov is your source to FIND and APPLY for federal grants. ****ALA programs must now be applied for through this portal. Join the PPO List serve for early information on public grants. 

• IMLS Grants:  IMLS grant programs that fund collections care.

• The ACRL has placed a plethora of information for any type of library grant on their website. Grant Resources on the Web: Where to Look When You Need Funding. By Dawn Ventress Knight and Emma Bradford Perry. C&RL News, July/August 1999, Vol. 60, No. 7

•  Library Grants Blog written by Stephanie Gerding & Pam MacKellar.  Our new book, Winning Grants: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians with Multimedia Tutorials and Grant Development Tools, was published by Neal-Schuman Publishers in August, 2010. Order your copy now.

****Mailing Lists****

One of the best ways to become aware of the many grants available is to join preservation distribution lists and RSS feeds.

• digipres@ala.org
  Digital Preservation

• padg@ala.org
  ALCTS Preservation Administrators' Interest Group

• ppogrants@ala.org
  Grant opportunities