Application narratives (no budgets) and final reports of select grant projects of potential interest to the archival profession, the AHC’s friends and supporters, and other interested individuals.

NHPRC—National Historic Publications and Records Commission, a unit of the National Archives and Records Administration

Project: Beating Backlogs through Cataloging and Deaccessioning: An Example for the Archival Profession, submitted 2004.

Summary: This proposal seeks to implement the recommendations of an NHPRC-funded research fellowship and the highest priorities of the repository’s strategic planning. This grant proposal seeks to implement the recommendations of a major archival research fellowship as well as the highest strategic planning goals of the host repository. Specifically, the goal is to substantially break the cycle of backlogged collections in archives by making minimal cataloging a higher priority than “perfect” processing, for the purpose of making collections more quickly accessible to researchers. In 2003 the AHC undertook to conduct a thorough and complete collection analysis for creating a detailed and public collection development policy, implemented steps to significantly improve the pace of processing and cataloging, and focused significant and sustained resources on deaccessioning and disposing of collections identified as out of scope during the collection analysis. A final goal is to begin to shift the norm for federally funded processing grants, from usually supporting intensive processing of small amounts of material, toward supporting creation of basic intellectual access to large quantities of material.

NB: The grant was originally submitted as one 3-year project. NHPRC, because of budget constraints, chose to fund the original proposal at 50% of the original budget request, with the understanding that if sufficient funds were available the following year, the Commission would then fund the other 50%. Both halves were funded. However, they were funded as separate grants, running in total 3 years but overlapping for only one. Hence the existence of two sets of final reports. In practice, the first half of the project encompassed cataloging and creation of EAD finding aids; the second half of deaccessioning and survey work.

Application Narrative (71k)

First half: Final report (271k)

Second half: Final report (389 k)

In addition to the success of the project within the AHC, the goal of beginning to “shift the norm for federally funded processing grants” was also reached. During the Center’s implementation of its two grants, NHPRC revised its grant program relating to processing into two parts: “Archives Basic Projects” and “Archives Detailed Processing Projects.” The former category (http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/announcement/basic.html ) states, “In general, proposals should demonstrate how repositories will catalog personal papers and manuscript collections at the collection level, and catalog institutional records at the series level.”

NEH—National Endowment for the Humanities

Project: Landmarks of American History-- Frontier First: Women’s Suffrage In the West, submitted 2005.

Summary: Create and conduct two one-week summer teachers’ workshops in 2005 that will feature the South Pass National Historic Landmark, South Pass City State Historic Site, and the Wyoming State Capitol National Historic Landmark. The intellectual focus of the workshops will be the question of why women’s suffrage first took root in the Western states at places like South Pass City, rather than in the East where the established suffrage organizations placed their emphasis and hope. Examining a challenging historical question will encourage open dialogue as scholars, master teachers, and participants interact as peers in authentic historical inquiry.

Final Report (43 k)

Application Narrative (389 k)

NB: Additional iterations of this grant have been awarded subsequently by the Wyoming Humanities Commission and the UW College of Education. While the AHC did not remain a co-sponsor, its role in the workshop, of introducing participants to hands-on work with primary sources, has remained unaltered.