July 2006 Museums for America Grant Announcement*

Alabama  |  Arizona  |  Arkansas  |  California  |  Colorado  |  Connecticut  |  Delaware  |  District of Columbia  

Florida  |  Georgia  |  Idaho  |  Illinois  |  Indiana  |  Iowa  |  Kansas  |  Louisiana  |  Maine  |  Maryland 

Massachusetts  |   Michigan  |  Minnesota  |  Mississippi  |  Missouri  |  Montana  |  Nebraska 

New Hampshire  |  New Jersey  |  New Mexico  |  New York  |  North Carolina  |  Ohio  |  Oklahoma 

Pennsylvania  |  Puerto Rico  |  Rhode Island  |  South Dakota  |  Tennessee  |  Texas  |   Utah  |  Vermont 

Virginia  |  Washington  |  West Virginia  |  Wisconsin  |  Wyoming 

*Included in this list are five Museums for America grantees that were awarded in March 2006, as part of our expedited review process for museums whose proposals addressed needs caused by hurricanes in the gulf coast region.

Alabama

Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center - Mobile, AL
Award Amount: $87,744; Applicant Match: $87,744
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Tim Pula
(251)208-6870; tpula@exploreum.net
65 Government Street
P.O. Box 1968
Mobile, AL 36607-1968

Project Title: "FUNdamental Physics"
FUNdamental Physics is a two-year project designed to help the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center to present challenging physics activities in meaningful, easy-to-understand ways to a currently underserved target audience, youth (age 13-18) and adults. Three new permanent, interactive physics exhibits, 4 new staff-led demonstrations, and 16 new staff-guided physics activities will be developed and implemented. The goals for youth and adult visitors are that they will become increasingly curious about the physical properties they encounter in the world each day; formulating new questions about physics and actively pursuing answers to those questions through other informal or formal resources; and building comfort with physics so as to engage in an unintimidated way with physics in the world.

Arizona

Tucson Zoological Society - Tucson, AZ
Award Amount: $146,300; Applicant Match: $184,839
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mrs. Vivian VanPeenen
(520)791-3204x12; vivian.vanpeenen@tucson.gov
1100 South Randolph Way
Tucson, AZ 85716-5835

Project Title: "Wild Solutions Exhibit"
The Tucson Zoo will design and install an educational exhibit, “Wild Solutions,” that highlights animal and human adaptation to the environment. The exhibit will include multilevel interpretive activities and will convey the following messages: (1) Animals have adaptive abilities that enable them survive in the wild, (2) buildings can be designed to use resources wisely and to help humans adapt to the harsh desert environment, (3) animals and plants can teach humans how to live better in their environment, (4) humans can improve the way they use resources to help the environment and animals. The new Education Center, where this exhibit will be housed, is being designed as an example of sustainable construction and "green" building techniques.

Arkansas

Arkansas Museum of Science and History - Little Rock, AR
Award Amount: $75,237; Applicant Match: $81,507
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Nan Selz
(501)396-7050x207; nselz@amod.org
500 President Clinton Avenue
Suite 150
Little Rock, AR 72201-1757

Project Title: "Room to Grow"
The museum is building “Room to Grow”—a 3,000-square-foot early childhood education exhibit that offers a secure environment for learning through exploration and inquiry. Each component of the exhibit addresses the needs of early childhood learners. Children gain literacy at the Reading Beach, while Down on the Farm offers math, rural life, science, and role-playing opportunities. The Fitness Forest allows exploration into physical fitness, wellness, nutrition, and personal hygiene. Pirate's Cove has math skills, science, physical activity, sequencing, problem solving, and role-playing. The Construction Zone offers math skills, spatial and deductive reasoning, imaginative play, and problem solving. The exhibit relies on visual imagery to teach. Chaperones receive an educators’ guide that explains the activities.

California

Bakersfield Museum of Art - Bakersfield, CA
Award Amount: $13,909; Applicant Match: $13,909
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. David Gordon
(661)323-7219; dgordon@bmoa.org
1930 R Street
Bakersfield, CA 93301

Project Title: "Look What's Going On at the Bakersfield Museum of Art"
Project activities include consulting with involved organizations and potential program guests, planning of programs, marketing, and evaluation. Potential programs include the following: film screenings, author lecture/booksignings, a Plein Air painting workshop, guest lectures on the current exhibits, a Kern Writers Guild story reading, Family Nights at the museum with hands-on art lessons, a downtown boutique fashion premier, a Chamber of Commerce mixer, watercolor demonstrations & workshops, a Bakersfield Symphony chamber concert, and a community art organization symposium.

Habitot Children's Museum - Berkeley, CA
Award Amount: $71,790; Applicant Match: $74,181
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Gina Moreland
(510)647-1111x11; habitot@lmi.net
PMB 326
1563 Solano Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94707-2116

Project Title: "Opening Doors: Planning Habitot's Outdoor Exhibits"
In 2006, Habitot Children's Museum will move from Berkeley to a renovated middle school building in Emeryville. In the new location, Habitot can develop interactive outdoor exhibits that were not possible in Berkeley. The Opening Doors project will lay the groundwork for developing 10,000 square feet of interactive outdoor space and natural environment on the school's former playground. The space will include a variety of exhibits and activity areas that will extend Habitot's unique approach to children's programming to the outdoors. The goal of this project is to determine the most effective use of the outdoor space to fulfill the museum's mission and meet community needs and interests, and to prepare construction drawings for the space.

Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley, CA
Award Amount: $149,870; Applicant Match: $149,870
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Susan Ketchner
(510)642-3150; ketchner@scienceview.lhs.berkeley.edu
336 Sproul Hall
5940 UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-5940

Project Title: "Everyday Explorations: Increasing Access to Lifelong Learning Opportunities"
The Everyday Explorations project is a series of Internet activities that scaffold learners in the well-established learn-by-doing pedagogy of the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS). Activities will be designed for children from toddlers through elementary school and will be based on programs and exhibits on the museum floor. The project encourages learners to become active participants in activities, teaches broadly transferable learning skills such as investigating and interpreting, and supports learners in structured experiences outside the walls of the museum. The Everyday Explorations project will engage existing and new audiences in an inquiry learning cycle—asking questions, investigating, interpreting, and sharing—to help them better understand everyday phenomena in their homes and neighborhoods.

Botanical Garden, University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley, CA
Award Amount: $24,940; Applicant Match: $26,635
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Katherine Barrett
(510)642-8109; kdbarret@uclink.berkeley.edu
336 Sproul Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-5940

Project Title: "Interpretive Corridor Project - Connecting to Plants"
The University of California–Berkeley Botanical Garden will implement an interpretive corridor project, Connecting to Plants, through the most heavily visited area. The project will increase visitor understanding and appreciation of water-conserving plants and improve access for underserved audiences. It is a major component of the new entrance corridor, with interpretive signs and supporting tour brochures in English and Spanish that have been developed, tested, and modified with a diverse audience of visitors, teachers, and students. The project includes a formative evaluation cycle to test and improve signs and brochures, and addresses the garden mission to diversify its audience and increase public understanding and appreciation of waterwise plants and garden resources.

University of California, Davis, Arboretum - Davis, CA
Award Amount: $141,139; Applicant Match: $196,441
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Dr. Carmia Feldman
(530)754-5487; csfeldman@ucdavis.edu
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616-8526

Project Title: "Sustainable Horticulture for California's Central Valley"
The University of California–Davis Arboretum will develop and implement a multifaceted sustainable horticulture education and outreach program that will provide opportunities for visitors and online audiences to learn about regionally appropriate plants and environmentally sound horticultural practices. The program will present science-based information to a regional audience through expanded plant collections and display plantings; interpretive exhibits; a publication distributed at the arboretum and on the Web; exhibits and demonstrations; an expanded horticultural section on the arboretum website; and interpretation via portable digital devices (podcasts). The project will feature a series of Arboretum All-Stars—tough, reliable, low-water-use plants—and will teach about horticultural practices that conserve resources, such as mulching and efficient irrigation systems.

Fresno Art Museum - Fresno, CA
Award Amount: $149,176; Applicant Match: $420,383
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Nicole Gonzalez
(559)441-4221; nicole@fresnoartmuseum.org
2233 North First Street
Fresno, CA 93703-2364

Project Title: "Fresno Art Museum Latino Outreach Project"
The project is designed to create a lasting relationship between the Fresno Art Museum and the Hispanic/Latino community in central California. The museum will conduct an outreach campaign in the major Spanish-language media outlets; museum signs, brochures, and other print material will be translated into Spanish; and a Spanish-language Web page will be developed to create a more accessible experience for Spanish-speaking guests. The museum will leverage the resources of its partners to provide high-quality programming, including the Contemporaneo project, a Latino film festival, the Traveling Trunk mobile exhibition of pre-Columbian art, and visiting artists-in-residence. The focus on developing relationships ensures that the effects of the project will be felt long after program funding ends.

Hall of Health, Children's Hospital & Research Center at Oakland - Oakland, CA
Award Amount: $144,970; Applicant Match: $151,757
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Dr. Lucille Day
(510)549-9381; lucyday@hallofhealth.org
474 52nd Street
Oakland, CA 94609-1809

Project Title: "Community Programs Campaign at the Hall of Health"
To strengthen its role as a center of community engagement, the Hall of Health will implement a Community Programs campaign that will include the following events: (1) an open house for educators; (2) a Medical Mystery Festival for healthcare professionals and their families; (3) a multicultural health fair; (4) "The Brainiacs" Science Discovery Theatre; and (5) a quarterly lecture series for parents and educators. To ensure the long-term sustainability of these programs and the ability to develop new ones to meet community needs, membership benefits will be discussed at each event. A half-time coordinator will be hired to manage these programs, maintain the membership database, and write a quarterly newsletter for members.

Palo Alto Art Center - Palo Alto, CA
Award Amount: $69,650; Applicant Match: $70,556
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. Justin Greene
(650)329-2106; justin.green@cityofpaloalto.org
1313 Newell Road
Palo Alto, CA 94303-2909

Project Title: "2006-2007 Culturall Kaleidoscope Program"
Through its Cultural Kaleidoscope program, the Palo Alto Art Center will expose school-age children to the content and techniques of the arts, supplement and enrich the art curricula of surrounding school districts, build understanding of the artistic and cultural diversity in the community, and build value in the community for the arts as essential to education. Cultural Kaleidoscope partners K–5 classes with artists to implement a collaborative art project. Training and evaluation workshops ensure that artists and teachers understand state art education standards and create learning objectives that incorporate the standards. Artists teach classes, supervise art-making, and lead field trips. Curricula are distributed in hard copy and online in the school districts and beyond.

National Steinbeck Center - Salinas, CA
Award Amount: $137,611; Applicant Match: $160,850
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mrs. Tiffany DiTullio
(939)013-436; tiffanyd@steinbeck.org
One Main St
Salinas, CA 93901-3436

Project Title: "21st Century Steinbeck: Literacy, Learning & Linking"
The National Steinbeck Center (NSC) will expand educational programming, enhance its ability to support lifelong learning in a diverse community, and increase museum attendance. The NSC will expand the Steinbeck Young Authors program, which allows middle school students to explore the writing process and improve their writing skills. The museum will increase local student visits by 15 percent per year, which will strengthen its role in the community, foster a long-term appreciation of John Steinbeck, and stimulate an interest in lifelong learning. The NSC also will design and implement a state-of-the-art interactive website to engage and inform individuals, families, and students interested in learning more about John Steinbeck's world and the community outreach programs of the NSC.

California Academy of Sciences - San Francisco, CA
Award Amount: $149,760; Applicant Match: $162,152
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Dr. Terrence Gosliner
(415)321-8171; tgosliner@calacademy.org
875 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94103-3009

Project Title: "California Academy of Sciences Digital Tours (PodCASDT)"
While the California Academy of Sciences (CAS) rebuilds its aged facilities in Golden Gate Park, it has relocated to temporary quarters in downtown San Francisco. As part of a fundamental physical and programmatic transformation, CAS will explore new approaches to engage a broad spectrum of visitors in lifelong learning. CAS will prototype and evaluate content and infrastructure for self-guided audio tours for the public areas, focusing on the Steinhart Aquarium exhibits. The museum will use digital media players and make content accessible over the Internet and from kiosks in the galleries. Academy scientists will be paired with education staff to create the narratives, which will be available in both Spanish and English.

San Jose Museum of Art - San Jose, CA
Award Amount: $144,000; Applicant Match: $258,608
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. Gary Landis
(408)271-6865; glandis@sjmusart.org
110 South Market Street
San Jose, CA 95113-2307

Project Title: "GenNext: Deepening Young Adults' Engaement in the Arts"
The San Jose Museum of Art will more effectively engage Silicon Valley's diverse young adult community through GenNext: Deepening Young Adults' Engagement in the Arts, an initiative that targets 18- to 40-year-olds by creating new programs and affinity groups for this demographic. The intent is to attract young adults who will become more deeply engaged with the museum over time, eventually joining its membership ranks and strengthening its donor base. The museum will offer a progressively more intense continuum of programs at three broad levels to attract young adults and motivate them to advance from point-of-entry events through educational and experiential programs toward greater commitment to contemporary art in general and the museum in particular.

Discovery Science Center of Orange County - Santa Ana, CA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $179,688
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Janet Yamaguchi
(714)913-5005; jyamaguchi@discoverycube.org
2500 North Main Street
Santa Ana, CA 92705-6600

Project Title: "Cross Cultural Learning in an Informal Science Setting"
The Discovery Science Center (DSC) will hire a bilingual educator with experience working in the local Hispanic and education communities to facilitate community engagement processes and relationships; integrate multicultural learning across the DCS curriculum; increase collaboration with community groups and educators; make exhibits more accessible, inclusive, and educationally profitable; and develop targeted promotion and marketing plans with attention to cultural and ethnic factors. The DSC will identify and recruit Hispanic community resources/collaborators; increase the number of culturally specific programs; increase the number of Hispanic visitors by 15 percent in the first year and 25 percent in the second; and develop a multifaceted feedback loop/evaluation process that allows regular program refinement and expansion.

Santa Monica Pier Aquarium - Santa Monica, CA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $150,000
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Vicki Wawerchak
(310)393-6149x107; vwawerchak@healthebay.org
3220 Nebraska Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404-4214

Project Title: "Aquarium Field Trip Education Program Curriculum"
Heal the Bay's marine facility, the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, will expand its field trip curriculum to include grade-specific marine biology and environmental education topics for pre-K through fifth grade. The aquarium will also design a high school mentoring program that will relate directly to the new elementary curriculum and offer high school students the opportunity to partner with the aquarium to fulfill service learning requirements. Students will train as education docents and will help teach components of the elementary curriculum, write environmental education books to be read to elementary students, and help make the younger students aware of urban environmental issues. The program will promote lifelong marine science learning and environmental stewardship among all participating students.

Ventura County Museum of History and Art - Ventura, CA
Award Amount: $24,819; Applicant Match: $24,937
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Charles Johnson
(805)653-0323x13; library@venturamuseum.org
100 East Main Street
Ventura, CA 93001-2607

Project Title: "Glass Plate Negative Digitization Project"
The Ventura County Museum of History and Art will digitize 350 historically significant glass plate negatives and make them available to the public for the first time. The glass plate negatives, the majority of which were created by John Calvin Brewster, span the late 19th and early 20th centuries and comprehensively capture the region's development, cultural diversity, and land use during this period. The Brewster plates are important to researchers, but because of their fragile nature they have not been made fully accessible. Digitization will reduce the risk to fragile materials and promote longevity of the originals, while allowing access. The project furthers the museum's goal of making collections more accessible to researchers.

Colorado

Denver Museum of Nature and Science - Denver, CO
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $2,960,379
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Bryce Snellgrove
(303)370-8258; bryce.snellgrove@dmns.org
2001 Colorado Boulevard
Denver, CO 80205-8363

Project Title: "Hall of Life"
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science will renovate one of its most popular permanent exhibitions, “The Hall of Life” (HOL). HOL will use exhibits and gallery programs to promote scientific literacy and critical thinking skills. Multimedia, demonstrations, volunteers, and performances will provide visitors of all learning styles with access to cutting-edge health topics and ways to make healthy personal choices. The renovation will provide up-to-date information to support sound personal health choices, contribute to the narrowing of health disparities by reaching out to underserved audiences, highlight health topics that are unique to the Rocky Mountain region, and promote inquiry-based problem solving with health science lessons that support the Colorado Science Standards.

Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave - Golden, CO
Award Amount: $64,047; Applicant Match: $92,893
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Shelley Howe
(303)526-0744; shelley.howe@ci.denver.co.us
987 1/2 Lookout Mountain Road
Golden, CO 80401-9692

Project Title: "Increasing Collections Accessibility, Phase 3"
The museum will increase collections accessibility by creating a digital database for all objects. During a two-year period, 1,500 items will be photographed from different angles and distances, and entered into a preexisting Filemaker-Pro database program. A collections specialist will be hired to establish an appropriate recordkeeping system. She will train the staff in use of the system. All objects will be documented digitally, and the images will be combined with other documentation in a preexisting FileMaker Pro database system. Quarterly assessments will determine whether data entry is meeting staff and researcher needs. At the end of the project, the collections specialist will return to tie up loose ends and assist with creative problem solving.

Southern Ute Cultural Center - Ignacio, CO
Award Amount: $17,170; Applicant Match: $31,640
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Lynn Brittner
(970)563-9583; lbrittner@southern-ute.nsn.us
P.O. Box 737
Ignacio, CO 81137-0737

Project Title: "Development of a Collections Management System to Improve Intellectual Access to Ute Material Cultural "
The Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum will develop a management program to improve access to its collections. The project will enhance the museum’s capacity to find and preserve material culture and archives, document stories, take digital photographs, and develop the collections management program. The Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum has completed the first phase of the project—identifying the repositories, libraries, cultural institutions, museums, and personal collections that hold archival materials. It will hire two consultants who specialize in collections management, training, evaluation, and visitor services. The museum plans to build a new facility and create new exhibits and public programs, and aims to improve intellectual access by completing the inventory, entering shelf locations, and controlling the computerized database.

WOW! World Of Wonder Children's Museum - Lafayette, CO
Award Amount: $104,700; Applicant Match: $164,612
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Lisa Atallah
(303)604-2424; lisaa@wowmuseum.com
110 North Harison Avenue
Lafayette, CO 80026-2336

Project Title: "Implementation of Interpretive Plan - Science Exhibits and Programming"
WOW! Children's Museum will develop two clusters of science exhibits. The first cluster—“Light and Shadows”—will include a room painted with glow-in-the-dark paint and a photo-flash that "freezes" children's shadows on the wall, an Illumitune music synthesizer controlled by beams of light, and an activity with light beams that allows children to bend light. The second cluster—"Blowing in the Wind"—will include a wind tunnel where visitors can fly kites; an "air sorter" where children can experience the various characteristics of air; an "air toss" that illustrates the effects of air on objects (aerodynamics); and the "Bernoulli Blower," in which disks appear to levitate and balls are suspended in mid-air.

Telluride Historical Museum - Telluride, CO
Award Amount: $26,283; Applicant Match: $27,018
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Lauren Bloemsma van Nes
(970)728-3344; museum@telluridecolorado.net
P.O. Box 1597
Telluride, CO 81435-1597

Project Title: "Telluride Historical Museum - Telluride Unearthed"
The Telluride Historical Museum, in collaboration with the Pinhead Institute, will host an annual trio of humanities lectures titled "Telluride Unearthed." The lectures will focus on the Telluride region and will encourage intellectual discourse among local residents of all ages, heritage, and economic status. Lectures will be held at the Weatherford Room in the museum and will feature visiting scholars from the region and from the Smithsonian Institution and other institutions of higher learning. Each lecturer will be available for one day of class instruction at the Weatherford Room or in the schools. For each series, exhibits will be mounted at the Wilkinson Public Library and at the schools, highlighting relevant books and artifacts.

Connecticut

Fairfield Historical Society - Fairfield, CT
Award Amount: $105,931; Applicant Match: $112,106
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Adrienne Saint-Pierre
(203)259-1598; asaintpierre@fairfieldhs.org
636 Old Post Rd
Fairfield, CT 06824-6647

Project Title: "Moving the Museum and Library Collections of the Fairfield Historical Society"
The Fairfield Historical Society (FHS) will open the new Fairfield Museum and History Center. FHS will prepare and move its museum, library, and archival collections to the new facility and into offsite storage over 18 months. This project will implement a detailed move preparation plan and the design of new storage facilities. Museum and archival materials will be inventoried, and electronic records will be created and upgraded as needed. As they process artifacts and selected archival items, staff members will add digital images to the appropriate collection databases. Grant funds will be used for the materials, supplies, and equipment to support these activities—including computer and digital photography equipment—and to pay for professional library movers.

Mystic Seaport Museum - Mystic, CT
Award Amount: $147,444; Applicant Match: $150,710
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Alfred Calabretta
(860)572-0711x5168; fred.calabretta@mysticseaport.org
P.O. Box 6000
75 Greenmanville Avenue
Mystic, CT 06355-0990

Project Title: "Americans and the Sea: A Maritime Heritage Cataloging Project"
Detailed catalog records will be created for approximately 2,000 selected objects—including models, scrimshaw, and fishing and whaling gear, as well as paintings, prints, photographs, and posters—that reflect America's relationship with the sea and inland waterways. The objects will be numbered, measured, and documented, and records will be created in the museum's searchable collections database. All objects will be photographed in both film and digital formats. The film images will provide a secure preservation format; the digital images will be linked to the museum's collections database. They will be available immediately to in-house users and eventually on the museum’s website. Collections staff will provide basic conservation rehousing and proper storage for the newly cataloged objects.

Mystic Aquarium - Mystic, CT
Award Amount: $21,572; Applicant Match: $33,153
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Jonathan Scoones
(860)572-5955x129; jscoones@mysticaquarium.org
55 Coogan Blvd
Mystic, CT 06355-1997

Project Title: "Seal Rescue Clinic Innovative Exhibit Enrichment"
To reinforce the message of conservation and make visitors more aware of marine mammal strandings, the Mystic Aquarium will upgrade its “Seal Rescue Clinic” exhibit. The aquarium will install a multiple camera system that will allow visitors to see inside the quarantined Seal Rescue Clinic. Visitors will also be able to watch informative videos of seal rescues, rehabilitations, and releases. The project will create a more engaging exhibit interface, educate visitors about what to do in a stranding situation, illustrate the connections between stranded seals and the condition of the ocean, and convey ocean conservation lessons to visitors. The exhibit upgrade will bring visitors closer to these amazing animals than ever before while maintaining the quarantine environment.

SoundWaters - Stamford, CT
Award Amount: $149,880; Applicant Match: $194,880
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Dr. Leigh Shemitz
(203)323-1978; leighshemitz@soundwaters.org
Cove Island Park
1281 Cove Road
Stamford, CT 06902-5457

Project Title: "Coastal Community Project"
In year 1, SoundWaters will design and build a permanent exhibit focusing on the migration of horseshoe crabs and their presence in Long Island Sound. The exhibit will cover the horseshoe crab’s life cycle, horseshoe crabs in medical research, the prehistoric and geological time line of horseshoe crabs, and tagging programs that track migration. The museum will develop an educational curriculum that will be implemented onsite at Sound Waters' Center for Environmental Education, conduct horseshoe crab education sails on its schooner, and offer family programming and a Horseshoe Crab Festival. In year 2, the aquarium will develop an in-school curriculum and create a video of the horseshoe crab life cycle that will be available on the SoundWaters website.

Science Center of Connecticut - West Hartford, CT
Award Amount: $23,125; Applicant Match: $23,848
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. Hank Gruner
(860)231-2830x28; hgruner@sciencecenterct.org
950 Trout Brook Drive
West Hartford, CT 06119-1437

Project Title: "Boys and Girls Science and Technology Enrichment Program (BIG STEP)"
The Science Center will implement “BIG STEP: Boys and Girls Science and Technology Enrichment Program.” The summer program will consist of two activities a week for five weeks, providing 10 hours of science and technology education for participating children. Content will focus on weather and air pollution. The after-school program will consist of one activity a week for 18 weeks during the school year for elementary and middle school children participating in the programs. Science content and activities will be cross-referenced with the Connecticut Science Frameworks. Seven Boys and Girls Clubs have committed to the program; 100–150 children will participate in the summer program and 200–­250 in the after-school program.

Delaware

Historical Society of Delaware - Wilmington, DE
Award Amount: $74,201; Applicant Match: $76,227
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Stephanie Przbylek
(302)295-2383; sprzbylek@hsd.org
505 Market Street
Wilmington, DE 19801-3004

Project Title: "Hands on the Past: A Fresh Look"
The Historical Society of Delaware will conduct an evaluation of its school programs and modify them to better serve teachers and enhance history education for schoolchildren in Delaware. The goals are to provide better support to teachers, offer more engaging experiences for students, and design programs to take into schools. The Historical Society will draft an interpretation of Delaware's social studies education standards and conduct a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of current programs, revise programs to align with the standards, and create multiple copies of traveling and onsite program materials. The intent is to make history an integral and exciting learning experience for Delaware children, so they will understand its relevancy and become lifelong learners.

District of Columbia

Phillips Collection - Washington, DC
Award Amount: $97,411; Applicant Match: $97,486
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Suzanne Wright
(202)387-2152x215; swright@phillipscollection.org
1600 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20009-1003

Project Title: "Art links to Literacy"
Art Links to Literacy is an integrated, curriculum-based arts education program that uses art from the Phillips Collection to enhance learning, nurture creativity, and develop literacy skills. This highly successful outreach program offers direct services to local elementary school students and their parents/caregivers in low-income District of Columbia neighborhoods. The program comprises a four-session family program and a yearlong museum-school program that includes professional development for teachers and student art exhibitions. The programs use urban works of art featured in the museum's Art of the City Teaching Kit and related children's literature to address themes such as transportation and community and to connect art to other curriculum areas, such as social studies, language arts, and math.

National Trust for Historic Preservation - Washington, DC
Award Amount: $89,134; Applicant Match: $94,236
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Max van Balgooy
(202)588-6242; max_vanbalgooy@nthp.org
1785 Massachusetts Avenue, NW.
Washington, DC 20036-2117

Project Title: "New Perspectives for Interpretation at National Trust Historic Sites"
This project will support improved interpretation at four National Trust Historic Sites: Decatur House, Drayton Hall, Lyndhurst, and Shadows-on-the-Teche, all of which are actively involved in interpreting cultural heritage to a wide range of audiences, offer a diversity of environmental settings, and interpret historical themes of national significance. This project will have both immediate and long-term benefits in improving interpretation at these Historic Sites but will also create an exemplary process that will benefit the many historic sites throughout the country that seek its advice and assistance. This project contains several inter-related elements: a selected bibliography, research guide, one-day workshop with scholars with different perspectives, a set of scholarly essays, recommendations for future research, a one-day workshop on outcome-based interpretive planning, and an expanded on-site reference library.

Florida

Gifford Arboretum, University of Miami - Coral Gables, FL (Awarded March 2006)
Award Amount: $52,329; Applicant Match: $54,336
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Dr. Carol Horvitz
(305)284-5364; carolhorvitz@miami.edu
1204 Dickenson Drive
Bldg 37A
Coral Gables, FL 33146-5215

Project Title: "Lifelong Learning Project Needs Created by the 2005 Huricane Season at the Gifford"
This project will enhance the educational experience of visitors to the tropical families collection, the native collection, and the microbiome of the John C. Gifford Arboretum at the University of Miami. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma wreaked havoc on the arboretum’s living collections, killing more than 40 percent of the specimens. Post-storm cleanup further disrupted the terrain and the accessibility of the remaining specimens. This grant will help the arboretum (1) redesign and reestablish beds, walkways, and exhibits to improve the educational value of the collections; (2) develop interpretive signage and hands-on programs; and (3) publish a Spring 2007 Checklist of Plants, including maps and a guide to the exhibits. A landscape architect—in consultation with faculty, students, staff, and volunteers of the arboretum, and representatives of neighboring gardens—will design the plan. An experienced graduate student will develop educational materials for the exhibits, including hands-on programs. He will seek input from community members and from faculty of all departments that use the collections: Art, Architecture, Geology, and Environmental Science, in addition to Biology, the departmental “home” of the arboretum.

Young at Art of Broward - Davie, FL
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $170,686
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Mindy Shrago
(954)424-0085x21; mshrago@youngatartmuseum.org
11584 West State Road 84
Davie, FL 33325-4022

Project Title: "The Art Answer"
Young at Art will open a new museum and education complex in January 2009. In preparation, the museum will convene art and children's experts to develop a model for arts education in museums, shifting the paradigm from learning about art to using art for learning about history, cultures, politics, and society. This model will be integrated into a master plan for the design and development of the two main exhibition galleries: Signature Gallery—A History of Art and The Global Village. Young at Art will evaluate concepts with visitors in its current museum and work with an exhibit firm to design and build the galleries, and develop associated public and school programs.

Gulf Coast Heritage Association - Osprey, FL
Award Amount: $148,500; Applicant Match: $202,483
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Linda Mansperger
(941)966-5214x230; linda@historicspanishpoint.org
P. O. Box 846
Osprey, FL 34229-0846

Project Title: "Historic Spanish Point - Connecting People with our Community's Heritage"
The Gulf Coast Heritage Association (GCHA) will create educational programming and marketing strategies designed to increase the community's awareness of and participation in a wide variety of learning opportunities, and will employ the services of a marketing consultant and a graphic designer to create a new marketing plan for Historic Spanish Point. GCHA will examine visitor and nonvisitor profiles through written surveys and interviews; expand program offerings to better involve residents and tourists with the rich history of southwest coastal Florida; develop and implement a new marketing plan to attract a broader audience to Historic Spanish Point; and strive to fulfill its commitment to contribute to the community's sense of place by providing historical context.

Georgia

William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum - Atlanta, GA
Award Amount: $96,600; Applicant Match: $102,330
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Jane Leavey
(404)870-1861; jleavey@thebreman.org
1440 Spring Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30309-2832

Project Title: "Increasing Accessibility to the Jewish Experience in Georgia at The Breman"
Increasing Accessibility of the Jewish Experience in Georgia has two main activities: (1) processing 17 previously accessioned collections and rendering the content accessible for research and exhibition use, and (2) redesigning one of the museum's signature exhibitions to reflect the statewide collections. The goals are to improve accessibility and use of historically and culturally important oral histories and collections, and to engage constituents and visitors through the “Creating Community” exhibition. An assistant archivist will expedite the numbering, inventorying, cleaning, cataloging, and scanning of 17 collections and the transcribing, cataloging, and indexing of 20 oral histories. An exhibition designer will redesign the “Creating Community” exhibition to incorporate the newly processed materials into interactive, engaging learning environments.

Atlanta Fulton County Zoo, Incorporated - Atlanta, GA
Award Amount: $142,025; Applicant Match: $169,829
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Dr. Michelle Lakly
(404)624-5890; mlakly@zooatlanta.org
800 Cherokee Avenue, SE
Atlanta, GA 30315-1440

Project Title: "Community Connections for Conservation"
Zoo Atlanta’s Community Connections for Conservation initiative will expand two of its signature education programs: ZooMobile and Volunteens. These programs offer learning experiences to more than 6,000 school-age children to foster a greater appreciation for animals, biodiversity, and animal care, while promoting stewardship and conservation. The ZooMobile takes the zoo to the classroom. It uses live animals and biofacts to offer age-appropriate, multidisciplinary learning to K–12 students, primarily in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Volunteen is a year-round leadership and skill-building program for teens between the ages of 13 and 17 years. The teens serve in various areas at the zoo, such as exhibit interpretation, husbandry, horticulture, Summer Safari day camp, administration, and special events.

Fernbank Science Center - Decatur, GA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $422,324
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Dr. Ralph Buice
(678)874-7102; ralph.buice@fernbank.edu
3770 North Decatur Road
Building A&B
Decatur, GA 30032-1005

Project Title: "Summer Outreach Program"
Fernbank Science Center will increase its capacity and meet community demand by establishing weekend, summer, and after-school outreach to the general public and other targeted groups. The project will move an existing staff member into the new position of public outreach coordinator and hire a new teacher to replace that staff member. Staff will create a comprehensive public outreach program by adapting programs and exhibits that are already in place onsite or in use in schools. Project activities will include evaluation, meeting with community groups, developing programs and exhibits, recruiting volunteers, training staff and volunteers, printing brochures, conducting targeted PR, making the case for financial support to sustain the project, and performing a final evaluation.

Bulloch Hall - Roswell, GA
Award Amount: $25,952; Applicant Match: $26,627
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Pam Billingsley
(770)992-1731; pbillingsley@ci.roswell.ga.us
180 Bulloch Avenue
Roswell, GA 30075-4420

Project Title: "Bulloch Hall Furnishings Plan"
This project will consist of two main phases: (1) background research and (2) the creation of a comprehensive furnishings plan. Research will be conducted into the lives of the James Stephens Bulloch family and their enslaved household servants during their occupation of Bulloch Hall from c. 1839 to 1856, and into the goods and furnishings used in Georgia in the 1850s. The furnishings plan will cover the rooms on the first floor, the children's bedroom on the second floor, and the kitchen and cold storage area on the ground floor. The plan will include a description of the occupants; a floor plan; and suggestions for all proposed furnishings, both in the existing collection and items to be purchased.

Georgia Historical Society - Savannah, GA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $169,501
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Nora Galler
(912)651-2125; NGaller@geogiahistory.com
501 Whitaker Street
Savannah, GA 31401-4830

Project Title: "Expanding Audiences for History: Access for a New Century"
The Georgia Historical Society (GHS) will increase its ability to offer patrons an online public access catalog (OPAC) and a multifunctional Web presence able to sustain an online catalog, searchable databases, comprehensive online exhibits, and interactive educational tools. GHS will conduct a two-year project, Expanding Audiences for History: Access for a New Century, to (1) create unprecedented access to its archival collections and educational offerings; (2) streamline its library services; and (3) reach a larger audience for history. To reach a larger audience in Georgia and beyond, GHS will implement an OPAC as part of an integrated library system and will launch a content-rich, user-friendly website to provide access to the OPAC and other educational services.

Idaho

Idaho Botanical Garden - Boise, ID
Award Amount: $29,390; Applicant Match: $34,726
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Rod Burke
(208)343-8649; rod@idahobotanicalgarden.org
P.O. Box 2140
Boise, ID 83701-8252

Project Title: "Plant Collection Management System"
The Idaho Botanical Garden will develop a system for accessioning, cataloging, and tracking new and existing plants and will begin building a plant collections database. The head of horticulture will write plant management policies and create the forms necessary for plant accession, maintenance, and database record changes, using the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta and the Darwin Technical Manual for Botanic Gardens as resources. Global Positioning System equipment will be purchased and used to determine specimen location, allowing maps of plant collections to be created. A part-time plant record technician will collect data concerning botanical garden plants, place plant collection information in the database, update the database as needed, and create embossed accession tags.

Idaho Museum of Natural History, Idaho State University - Pocatello, ID
Award Amount: $32,861; Applicant Match: $41,649
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Linda Deck
(208)282-5417; decklind@isu.edu
921 South 8th Ave.
Campus Box 8046
Pocatello, ID 83209-8046

Project Title: "IMNH on the Road"
The Idaho Museum of Natural History will create a self-sustaining traveling exhibits program. "IMNH on the Road" will reach out to communities across Idaho and the surrounding area that would not otherwise be able to learn about Idaho's natural and cultural history. A long-term, dedicated traveling exhibits program will allow IMNH to provide sustained offerings to a wide variety of institutions throughout the state and the region. IMNH staff members will use best practices to create engaging interactive exhibits that are easy to set up and interpret. Staff will develop all necessary procedures and protocols for the program, and will create a prototype exhibit. Marketing, public relations, and educational materials will be created to accompany the exhibit.

Illinois

Health World of Barrington - Barrington, IL
Award Amount: $100,000; Applicant Match: $271,876
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Kimberly Zylke
(847)842-9100x233; kzylke@healthworldmuseum.org
1301 South Grove Avenue
Barrington, IL 60010-5237

Project Title: "'In Your Class' Outreach Program"
In response to the dramatic increase in demand from Chicagoland educators and school administrators for in-school education services, Health World created In Your Class outreach programming. In Your Class is an extension of Health World's structured classroom programming, supported by interactive exhibits, teaching models, and hands-on activities. The program is designed specifically for offsite classroom learning. The majority of students served through this program cannot visit Health World because of transportation and associated costs for field trips. Statistically speaking, these are the communities that are most in need of health education programs. The outreach programs are led by Health World educators and directly support state and national health and science standards.

Chicago Zoological Society - Brookfield, IL
Award Amount: $149,415; Applicant Match: $681,132
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Dana Murphy
(708)485-0263x452; damurphy@brookfieldzoo.org
3300 South Golf Road
Brookfield, IL 60513-1095

Project Title: "Youth Conservation & Leadership Program"
The Chicago Zoological Society will expand its Youth Conservation and Science Leadership Program and leverage strong relationships in the communities it serves, to encourage scientific aptitude and an enduring interest in conservation among young people. The program focuses on improving science education for participants and increasing diversity among conservation leaders. Every step in this career pipeline is designed to inspire and directly encourage conservation leadership. It provides a progression of opportunities that inspire youth to develop leadership skills, develop confidence in their abilities, and expand their professional horizons through scientific exploration. The program will offer paid and unpaid internships, provide support for economically disadvantaged participants, and target additional culturally diverse communities for recruitment.

Science Center - Carbondale, IL
Award Amount: $60,176; Applicant Match: $60,267
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mrs. Pamela Madden
(618)303-7561; fun@yoursciencecenter.org
1237 East Main Space C-3
Carbondale, IL 62901-3148

Project Title: "WINGS FOR SUCCESS"
The Science Center will develop its program in three phases, with some phases running concurrently. In phase 1, the donated cockpit simulator will be renovated both inside and out, and new electronics will be purchased and installed. In phase 2, programs will be developed, piloted, and evaluated. The programs are Camp Aero (summer camp), Wings (after-school programs), and Families in Flight (special programs and workshops for educators and organizations). In phase 3, the simulator will be upgraded with enhancements and a cargo carrier will be purchased for outreach mobility.

Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum - Chicago, IL
Award Amount: $67,000; Applicant Match: $189,282
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Nancy Villafranca
(312)738-1503x143; nancy@mfacmchicago.org
1852 West 19th Street
Chicago, IL 60608-2706

Project Title: "Understanding the Next Wave: Mexican Women Artists and Nahui Olin"
Understanding the Next Wave is a series of educational programs, many by and for women, that focus on the museum's original exhibitions, “Mexican Women Artists” and “Nahui Olin.” The programs include art workshops in schools and libraries on the history of the women artists in the exhibitions; Family Days at the museum, focusing on women's roles in Mexico and women's art; multigenerational art classes; classes for young women at Yollocalli Arts Reach—the museum's after-school art program—and at Yollocalli's satellites throughout the Chicago metro area; and a curriculum for high school classrooms—free for Chicago public schools—that is suitable for teaching art, social studies, history, art history, women's studies, Latino studies, or Spanish.

Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance - Chicago, IL
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $297,171
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. David Snyder
(773)638-1766x15; dsynder@garfieldpark.org
300 North Central Park
Chicago, IL 60624-1945

Project Title: "Comprehensive Interpretive Plan"
The Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance will establish consistent interpretive goals and messages, and produce state-of-the-art interpretive vehicles to communicate those messages. The alliance will draft a comprehensive interpretive plan and develop a searchable online database of the plant collection, including a user-friendly visitor orientation. The alliance will also develop a historical exhibit in celebration of the conservatory's centennial in 2008. The main objective of the project is to ensure that the messages and vehicles are relevant to residents of the predominantly African American and Latino/a communities on the west side of Chicago. The plan will be a new model for conservatory collection interpretation, creating an interpretation style that meets the needs of nontraditional botanic garden visitors.

Kohl Children's Museum - Glenview, IL
Award Amount: $148,500; Applicant Match: $594,989
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Mary Trieschmann
(847)832-6870; mtrieschmann@kohlchildrensmuseum.org
2100 Patriot Blvd.
Glenview, IL 60026-8018

Project Title: "Habitat Park"
The Kohl Children’s Museum will create Habitat Park, an interactive outdoor exhibit area. To inform and guide the design of the park, the museum will concentrate on the following key elements: complement and integrate the existing landscape with the new outdoor exhibits; focus on natural elements, including water, earth, sun, and wind; provide multisensory stimulation through plants and other natural elements; provide opportunities to explore animal habitats and shelters; and create a flexible demonstration area to accommodate nature-related programming. An advisory team, including museum staff and community members, will confirm the design direction. A design firm will create conceptual design documents and, after they are approved, final drawings for the interactive elements of the park.

Children's Discovery Museum - Normal, IL
Award Amount: $130,055; Applicant Match: $135,065
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Shari Buckellew
(309)433-3447; sbuckellew@normal.org
100 East Phoenix Avenue
Normal, IL 61761-3018

Project Title: "Agriculture Exhibit Supplemental Programming and Exhibit Installation"
The Children's Discovery Museum, the McLean County Farm Bureau Foundation, and the University of Illinois Corporative Extensive Service Foundation will partner to develop a hands-on agricultural exhibit gallery where visitors can immerse themselves in the world of agriculture. Family farms have decreased by over 50 percent in the past four decades, and agriculture curriculum in schools is declining or has been eliminated. The partners are committed to familiarizing the general public with the origins of food and helping them understand the interconnectedness of the world. The exhibit will be designed to engage the visitor in an immersive environment that uses collaboration, interaction, and exploration. The partners also will develop supplemental programming and a curriculum component.

Children's Museum of Oak Park - Oak Park, IL
Award Amount: $67,679; Applicant Match: $67,967
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Shira Belenke
(708)383-4815; sbelenke@wonder-works.org
6445 West North Avenue
Oak Park, IL 60302-1009

Project Title: "Membership and Visitor Diversification"
Wonder Works will conduct a diversification and expansion program to recruit more African American and Latino families as museum visitors and members. The museum will increase its capacity to serve as a center of community engagement by first assessing the interests of diverse populations and then developing and presenting strong programming of interest to them. The museum will strengthen connections with the various ethnic groups in its target area in an effort to attract and retain new community audiences, many of whom may not be traditional museum users. Activities will include holding focus groups, presenting programs at community fairs and events, recruiting by direct mail in targeted communities, and marketing to schools and park districts.

Discovery Center Museum - Rockford, IL
Award Amount: $105,050; Applicant Match: $105,484
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mrs. Sarah Wolf
(815)963-6769; sarahw@discoverycentermuseum.org
711 N. Main Street
Rockford, IL 61103-6990

Project Title: "Nanoscale Science Education Initiative"
Over three years, the Nanoscale Science Initiative will develop new programming and market it to the public and educators. The museum will develop content for three teacher workshops on nanoscale science, technology applications, and career opportunities; develop educational materials for teacher workshops; develop content for museum programming and hands-on activities for its after-school, home school, and Scout badge workshops, and for general public programs; train staff and Youth Experiencing Science volunteers to manage and present the programs; develop three permanent exhibit components that will enhance existing exhibitions on nanoscale science principles and related technology; and provide nanoscale science experiments, make-and-take activities, reading material, and signage for Nanoscale Science Learning Nooks in six regional libraries.

Midway Village and Museum Center - Rockford, IL
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $216,192
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Daniel Bartlett
(815)397-9112x103; danb@midwayvillage.com
6799 Guilford Road
Rockford, IL 61107-2613

Project Title: "Breathing Life into History"
In Breathing Life into History, Midway Village and Museum Center will be more inclusive in the stories it tells and will design exhibits that will appeal to nontraditional museum audiences who prefer to learn in ways other than through visual/reading techniques. With the assistance of faculty and students from Northern Illinois University, the museum will complete an oral history project, capturing the stories of residents who have migrated to the area from overseas or other parts of the country. The museum will use the oral histories to design an interactive exhibit about Rockford's immigrant communities, looking at the experiences of different immigrant groups over time, the development of ethnic communities, and the processes of assimilation.

Illinois State Museum Society - Springfield, IL
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $266,982
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Dr. Bonnie Styles
(217)782-7011; styles@museum.state.il.us
502 South Spring Street
Springfield, IL 62706-5000

Project Title: "The Play Museum"
The Illinois State Museum will increase its capacity to stimulate lifelong learning and fulfill a major strategic objective by creating the Play Museum—a thematically integrated, play-themed, hands-on discovery center at its main public facility in Springfield. The Play Museum will serve as a pilot and centerpiece for a larger discovery center planned as part of a museum expansion. It will engage visitors in authentic museum staff roles—they will "become" artists, archaeologists, historians, natural scientists, curators, educators, and exhibit designers. They will collect specimens, care for objects, interpret objects, create their own works of art, and design and build exhibits. Trained docents and free workshops will encourage adults to interact and explore with their children.

Indiana

General Lew Wallace Study and Museum - Crawfordsville, IN
Award Amount: $72,517; Applicant Match: $92,621
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko
(765)362-5769; study@wico.net
922 E. South Bouldevard
Crawfordsville, IN 47933-0662

Project Title: "Engaging the Community through Planned Educational Objectives"
The General Lew Wallace Study and Museum is a small history museum and historic site with limited staffing. With funding for a full-time director, the museum will be able to offer engaging lifelong learning opportunities to the residents of Montgomery County, Indiana, and surrounding areas. The support will allow the museum to implement its five-year education plan, which is aligned with its strategic plan. The museum will develop and integrate educational activities into regular changing exhibits, develop new programming, and provide classroom materials and resources for local educators.

Carroll County Historical Society and Museum - Delphi, IN
Award Amount: $12,295; Applicant Match: $12,300
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mrs. Phyllis Moore
(765)564-3152; phyllismoore@carrollcountymuseum.org
101 West Main Street
P.O. Box 277
Delphi, IN 46923-1566

Project Title: "Historical Documents and Records Preservation"
To preserve historical documents and records, the Carroll County Historical Society and Museum will purchase needed technology equipment and develop an indexing database. The museum will hire a project staff of two to digitally preserve and make accessible online the historical documents, writings, journals, and ledgers of General Samuel Milroy, John C. Odell, and Jesse Sharp, as well as the Civil War diaries of James Sharp. The museum will enter 4,000 obituaries and 24,000 wills into the database. The database will be accessible to the public via a public access workstation in the museum and an online database on the museum's website. Information specialists and educators will evaluate the success of the project.

Children's Museum of Indianapolis - Indianapolis, IN
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $379,155
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Jennifer Pace Robinson
(317)334-3834; jenniferp@childrensmuseum.org
P.O. Box 3000
Indianapolis, IN 46206-3000

Project Title: "The Power of Children: Making a Difference"
The museum will design a permanent exhibit, "The Power of Children:Making a Difference," that includes live theater, historical environments, and real artifacts to introduce families to three children who had an incredible impact on American history: Ann Frank, Ruby Bridges, and Ryan White. The exhibit will be seen by as many as 20 million children, families, and teachers over the next 20 years. The entrance will feature video clips and electronic time lines introducing the three children. Historically accurate environments will be created with first-person interpreters. Visitors will interact with thought-provoking, hands-on activities directly related to each child's story. Exhibit outreach will include multidisciplinary units of study and virtual experiences on the museum website.

Ball State University Museum of Art - Muncie, IN
Award Amount: $145,835; Applicant Match: $153,352
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Dr. Ruta Saliklis
(765)285-5270; rtsaliklis@bsu.edu
Contracts and Grans Office
2000 West University Avenue
Muncie, IN 47306-0002

Project Title: "DIDO: Digital Images Delivered Online"
Ball State University Museum of Art (BSUMA) will digitize 10,000 artworks over a two-year period. Digitized images will be made available through BSUMA's collections management database and over the Internet through the BSU Digital Library Initiative. BSUMA's existing collections management database will be converted to Va program that will allow museum staff to have greater control over the database and greater ease in using it in day-to-day operations. The project will allow BSUMA to better care for its collection of 11,000 artworks. In addition, the project is of utmost importance in helping BSUMA achieve its strategic goals of providing greater access to the collection and greater awareness of the museum's holdings to a wider audience.

Iowa

Mathias Ham House, Dubuque County Historical Society - Dubuque, IA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $150,000
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Tacie Campbell
(563)557-9545; tcampbell@rivermuseum.com
P.O. Box 266
Dubuque, IA 53701-2302

Project Title: "At the Lead Mines"
Through a wide variety of activities appropriate for all age groups, At the Lead Mines will explore the role Dubuque and its miners played in the first mining rush in the United States. Learning activities at the Mathias Ham House Historic Site will tell the story of life at the mines, including socioeconomic history and settlement patterns. The project will attract visitors to the site and offer outreach activities through an interactive website and cable access television programming. It will create lead mining curricula to help schools fulfill local history requirements. Oral histories will be collected from the few remaining lead miners and entered into the archives of the Captain Bowell River Library.

Kansas

Kansas Museum of History - Topeka, KS
Award Amount: $69,326; Applicant Match: $121,658
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Donna Pearson
(785)272-8681x452; dpearson@kshs.org
6425 SouthWest 6th Avenue
Topeka, KS 66615-1099

Project Title: ""Kansas Collects" Museum Partnership for Community Sngagement Through Active Collecting"
The Kansas Museum of History will implement a partnership through which historical agencies around the state will cooperate in community cultivation and resource sharing. The project involves (1) planning, developing, promoting, and implementing six community collecting events distributed geographically around the state; (2) offering training to the Kansas museum community on preparing a collections development plan; and (3) launching Kansas Collects, a shared digital repository of collections information. Partner museums will learn how to identify local contacts and resources, host community education events, and publicize their needs through the media. A workshop and individual training sessions will help partner museums develop their own collections development plans. The collaborative database will be available to all Kansas museums.

Louisiana

Louisiana State Museum Foundation - New Orleans, LA(Awarded March 2006)
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $275,951
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Anne Atkinson
(504)558-0493; aatkinson@lmf1.org
828 Royal Street
New Orleans, LA 70116-3199

Project Title: "Louisiana State Museum Educational Development Laboratory"
The Louisiana State Museum seeks to provide enhanced statewide educational services in spite of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the evacuation of the museum's education center in New Orleans. This grant will enable the museum to fast-track the development of the planned Educational Development Laboratory (EdLab), a comprehensive, statewide museum education initiative headquartered at the Baton Rouge Capitol Park Branch. EdLab will serve the educational needs of learners of all ages and enhance the state museum's infrastructure and technology to serve larger, more diverse audiences more effectively. The project will use current educational research and scholarship to produce a blueprint for exhibits and collections; provide extended and enhanced educational services; and strengthen cultural and historical education in Louisiana. EdLab will serve students, teachers, scholars, families, community groups, and visitors to the state through exhibits, education programs, presentation and lecture series, and Internet projects. EdLab staff and technology will support the opening of new and expanded museum facilities, produce exhibit-specific education materials for state museum collections and branch museums, and create a cadre of trained K–12 and museum educators to assist with future programs.

Louisiana Children's Museum - New Orleans, LA(Awarded March 2006)
Award Amount: $148,200; Applicant Match: $149,000
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Julia Bland
(504)586-0725x201; jbland@lcm.org
420 Julia Street
New Orleans, LA 70130

Project Title: "Re-Connecting, Re-Engaging, Re-Building"
The Louisiana Children's Museum, in an effort to address the urgent need to ensure the well-being of our children and families, will begin a program entitled “Re-Connecting, Re-Engaging, Re-Building.” The museum has long served as a center for community engagement and had a director of community engagement on the staff for a one-year period in 2005. The focus of her work was to use the museum's strengths, the directives of its strategic plan, and input from the community to create a new initiative on the well-being of families. The research for the initiative was completed in July 2005. With Katrina's impact on New Orleans, the initiative is not only timely but desperately needed. The Children’s Museum will celebrate the diverse cultural heritage of Louisiana's arts, music, and literature through play and play therapy; and will employ a child psychologist/play therapist to address critical needs of families in the community.

Contemporary Arts Center - New Orleans, LA(Awarded March 2006)
Award Amount: $64,594; Applicant Match: $743,018
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. John Weigel
(504)528-3805; jweigel@cacno.org
900 Camp Street
New Orleans, LA 70130-3908

Project Title: "Rebuilding and Renewal of the Arts in New Orleans"
The Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) presents visual and performing arts programming that serves the community and supports local artists. CAC will launch the New Orleans Center for Art and Technology (NOCAT). Based on a similar program in Pittsburgh, NOCAT will (1) provide low-income, high-risk secondary students with arts training that will motivate them to finish high school and go on to college, and (2) train underemployed adults in skills that will make them invaluable to the economic redevelopment of the city. CAC will also support the community’s efforts to rebound by hosting community events and serving on advisory boards to formulate the policies that will determine the future of the arts and culture in New Orleans. CAC will welcome displaced arts organizations into its space and provide them with organizational infrastructure.

Maine

Maine State Museum - Augusta, ME
Award Amount: $149,939; Applicant Match: $152,436
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Dr. Paula Work
(207)287-6635; paula.work@maine.gov
83 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0083

Project Title: "Maine Science Collections Curatorial Assessment (MaineSCCA)"
Maine law governing the management of science collections, with a few exceptions, identifies the Maine State Museum (MSM) as the trustee for all artifacts, specimens, and materials found on, in, or beneath state-controlled lands. Additional statutory language broadens MSM’s responsibility to include the care of collections transferred from other state agencies. The two-year Maine Science Collections Curatorial Assessment (MaineSCCA) will provide a statewide assessment of science collections (primarily biological and geological) held by state-funded institutions, including universities, to gain intellectual control over these materials. MaineSCCA will allow MSM to develop a coordinated strategy to ensure the long-term care of and access to Maine's invaluable—and, in many cases, imperiled—science collections.

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens - Boothbay, ME
Award Amount: $107,624; Applicant Match: $275,017
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Maureen Heffernan
(207)633-4333; mheffernan@mainegardens.org
P.O. Box 234
Boothbay, ME 04537-0234

Project Title: "Plants, People, Place: Interpreting the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens"
Plants, People, Place: Interpreting the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens will allow Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (CMBG) to provide visitors with a better understanding of gardening and horticulture, the native plants of Maine and New England, and the vital role cultivated and wild plants play in their lives. The project will include staff development to build institutional capacity for interpretation and signage; design, development, and evaluation of a range of specific interpretive and wayfinding approaches and devices; and implementation of fully designed and tested signage for the central gardens. CMBG will create a new permanent staff position, coordinator of interpretation, and will hire an interpretive consultant to help create and implement an interpretive and wayfinding master plan.

Hudson Museum, University of Maine - Orono, ME
Award Amount: $96,265; Applicant Match: $96,413
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Gretchen Faulkner
(207)581-1904; gretchen@umit.maine.edu
Office of Sponsored Research
5717 Corbett Hall
Orono, ME 04469-5717

Project Title: "Gifts from Gluskabe: Documenting Maine Indian Material Culture"
The Hudson Museum and the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance will document artistic traditions represented in the museum's material culture collections. The project will focus on 20 artists who are masters of their traditions—brown ash and sweetgrass basketry, birch bark containers and canoe making, carving, and beadwork. These art forms will be documented and recorded, showing how materials are gathered, processed, and prepared, and the techniques and technologies used to produce them. Audio and video clips will be made available on the Hudson Museum website and the LD 291 website, which supports the teaching of Maine Indian history and culture, as well as through the Windows on Maine project and in the museum on handheld devices.

Maryland

Walters Art Museum - Baltimore, MD
Award Amount: $123,225; Applicant Match: $351,440
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Jacquline Copeland
(410)547-9000x231; jcopeland@thewalters.org
600 North Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21201-5185

Project Title: "Ancient Interface: Connecting with the Past"
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, will host Ancient Interfaces: Connecting to the Past. This celebration of its world-class collection of ancient and classical art includes educational activities for children, students, and adults; publications; a major special exhibition, "Reviving Ancient Glass"; and the launch of online access to ancient collection information, images, and curriculum-driven educational resources. Designed to encourage a variety of learning styles, the program fosters investigation of the past by building connections with the present.

Goldsmith Museum, Chizuk Amuno Congregation - Baltimore, MD
Award Amount: $59,577; Applicant Match: $60,034
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Susan Vick
(410)486-6400x191; svick@chizukamuno.org
8100 Stevenson Road
Baltimore, MD 21208

Project Title: "Preserving Our Heritage - Archives Management"
The Goldsmith Museum serves as the central repository for information and records created by, for, and about Chizuk Amuno Congregation - one of America's oldest synagogue communities. With funds from IMLS, the Goldsmith Museum will design and implement a collection management system to gain intellectual control over its archival materials, a collection that spans more than 130 years. During this two-year project, the Museum will embark on a multi-step process to systematically identify, collect, arrange, describe, and catalogue the thousands of archival items currently scattered throughout the synagogue campus. Although the Museum's artifacts are electronically inventoried, this project represents the first effort to compile records of its archival collection.

Historical Society of Frederick County - Frederick, MD
Award Amount: $60,000; Applicant Match: $61,396
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. Mark Hudson
(301)663-1188; mhudson@hsfcinfo.org
24 East Church Street
Frederick, MD 21701-5402

Project Title: "The Community Archives Project"
In the Community Archives Project, an archivist will work with five civic and cultural organizations to institute sound archival management practices to preserve the unique records in their care. The project will focus on consultation, collection, and archival processing. First, the archivist will consult with the organizations to create an inventory of records, develop retention schedules, and identify records of historical value. In phase 2, records identified for deposit will be transported to the Heritage Preservation Center. In phase 3, the archivist, working with the historical society's library staff, will process the collections and create finding aids to the materials. The goal is to preserve and make available to researchers these chronicles of local history.

Captain Salem Avery House Museum - Shady Side, MD
Award Amount: $24,857; Applicant Match: $27,149
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Barry Kessler
(410)685-1273; bakessler@aol.com
P.O. Box 89
Shady Side, MD 20764-0089

Project Title: ""Our Place" - Documenting the Story of the National Masonic Fishing and Country Club"
The Shady Side Rural Heritage Society (SSRHS) will research the story of the National Masonic Fishing and Country Club. The society's historic site—the Captain Salem Avery House—was originally the home of a waterman during the heyday of Chesapeake Bay oystering, but a second era began in the 1920s, when a group of mostly Jewish Masons from Washington, D.C., bought the house and founded the National Masonic Fishing and Country Club. Club members and their families spent weekends and summers there until it was sold to SSRHS in 1989 for use as a local history museum The project will include research, an exhibition, and an interpretive brochure describing the club’s founding members.

Massachusetts

Nichols House Museum - Boston, MA
Award Amount: $58,695; Applicant Match: $58,955
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Flavia Cigliano
(617)227-6993; nhm@earthlink.net
55 Mount Vernon Street
Boston, MA 02108-1330

Project Title: "Collection Inventory, Accessioning and Cataloguing"
The museum will inventory and catalog its entire permanent collection of 2,300 objects: wooden furnishings, textiles, porcelains and glass, metal objects, prints, photographs, and paintings. All the objects would have been part of a typical late 1880s professional-class Boston household. The 10-month project will involve a consultant, cataloger, museum staff, interns, volunteers, board members, and the community. It will require software, a dedicated computer for the catalog, and a digital camera to record the images of the collection. The catalog will provide a better understanding of the relevance of this collection to Boston's history. A complete inventory and catalog will address the important question of collection security and are essential best practices in museum management.

New England Aquarium - Boston, MA
Award Amount: $148,863; Applicant Match: $154,409
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Dr. William Spitzer
(617)973-6567; bspitzer@neaq.org
Central Wharf
Boston, MA 02110-3399

Project Title: "New England Aquarium Theme Team Programs"
Using existing collections and the expertise of staff from multiple departments, the Theme Team Programs will allow the aquarium to attract visitors, achieve education goals, and promote conservation of the world of water, while saving the expense of bringing in a temporary exhibit or acquiring new animals. From August 2006 through February 2008, the aquarium will run four themes, each for four months: Penguins, Sustainable Seafood, Marine Mammals, and Seamounts. Various activities and interpretive materials will target audiences of all ages and levels of interest. The activities will include interaction with visitor educators, passport stamping stations throughout the aquarium, interpretive panels, hands-on activities, lectures, films, curriculum materials for school groups, and website activities for additional learning.

Paul Revere House - Boston, MA
Award Amount: $74,500; Applicant Match: $109,136
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Nina Zannieri
(617)523-2338; nina@paulreverehouse.org
19 North Square
Boston, MA 02113-2405

Project Title: "Enhancing, Evaluating and Sustaining Interpretive Excellence"
Site interpretation is the primary public program and the main avenue for sharing the museum’s collections and knowledge base with a significant and growing number of people. This project will build on current, effective practices with expanded staff training, new research, and augmented content delivery mechanisms. The project will refine and expand the interpretive training program to increase staff competency, increase opportunities for training and development, fund new research in areas identified by staff, use technology to improve access to content resources for staff and the public, and systematically measure staff effectiveness and the visitor experience. The project comprises a series of components focused on sustaining cultural heritage by improving interpretive programs through enhancements to key operations.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - Boston, MA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $176,554
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Margaret Burchenal
(617)278-5123; mburchenal@isgm.org
2 Palace Road
Boston, MA 02115-5807

Project Title: "Reframing the Gardner"
Reframing the Gardner will make the museum more accessible to visitors by tailoring materials to meet different interests and levels of expertise. The museum will address the educational needs of first-time visitors; extend resources through its website; and reach out to non-English-speaking visitors. The museum will create a range of educational resources; currently available resources will be revised and updated; new room guides will be created and installed in every gallery; two new family guides to the museum will be published; selected resources will be translated into languages other than English; and many materials will be available for download from the website, so visitors can prepare in advance or follow up after their visit.

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park - Lincoln, MA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $177,210
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Lisa Silagyi
(781)259-3601; lsilagyi@decordova.org
51 Sandy Pond Road
Lincoln, MA 01773-2600

Project Title: "Please Touch! Interactive Models for Learning"
DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park will implement Please Touch! Interactive Models for Learning, a program to refine and increase interactive learning for visitors by improving the interpretive presence in the Process Gallery, the Art ExperienCenter, and the Dewey Family Gallery. The three-year program will include the following activities: documenting an interpretive plan, research plan, and exhibition schedule for the spaces that support the museum's long-range plan; experimenting with different exhibit designs, formats, technology, and media in the Process Gallery; using data from experimentation in the Process Gallery to inform improvements in the Art ExperienCenter; and documenting the evaluation and redesign processes in the Process Gallery and the Art ExperienCenter to serve as a national model.

Norman Rockwell Museum - Stockbridge, MA
Award Amount: $148,625; Applicant Match: $200,968
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Martin Mahoney
(413)298-4100x262; mmahoney@nrm.org
P.O. Box 308
9 Glendale Road
Stockbridge, MA 01262-0308

Project Title: "Norman Rockwell Museum Collection Care and Access Project"
The Norman Rockwell Museum will protect and disseminate the cultural heritage of 20th century American artist Norman Rockwell by hiring two collections interns to inventory and catalog the museum’s voluminous art and archival collections. The funds will also support the museum's goal of providing online accessibility for scholarly and general research with the addition of a webmaster, Web access software, and the design and architectural framework necessary to create a searchable database for a worldwide audience.

Robert Treat Paine Historical Trust - Waltham, MA
Award Amount: $52,235; Applicant Match: $52,235
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Ann Clifford
(781)314-3291; aclifford@city.waltham.ma.us
Stonehurst
100 Robert Treat Paine Drive
Waltham, MA 02452-4758

Project Title: "Design Exhibits and Property Signage for Stonehurst, the Robert Treat Paine Estate"
Created in 1886, the 109-acre Stonehurst estate embodies the flowering of American culture and the optimism of the American Renaissance. The Robert Treat Paine Historical Trust will strengthen connections with visitors to this historic house museum through exhibits and signage. Project components are creating a visual identity for Stonehurst, designing interior exhibits, and developing and implementing a landscape interpretation and signage plan. The estate will become a scientific and historical learning center for a local urban population that otherwise has limited access to greenspace. The site's interpretive message will welcome visitors and inspire them to think about the power of memory and place, and about the historical, natural, and cultural resources that enhance community.

Gore Place - Waltham, MA
Award Amount: $16,205; Applicant Match: $19,045
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Susan Katz
(781)894-2798; susankatz@goreplace.org
52 Gore Street
Waltham, MA 02453-6866

Project Title: "Enrichment Materials for the Federal Period"
This project is the final phase of work begun by Gore Place in 2003 to create free interdisciplinary enrichment materials about the Federal Period for upper elementary and middle school teachers and their students. The first phase developed the content of these materials, including background information, activities, and images. This project allows for the establishment of a teacher advisory committee; printing and use of prototype materials in the classroom; evaluation and revision of materials; design and printing of revised materials; and marketing, distribution, and evaluation of the final materials.

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute - Williamstown, MA
Award Amount: $63,320; Applicant Match: $337,790
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Susan Roeper
(413)458-0550; sroeper@clarkart.edu
225 South Street
Williamstown, MA 01267-2878

Project Title: "Clark Archives and Records Management Program"
The project will establish an archives and records management program for the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and make information about historical materials available to the research public. The project will enable the Clark to gain physical and intellectual control over records that have been dispersed throughout the museum for half a century. The project goals are (1) to appraise, describe, and rehouse the archives; (2) to make cataloging records and finding aids available directly through the online public access catalog and indirectly through appropriate databases; and (3) to adopt an archives and records management policy that will ensure the ongoing transfer of records to the institutional archive and improve records-management operations.

Worcester Art Museum - Worcester, MA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $179,404
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Dr. Elizabeth Streicher
(508)799-4406x3026; elizabeth streicher@worcesterart.org
55 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609-3196

Project Title: "American Art Partnership: The Worcester Art Museum and Winterhur"
The Worcester Art Museum will increase public awareness of and access to its collection of American art through an innovative sharing of exhibitions with the Winterthur Museum. Both institutions will waive exhibition fees to make this exchange possible. By making the Winterthur collection and its associated body of knowledge a cornerstone for educational activities in the region, the Worcester Art Museum will expand the public's knowledge of American decorative arts. Numerous learning opportunities will be available for youth, families, and adults of all backgrounds and abilities through onsite educational programs such as Discovery Day and the Decorative Arts Symposium. Offsite learning is available through the Early American History CD-ROM, the gallery guide, and the online bulletin board.

Michigan

Kids N Stuff: An Interactive Experience for Kids - Albion, MI
Award Amount: $74,854; Applicant Match: $106,611
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Elizabeth Schultheiss
(517)629-8023; elizabeth@kidsnstuff.org
P.O. Box 718
301 South Superior
Albion, MI 49224-0718

Project Title: "Kids 'N' Stuff Keystone Initiative"
The Kids 'N' Stuff (KNS) children's museum will serve as a center for community engagement through the development of public programs and community partnerships. First, the Education Department will design a master plan to expand existing programs and create new ones, including use by other youth service providers in the area. Second, the museum will collaborate with local and regional organizations to maximize educational initiatives for youth. Third, KNS will continue to serve as a destination for developmentally appropriate activities, increasing the capacity of its services and activities by 35 percent. Fourth, the museum will form a youth advisory committee to ensure that KNS continues to meet the needs of its constituents.

University of Michigan Art Museum - Ann Arbor, MI
Award Amount: $149,044; Applicant Match: $225,636
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Dr. James Steward
(734)764-0395; jsteward@umich.edu
3003 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1390

Project Title: "Improving UMMA's Collections Research and Accesibility"
Four research teams will increase the body of knowledge about objects in the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s (UMMA's) collection by fact-checking description fields for approximately 15,500 objects in the collections management database (EmbARK); conducting research on 2,500 objects to be on public view in the galleries and open storage; and developing research files on 150 key objects. As soon as the texts are vetted by the interpretive team, they will be entered into EmbARK for access by all users, immediately improving the collections information available to staff, scholars, and the general public, and providing the foundation for the interpretive program scheduled for the launch of UMMA's expanded facility in fall 2008.

Detroit Institute of Arts - Detroit, MI
Award Amount: $149,688; Applicant Match: $305,133
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Gloria Parker
(313)833-3738; gparker@dia.org
5200 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, MI 48202-4008

Project Title: "Volunteer Revitalization Initiative"
The Detroit Institute of Arts is in the midst of a capital improvement plan that will fundamentally change the arrangement and interpretation of 5,000 objects that will be reinstalled in newly designed galleries. When the new museum opens, it will engage an increasingly diverse public in a dialogue inspired by its encyclopedic collection. Volunteers provide essential services at the museum, in the schools, and throughout the community. The new museum will need twice as many volunteers to meet the demands of new public programs, more exhibitions, a larger retail operation, and increased gallery space. This project will develop innovative recruitment, training, management, and evaluation of the Volunteer Services Department to build institutional capacity.

Michigan State University Museum - East Lansing, MI
Award Amount: $149,806; Applicant Match: $166,576
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Laura Abraczinskas
(517)355-1290; abraczi1@msu.edu
301 Administration Building
East Lansing, MI 48824-1023

Project Title: "Technological Enchancements for Data Quality and Stewardship of MSU Museum Collections"
The goal of the project is to complete critical database activities for the museum's cultural and natural history collections, and to employ technological enhancements that will bring its systems into conformance with standards, elevate data quality, and streamline workflow. Project activities will focus on collections and database management needs in the cultural history and mammal research collections to allow the museum to efficiently manage collections, deliver data, and better serve its audiences. The museum will hire temporary personnel to complete the data capture of cultural history catalog cards and to clean mammal research specimen data; provide advanced systems training for staff; purchase wireless-equipped computers for onsite records reconciliation; and purchase special printing equipment for wet-specimen labels.

Minnesota

Minneapolis Institute of Art - Minneapolis, MN
Award Amount: $67,990; Applicant Match: $70,090
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Dr. Robert Jacobsen
(612)870-3214; rjacobse@artsmia.org
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55404-3596

Project Title: "Miao Textiles"
The Minneapolis Institute of Art is a national leader in education and is known for developing accessible educational programming related to its Asian collection. It will increase public access to its collection of Miao textiles—one of the largest of its kind in the United States. The museum will digitize each of the 1,100 objects, develop accompanying contextual information, and incorporate each into its collections management system. It will develop an online unit with additional context regarding the Miao people and the creation of their unique textiles. This unit will be available through the museum’s website and through an interactive learning station in the gallery, and will be added to an interactive DVD.

Big Stone County Historical Society Museum - Ortonville, MN
Award Amount: $35,822; Applicant Match: $35,822
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. Burt Nypen
(320)839-6242; blnypen@hotmail.com
985 US Highway 12
Ortonville, MN 56278-4101

Project Title: "Historic Building Identification/Signage"
The Big Stone County Historical Society will identify buildings and sites that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as others of interest. These buildings/sites will be researched through owner interviews, deeds, courthouse records, newspaper accounts, and museum archives, and museum staff will prepare a report summarizing pertinent historical information about them. In cooperation with country and city officials, museum staff will develop specifications for plaques. Vendors will be solicited to make the plaques, and they will be installed on the buildings/at the sites by volunteers. The museum will conduct appropriate publicity and dedication events at the completion of the project.

Mississippi

Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library - Biloxi, MS (Awarded March 2006)
Award Amount: $45,920; Applicant Match: $45,920
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Richard Flowers
(228)388-4400
2244 Beach Boulevard
Biloxi, MS 39531-5002

Project Title: "Post Katrina Museum Recovery / Rebuilding Assistance"
Project activities will involve retaining Beauvoir's full-time curator of collections and two part-time curator assistants so they can continue their work salvaging, identifying, photographing, and logging in artifacts recovered from Hurricane Katrina. The former Confederate Veterans Hospital Building, which housed the Soldiers Museum, was completely destroyed by the August 29, 2005, hurricane, and the first floor of the Presidential Library, where the extensive collection of Jefferson Davis artifacts was exhibited, was destroyed by the more than 30-foot-high storm surge. As one of the first steps in Beauvoir's rebuilding effort, this Museums for America project includes planning and developing schematics for a new museum and library building to house all salvaged artifacts, the archives, and a research library.

Charles W. Capps, Jr. Archives and Museum, Delta State University -
Award Amount: $36,855; Applicant Match: $134,349
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mrs. Emily Weaver
(662)846-4781; eweaver@deltastate.edu
1311 Sunflower Road
Cleveland, MS 38733-2451

Project Title: "Delta Photo Roadshow"
Delta Photo Road Show: Documenting Unknown Photographs and Histories of the Mississippi Delta focuses on collection development, management, and preservation, and on developing a scholarly and popular publication, exhibition, and online teacher resources. The museum will collect, assess, and preserve previously unknown photography collections and gather oral histories from collection owners. Each Photo Road Show day will be hosted in one of six cities in the Delta. At each show, the public will be invited to bring personal collections to be assessed by professionals, scanned into a digital format, and added to the museum’s permanent collection. The collections will be used in an exhibition that will travel back to each of the six cities.

Missouri

Magic House, St. Louis Children's Museum - Saint Louis, MO
Award Amount: $124,288; Applicant Match: $137,212
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Mary Ebers
(314)822-8900x13; Mary@magichouse.org
516 South Kirkwood Rd.
Saint Louis, MO 63105-5926

Project Title: "Star-Spangled Center Interpretive Exhibits, Educational Programming and Assessment"
Magic House will create the Star-Spangled Center, an innovative learning environment for civic education, as part of a 22,000-square-foot expansion of its facility. The Star-Spangled Center will feature a Senate chamber, courtroom, and Oval Office, and will serve as an interactive teaching tool, allowing students to learn about American government by participating in simulated democratic practices. The goal of the Star-Spangled Center is to show how the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government operate, and how laws are created, interpreted, and enforced. Magic House will develop the interpretive, programming, and assessment components of the center, as well as curriculum-appropriate educational programs for K–8 students, print and online teaching materials, and evaluation tools.

Missouri Historical Society - St. Louis, MO
Award Amount: $113,602; Applicant Match: $113,978
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Margaret Koch
(314)361-4303; mkg@mohistory.org
PO Box 11940
St. Louis, MO 63112-0040

Project Title: "Take Flight"
The Missouri Historical Society will present "Flight City: St. Louis Takes to the Air," an exhibition designed to involve a general audience with the subject of aviation through the use of artifacts, photographs, media presentations, and personal stories. "Take Flight"—the oral history component of the exhibition—invites audience participation through kiosks that allow visitors to see and hear first-person stories about aviation. Through the eyes of innovators, pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics, visitors can learn about the importance of aviation. Each kiosk will feature 8–10 prerecorded interviews with individuals known for their connection with flight. Selected visitor stories will be added to the kiosk narratives to expand the conversation and the record of aviation history.

Montana

Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University - Bozeman, MT
Award Amount: $148,582; Applicant Match: $285,285
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Patrick Leiggi
(406)994-3983; pleiggi@montana.edu
307 Montana Hall
Bozeman, MT 59717

Project Title: "Dinosaurs Make Great Science Educators!"
With the opening of its expanded dinosaur paleontology complex, “Dinosaurs Under the Big Sky,” the Museum of the Rockies will hire a dedicated paleontology education and technology coordinator. With global connectivity through its new Mesozoic Media Center—and working in concert with Montana State University, the University of California Museum of Paleontology, the Smithsonian, London's Museum of Natural History (Darwin Center), Dubai's Restless Planet, the Discovery Channel, and the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology—the museum will provide live webcasts, educational programming, and outreach for children, adults, and families in and far beyond Montana. The coordinator will form an advisory group of K–12 science teachers and work with schools and museums across the state of Montana.

Trigg C. M. Russell Foundation - Great Falls, MT
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $505,018
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Anne Morand
(406)727-8787x112; amorand@cmrussell.org
400 13th Street North
Great Falls, MT 59401-1426

Project Title: "The Bison: Heart of Culture, Icon of Art"
The C. M. Russell Museum will develop, design, fabricate, and install a new permanent exhibition, "The Bison: Heart of Culture, Icon of Art." The subject was chosen to engage family visitors in a unique exploration of the bison's central role in Northern Plains Indian culture and to provide a cultural and historical context for nearly 75 percent of the museum's collection, which depicts bison and Native Americans. The museum will assemble the project team (museum staff, tribal representatives, content scholars, education specialist/evaluator, and docents) and community advisory committee (including families, educators, and tribal representatives); create a database; develop exhibition themes; develop and conduct a front-end evaluation; and create a concept document.

Nebraska

Lincoln Children’s Zoo - Lincoln, NE
Award Amount: $68,554; Applicant Match: $69,051
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Mimi Wickless
(402)475-6741; mwickless@lincolnzoo.org
1222 South 27th Street
Lincoln, NE 68502-1832

Project Title: "Bug Buddies Inquiry Center"
The zoo will create a Bug Buddies Inquiry Center to engage visitors in the scientific study of the world's most diverse and abundant group of organisms: arthropods. The combination of live animals and inquiry science is recognized as an effective teaching tool. Expanded arthropod exhibits, inquiry stations, onsite staff, and touch screen computers will allow young and old to join the "research team" and take part in actual inquiry science. The purpose of the exhibit is to present science not as a collection of facts but as an expression of human curiosity and creativity. The inquiries will be set up so visitors can observe, record their observations, and make predictions about the outcomes on touch screen computers.

University of Nebraska State Museum - Lincoln, NE
Award Amount: $149,817; Applicant Match: $246,213
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Dr. Rachel Simpson
(402)472-1319; rsimpson2@unl.edu
312 North 14th Street
Alexander West
Lincoln, NE 68588-0430

Project Title: "Sustaining Nebraska's Natural Heritage by Enhancing Access to the Bessey Herbarium Specimens"
The rich botanical heritage of the Great Plains is superbly documented in the collections of the Charles E. Bessey Herbarium, which contains many of the oldest specimens of the region, dating from the mid-1800s. The herbarium's database will be prepared for a long-range cataloging effort with updated software and the current content enriched by adding geospatial coordinates. Textual information associated with approximately 20,000 specimens will be computerized using database software specifically designed for managing natural history museum collections. An interactive mapping system will provide online access to the information. This work will improve the ability to manage the collections and make the wealth of information in them more accessible to the public.

New Hampshire

Belknap Mill Society - Laconia, NH
Award Amount: $52,995; Applicant Match: $55,723
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Mary Boswell
(603)524-8813; mboswe@metrocast.net
The Mill Plaza
Laconia, NH 03246-3445

Project Title: "Laconia Knits"
The Belknap Mill Society will redesign "Laconia Knits," the nation's only permanent exhibit devoted to industrial knitting. Machine fixers engage the visitor and keep the machines running; however, they have turned the Knit Room into a workroom. To enhance the visitor experience, preserve this important living history tradition, and improve the working conditions of the machine fixers, the society will hire an exhibit design company and a guest curator to create the ambiance of a 1918 machine fixers' shop. Machines will interpret the assembly line and trace the history of knitting. In the Wheel Room, where the 1918 hydroelectric power plant is located, wall panels will trace the history of waterpower with interactive displays and science-related activities.

New Jersey

New Jersey Historical Society - Newark, NJ
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $349,244
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Beth Mauro
(973)596-8500x242; bmauro@jerseyhistory.org
52 Park Place
Newark, NJ 07102-4302

Project Title: "The New Jersey Historical Society Library Collections Access Project"
The New Jersey Historical Society (NJHS) will increase public access to its extensive collections of books, manuscripts, photographs, artwork, and material culture artifacts related to New Jersey history. The library is the heart of NJHS's research resources, providing essential collections management data as well as context and meaning for researchers. NJHS will complete retrospective conversion of its library holdings from cards to electronic records that will be available through an online public access catalog on the NJHS website. This conversion will make it easier for researchers to find links between museum artifacts and library documentation, and will improve the staff's ability to manage the holdings. NJHS will also complete a comprehensive inventory of its library holdings.

New Mexico

Spanish Colonial Arts Society - Santa Fe, NM
Award Amount: $73,670; Applicant Match: $217,192
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Robin Gavin
(505)982-2226; rgavin@spanishcolonial.org
P.O. Box 5378
750 Camino Lejo
Santa Fe, NM 87502-5378

Project Title: "Converging Streams: Native American and Hispano Cross-cultural Arts in the Greater Southwest"
The Spanish Colonial Arts Society will plan and install an exhibition titled "Converging Streams: Native American and Hispano Cross-Cultural Arts in the Greater Southwest." In the first year, project consultants and catalog authors will be identified, the exhibition outline will be written, objects will be selected, and loan requests made. The curators and educator will meet with contemporary Hispano and Native American artists to discuss programs. The exhibition design will be completed. In the second year, exhibition labels will be completed, and taping of performances and interviews will be accomplished. All loans will be secured. Press releases will be distributed and ads placed in regional and national publications. The exhibit will open in October 2008.

Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Laboratory of Anthropology - Santa Fe, NM
Award Amount: $135,438; Applicant Match: $143,667
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Dr. Shelby Tisdale
(505)476-1251; Shelby.Tisdale@state.nm.us
710 Camino Lejo
Santa Fe, NM 87504-2087

Project Title: "Imaging the Southwest: Digitization of Ethnographic Collections at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture"
The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Laboratory of Anthropology will create high-quality digital images of more than 11,000 objects in its individually catalogued collections division as part of a comprehensive documentation and cataloging program begun in 2003. The museum will hire a half-time professional photographer and a full-time project manager, and will purchase a dedicated image server and two external hard drives for offsite storage. The imaging program will support two educational initiatives: the Online Museum (accessible on the museum’s website and via terminals in the library and exhibit galleries) and the Virtual Classroom, an outreach program to provide curricula to New Mexico schools for use with the Online Museum.

Institute of American Indian Arts Museum - Santa Fe, NM
Award Amount: $149,854; Applicant Match: $150,696
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. John Grimes
(505)983-8900x101; jgrimes@iaia.edu
83 Avan Nu Po Road
Santa Fe, NM 87508-1300

Project Title: "Culture, Community and Spirit"
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Museum will offer Culture, Community, and Spirit, a multifaceted, replicable educational outreach program designed to increase community engagement with indigenous perspectives. Premised on creating conversations between the native and non-native world, the program will be accomplished through three components: native elders working with preschool students, Museum Saturdays for K–12 students and families, and Conversations to Remember for adults. It will serve as the framework for a reinvigorated education program at the museum and will build on relationships with individuals and organizations around the world, and partnerships in the local and greater community. IAIA students will gain experience in designing and implementing community outreach programs.

New York

American Museum of the Moving Image - Astoria, NY
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $486,603
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Carl Goodman
(718)784-4520x227; cgoodman@movingimage.us
35th Avenue at 36 Street
Astoria, NY 11106-1226

Project Title: "Cataloging and Access Initiative"
The Museum of the Moving Image will catalog and digitize a significant portion of its film and television licensed merchandise collection, including clothing, dolls, games and toys, posters, sheet music and sound recordings, souvenir books, novelizations, and comics. These objects of 20th and 21st century American history can reveal important clues about our society's social, cultural, and industrial practices. The project will use the museum's internally developed, Web-based cataloging and access software. The museum has established a 10-year master plan for cataloging and digitizing its entire collection of 150,000 artifacts. It will create a licensed merchandise collection website and share the results of this work and the software itself with other cultural institutions.

New York Botanical Garden - Bronx, NY
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $345,149
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Natalie Andersen
(718)817-8595; nandersen@nybg.org
200th Street & Kazimiroff Blvd
Bronx, NY 10458-5126

Project Title: "Professional Development Program for Teachers"
The New York Botanical Garden's Professional Development Program for Teachers improves the level of teaching expertise in the sciences at schools throughout the New York metropolitan area and beyond by enabling teachers to become more comfortable with plant science content and instruction. The program produces and disseminates a variety of plant science curricula for grades K–11, providing teachers with lesson plans that are easily incorporated into their classrooms. Onsite workshops, seminars, and institutes provide them with the content and creative teaching techniques to enhance stimulating science learning. Teachers learn a variety of age-appropriate activities that engage students in problem solving, and they learn how to use the botanical garden as an extension of their classrooms.

New York Transit Museum - Brooklyn, NY
Award Amount: $101,407; Applicant Match: $147,420
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Charles Sachs
(718)694-1768; chsachs@nyct.com
130 Livingston Street
10th Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201-5190

Project Title: "Electrifying the Rails"
To improve intellectual control and access to its collection of archival materials and artifacts on the electrification of public transportation, and to establish a standard that can be applied to the rest of the collection, the museum will undertake the following activities. It will process archives collections and catalog objects associated with transit electrical systems. Cross-references will be identified between the archives and artifact records whenever possible. The museum will scan archival photographs and take digital photographs of all artifacts for identification purposes. It will share the collections via the IMLS Digital Collections Registry. An interpretive digital exhibition, available online and at the museum, will enhance the level of access to collection materials.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy - Buffalo, NY
Award Amount: $149,701; Applicant Match: $153,416
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Bryan Gawronski
(716)270-8269; BGawronski@albrightknox.org
1285 Elmwood Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14222-1003

Project Title: "Collections Management Initiative - Phase 1"
The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy Albright-Knox Art Gallery, a museum of modern and contemporary art, will undertake a two-year project to examine and update all computer-supported records for the 6,000 works of art in the gallery's permanent collection, complete the final phase of the digital documentation of the collection, and provide wide public access to this rich informational resource online. This project is part of a larger initiative to develop comprehensive databases with a single search interface to record, manage, store, and retrieve information related to the museum's collections. The project will result in a complete set of records on artworks to serve as the foundation for development of an integrated multiple database structure.

Canajoharie Library and Art Gallery - Canajoharie, NY
Award Amount: $65,110; Applicant Match: $125,297
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Diane Forsberg
(518)673-2314; diforsberg@comcast.net
2 Erie Boulevard
Canajoharie, NY 13317-1138

Project Title: "Understanding Our Audience and Building Partnerships to Develop Superior Programs"
This project will allow the Canajoharie Library and Art Gallery to hire its first full-time professional museum educator before the new museum opens. The museum will also work with an experienced audience research firm to conduct three focus groups with local residents and will conduct quantitative research with past and potential audiences. Activities during this project will include meeting with school administrators and teachers and other community members to build audiences and initiate partnerships. The education committee will meet monthly with staff throughout the duration of the project.

Thomas Cole National Historic Site - Catskill, NY
Award Amount: $46,624; Applicant Match: $62,824
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Elizabeth Jacks
(518)943-7465x3; director@thomascole.org
P.O. Box 426
218 Spring Street
Catskill, NY 12414-0426

Project Title: "Professionalize Care of Collections"
The Thomas Cole National Historic Site will catalog its collections in a searchable computer database, making the objects accessible to staff and researchers for educational exhibitions and programs, and will store the objects according to accepted standards. Project activities will include the following: train staff in collection management techniques; catalog collection objects; enter data and digital images into a computer database; separate archival material from working and research files; create duplicate copies of delicate and historic photographs; prepare a collection storage plan that includes a detailed list of the necessary storage equipment and supplies, and the design of storage rooms; obtain museum-quality storage equipment; retrofit storage rooms; and rehouse and move collection objects and archives.

New York State Historical Association - Cooperstown, NY
Award Amount: $149,339; Applicant Match: $226,550
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Paul D'Ambrosio
(607)547-1413; paul@nysha.org
P.O. Box 800
Lake Road
Cooperstown, NY 13326-1059

Project Title: "Identity and Representation in American Art"
The New York State Historical Association (NYSHA) will mount two major exhibitions at its Fenimore Art Museum, with accompanying programs and publications: “Frederic Remington: Not Just Cowboy Art” (2007) and “Through the Eyes of Others: African American Images from the NYSHA Collection” (2008). Both exhibitions will tour nationally, and both will include self-representations by Plains Indian and African American artists. The exhibitions will encourage visitors on- and offsite to appreciate and analyze American art in terms of how it reinforces or breaks down racial stereotypes and how artists choose to represent their own race or culture. NYSHA will offer public and school programs, including distance learning units, in conjunction with the exhibitions.

Queens Museum of Art - Flushing, NY
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $150,000
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Jaishri Abichadani
(718)592-9700x222; ja@queensmuseum.org
New York City Building,
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Flushing, NY 11368-3398

Project Title: "Corona Plaza: Center of Everywhere"
Corona Plaza is an ideal site for the museum to fulfill its mission. By creating public art projects and community celebrations, the museum will be a stakeholder in the revitalization of the surrounding community. Museum programming will aim to beautify the space and populate it through a series of art projects that will attract both residents and tourists. By focusing its efforts in the neighborhood, the museum will help create a center for community engagement and positive community change. The museum will provide better services for the residents and create a cultural hub in the community that could lead to increased cultural tourism, pride of place, and a safe space for cross-cultural interaction.

Geneva Historical Society - Geneva, NY
Award Amount: $66,959; Applicant Match: $68,934
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. John Mark
(315)789-5151; jmarks@genevahistoricalsociety.com
543 South Main Street
Geneva, NY 14456-3106

Project Title: "Finger Lakes Vacations"
The Geneva Historical Society will partner with five other local history organizations in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York to develop six small traveling exhibitions and associated program materials exploring the history of vacationing in the Finger Lakes. Each exhibition will include reproductions of historic and contemporary photographs, material from archival and oral history sources, and one or two interactives. When they are installed at the partners' sites, they will be supplemented with artifacts from local collections. Multigenerational learning will be a focus throughout the exhibits, including programs and learning kits for youth and adults. Designed to require little or no security, the exhibitions will be made available to a wide variety of community organizations.

Clermont State Historic Site (NYSDPRHP) - Germantown, NY
Award Amount: $70,000; Applicant Match: $199,530
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Bruce Naramore
(518)537-4240; Bruce.Naramore@oprhp.state.ny.us
One Clermont Avenue
Germantown, NY 12526-5632

Project Title: "Bob's Folly: Inventing America's First Steamboat"
Clermont's Steamboat Bicentennial Project will center on a special loan exhibition titled "Bobs' Folly: Inventing America's First Steamboat." The exhibition will include objects and manuscripts from the museum's collection, as well as objects and manuscripts borrowed from 32 private and institutional collections. It will incorporate Web-based interactive computer kiosks featuring various learning activities and an introductory video. The exhibition will be housed in Clermont's Visitor Center and a temporary gallery in the historic house. The project includes the publication of an illustrated catalog. The museum will develop educational programs for regional public schools and a series of lectures and special events—including Steamboat Days in August—geared to both general audiences and specialists.

Hyde Collection - Glens Falls, NY
Award Amount: $37,500; Applicant Match: $68,266
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Randall Suffolk
(518)792-1761x19; suffolk@hydecollection.org
161 Warren Street
Glens Falls, NY 12801-4562

Project Title: "Preserving the Legacy Phase 4: Collections Management"
The Hyde Collection will digitize its permanent collection and purchase, install, and roll out a new collections database system (TMS Light by Gallery Systems). This strategic, mission-driven project is the final phrase of the Hyde's Preserving the Legacy plan. It is crucial to the museum's ability to protect and preserve its collection and its cultural heritage.

Akwesasne Cultural Center - Hogansburg, NY
Award Amount: $11,255; Applicant Match: $13,522
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mrs. Glory Cole
(518)358-2240; coleg@northnet.org
321 State Route 37
Hogansburg, NY 13655-3114

Project Title: "Saving Our Basketry for the Next Seven Generations"
This project will focus on the cultural center’s collection of Mohawk black ash splint and sweetgrass basketry. The collection will be researched and documented, including basket styles, uses, makers, and other unique cultural information. Research will include interviews with elders, board members, and volunteers, as well as direct study of the collection. The project includes a plan to store a portion of each deceased basketmaker's work offsite in acid-free boxes to ensure the integrity of the collection in case of a disaster. The research information will be used to plan new exhibits of the basket collection, to increase the level of public engagement with the collection as an art form, and encourage the continuing tradition of basketmaking.

Iroquois Indian Museum - Howes Cave, NY
Award Amount: $66,507; Applicant Match: $69,490
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Erynne Ansel-McCabe
(518)296-8949; info@iroquoismuseum.org
P.O. Box 7
324 Caverns Road
Howes Cave, NY 12092-0007

Project Title: "Virtual Exhibits on the Electronic Longhouse"
Working with Iroquois and non-native consultants, the museum will create a series of interactive virtual exhibits for the Electronic Longhouse section of its website. The exhibits will be an educational tool to address commonly asked questions about the Iroquois and to supplement curriculum requirements. They will complement the museum's educational kits and programming. The museum will choose 24 topics, design a template, and write scripts for the topics. By the end of the first year, one virtual exhibit will be completed; in subsequent years, the rest of the topics will be scripted and the virtual exhibits added to the website. The exhibits will be marketed to educators, students, and others who are interested in Native American culture.

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University - Ithaca, NY
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $150,000
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Cathy Klimaszewski
(607)254-4627; crk7@cornell.edu
120 Day hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-2801

Project Title: "Digital Access and Study Center Interpretation Project at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell "
The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University will open a study center as part of an expansion of its landmark building, designed by I. M. Pei in 1973. The study center will include open (visible) storage composed of dense displays of works of art, which will allow public access to a much greater portion of the permanent collection. The museum will interpret these works through enhanced digital access and a handheld computer tour for the visible storage area. The museum will digitally photograph, catalog, and make available online a cross section of the collection: 1,600 objects will be selected on the basis of their significance in the field and their educational potential for museum visitors.

Muscoot Farm - Katonah, NY
Award Amount: $105,000; Applicant Match: $127,254
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Susan Moga
(914)864-7284; srm5@westchestergov.com
51 Route 100
Katonah, NY 10536-3318

Project Title: "The Once Upon a Westchester Farm Exhibit"
Muscoot Farm will design a permanent exhibit—"Once Upon a Westchester Farm"—that will interpret the agrarian history of Westchester County. Using many items from the farm's collection, the exhibit will increase the museum’s capacity for education of schoolchildren and the general public, and will provide the community with a connection to its farming heritage. The exhibit will focus on the history of farming in the shadow of New York City from 1850 through 1930, agricultural implements, household items, and items used by children on the farm. The exhibit will be installed in the Upper Dairy Barn, which has easy public access and is currently used for storage. The project will also include interpretive materials and teacher packets.

Columbia County Historical Society - Kinderhook, NY
Award Amount: $13,755; Applicant Match: $17,102
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Helen McLallen
(518)758-9265; curator@cchsny.org
P.O. Box 311
Kinderhook, NY 12106-0311

Project Title: "Textiles, Paintings, and Household Furnishings Collections Management and Access"
The Columbia County Historical Society will make information about its collections more easily and efficiently available to researchers, visitors, and staff. The project goal is to improve the documentation on the society's textile, painting, and household furnishings collections, and make that documentation more accessible. The society's computerized accessions and inventory databases provide some searching capabilities, but descriptive information is limited. Transferring the paper records to an electronic database, upgrading incomplete catalog records, and consolidating information from multiple databases will allow staff to better manage the collection, enhancing its preservation and providing improved services to the society's audience. The curator will manage the project, and a cataloger and two consultants will assist with cataloging and photographing.

Museum of Arts and Design - New York, NY
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $443,200
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Holly Hotchner
(212)956-3535x137; holly.hotchner@madmuseum.org
44 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019-6106

Project Title: "MAD Online Collections Database Project"
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) will undertake an integrated project involving photography, digitization, research, database development, and Internet distribution. MAD will digitize images of its collection of 2,035 artworks and implement collections management technology to enable online access to its collection of seminal studio craft, decorative arts, and design, and to supplemental information about artists, techniques, and materials. The Online Collection Database Project will be the cornerstone of MAD’s Center for the Study of Arts and Design and will extend beyond the center into terminals throughout the galleries, where visitors will have access to digital images of the permanent collection and supplemental material. The collection will also be available on the MAD website.

Children's Museum of Manhattan - New York, NY
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $1,062,028
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. Andrew Ackerman
(212)721-1223; aackerman@cmom.org
Tisch Building
212 West 83rd Street
New York, NY 10024-4901

Project Title: "Ready to Learn Project"
The Children’s Museum of Manhattan will operate its new exhibition space seven days a week for both the general public and targeted groups of underserved families (e.g., homeless families and teen parents). The center's activities and environments will help children build the skills, attitudes, and behaviors they will need for kindergarten and throughout life. Feedback kiosks, interactive video, and electronic signage for adults will provide new information and ongoing feedback. The space will provide an intimate setting with multiple levels of challenge. The museum will evaluate the project for the purpose of replicating components at a community-based organization in the Bronx to improve preschool literacy and math skills in the nation's poorest congressional district.

Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum - North Tonawanda, NY
Award Amount: $83,478; Applicant Match: $87,178
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mrs. Gina Beam
(716)693-1885; hcfm@carrouselmuseum.org
P.O. Box 672
180 Thompson Street
North Tonawanda, NY 14120-0672

Project Title: "Community Service and Outreach"
The museum will shift its focus from adult visitors to families and schools. Interactive learning elements will be added to all exhibits, and new exhibits will be created each year to encourage return visits by community members. The Children’s Gallery will install learning centers and will offer weeklong learning camps. Museum staff will meet with curriculum coordinators and teachers to strengthen coordination between the museum’s educational programming and state curriculum standards. Cooperative planning will lead to more classroom visits by the museum educator and more class visits to the museum, as content and activities will be coordinated. The museum will continue to provide learning opportunities for adults based on input from focus groups.

Mid-Hudson Children's Museum - Poughkeepsie, NY
Award Amount: $53,734; Applicant Match: $54,049
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Edward Glisson
(845)471-0589x3003; edglisson@mhcm.org
75 North Water Street
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-1720

Project Title: "River Town Exhibit"
The Mid-Hudson Children's Museum is located on the banks of the Hudson River, a National Heritage River that has drawn immigrants to the area for more than 300 years. The museum will transform an existing streetscape exhibit—"TinyTown"—into a multilayered "River Town" to better reflect the region's demographics, history, and culture while incorporating a new theme: recent immigrants. The exhibit will show how people from other cultures have shaped the American culture. The museum will redesign the exhibit to create a multilevel interpretive approach. The new exhibit will continue to satisfy younger children with role-playing activities but will also appeal to older children and families, providing a broader educational value and attracting more visitors.

Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester - Rochester, NY
Award Amount: $76,503; Applicant Match: $76,503
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Nancy Norwood
(585)473-7720x3010; nnorwood@mag.rochester.edu
575 Mt. Hope
Rochester, NY 14607-1415

Project Title: "The Arts of the World Within Reach: Creating the Cornerstone for Access"
The project includes management and educational activities targeting the gallery's collections of ancient, Asian, European, Meso- and Native American, and African Art. Activities include full research and documentation for 250 landmark works of art; the addition of 1,525 images to the collections database and website; and the purchase and use of technology for increased storage capacity, backup capability, and security of digital image files. A new curriculum-based educational module will be developed based on core works in the targeted collections. New technology will provide shared access to educational materials and images. The project will support the development of innovative installations of the permanent collection and public access to the entire collection through technological initiatives.

Strong Museum - Rochester, NY
Award Amount: $107,098; Applicant Match: $108,987
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Christopher Bensch
(585)263-2701x247; cbensch@strongmuseum.org
One Manhattan Square
Rochester, NY 14607-3998

Project Title: "The Steve and Diane Olin Toy Catalog Cataloging Project"
Strong Museum is the repository of the world's largest collection of toys, dolls, games, and other play-related artifacts. In this project, the museum will catalog the recently acquired Steve and Diane Olin collection of approximately 8,000 toy catalogs and other toy-related ephemera, download the catalog records to the WorldCat database, and store the catalogs in its onsite research library. The collection is a one-of-a-kind record of American toys from the 1960s to the present, revealing American cultural trends and technological change, and providing greater understanding of how toys were marketed. Its value as a resource for illuminating American social history will be fully realized after it is cataloged and made available both internally and externally for research purposes.

Staten Island Children's Museum - Staten Island, NY
Award Amount: $21,850; Applicant Match: $101,433
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Addy Manipella
(718)273-2060x265; amanipella@sichildrensmuseum.org
1000 Richmond Terrace
Staten Island, NY 10301-1181

Project Title: "Art Project (Abilities, Resources, Training)"
The Staten Island Children's Museum works with partners to mainstream persons with disabilities in a controlled and welcoming environment. The ART Project (Abilities, Resources, Training) targets the following three groups. (1) Children with anxiety and attention disorders are mainstreamed into summer "mini-camps," where they paint, sculpt, garden, and cook with other children. (2) Fifteen special education teenagers will work at the museum, helping with mailings, preparing for workshops, maintaining exhibits, and assisting in the Operations Department. (3) The museum will work with On Your Mark to offer a museum café run by 15 disabled adults. In addition to café training, the workers will learn horticulture/groundskeeping and janitorial skills, and how to use public transportation.

Fort Ticonderoga - Ticonderoga, NY
Award Amount: $149,981; Applicant Match: $290,913
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Richard Strum
(518)585-2821; rstrum@fort-ticonderoga.org
PO Box 390 Fort Road
Ticonderoga, NY 12883-0390

Project Title: "Improving the Visitor Experience at Historic Fort Ticonderoga: Creation of a Permanent Introductory Exhibit"
This project will enable Fort Ticonderoga to develop an introductory exhibition to their historic 2,000-acre preserve, which will orient and inform the 90,000 visitors who come each year. The effort addresses the foremost longstanding need associated with improving the visitor experience as identified externally and internally. The project will span from design through installation and evaluation, filling a new priority staff position for a curator of exhibits, and tapping the outstanding qualifications of a competitively selected exhibit firm.

Museum of disABILITY History - Williamsville, NY
Award Amount: $23,613; Applicant Match: $27,911
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Lynn Beman
(716)817-7439; lbeman@people-inc.org
1219 North Forrest Road
P.O. Box 9033
Williamsville, NY 14231-9033

Project Title: "Museum of disABILITY History& Culture Website Development Project (Phase 2)"
Museum of disABILITY History & Culture (ModHC )will hire a research intern/assistant to support its website development project, which will establish a virtual version of ModHC on the Internet. The research intern/assistant will help the museum coordinator (curator) develop new exhibits for the physical and virtual website. The ultimate goal of the project is to expand community awareness about people with disabilities and their impact on society.

North Carolina

North Carolina Zoological Park - Asheboro, NC
Award Amount: $25,746; Applicant Match: $26,453
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Dr. Jayne Parker
(336)879-7273; jparker@nczoo.com
4403 Zoo Parkway
Asheboro, NC 27205-1425

Project Title: "Museum Consortium User Needs Training"
The North Carolina Zoo will offer a training consortium, open to museums around the state, to increase the capacity of staff to tailor programs to the needs of lifelong learners. Smithsonian Institution staff will conduct training on how to develop and administer user needs evaluations and then apply the findings in ways that improve programming. The training, which will be offered in four seminars, will help participants create effective, informal educational experiences that resonate with families and other nonschool audiences, especially underserved minority populations. The Zoo Society will establish a Web-based system that participants can use as a clearinghouse for best practices and research findings, and through which they can establish a virtual community of practice.

Mint Museum of Art - Charlotte, NC
Award Amount: $99,270; Applicant Match: $115,952
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Joyce Weaver
(704)337-2023; jweaver@mintmuseum.org
2730 Randolph Road
Charlotte, NC 28207-2031

Project Title: "Library Automation"
The Mint Museum will migrate its card-based and other manual library collections management tools to an electronic collections management system. To do this, it will purchase an integrated library software system and the necessary hardware, and retrospectively convert its current paper-based library bibliographic records to a standard electronic format. The incorporation of converted records into library software will enable a single gateway to the holdings of the Mint library and an online catalog that can be accessed through the museum’s website.

Catawba Science Center - Hickory, NC
Award Amount: $74,938; Applicant Match: $85,975
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Marie Sipe
(828)322-8169; mariesipe@catawbascience.org
P.O. Box 2431
243 Third Avenue NE
Hickory, NC 28603-2431

Project Title: "Inventor's Lab"
The Catawba Science Center (CSC) will develop the Inventor's Lab, one of the first elements of its Touch the Future capital expansion. The 1,300-square-foot lab will support several experiential modes: structured group visits, facilitated activities, unstructured casual visits, and science demonstrations and shows. It will provide the context for open-ended, inquiry-driven science activities and demonstrations facilitated by middle and high school science students from CSC's innovative STEP program, whose participants represent the racial and economic diversity of the greater Hickory community. Lab activities will extend beyond CSC's walls as outreach presentations in underserved areas of Hickory and Catawba County. A primary goal is to use the lab as the context for engaging an increasingly diverse audience.

Rocky Mount Children's Museum - Rocky Mount, NC
Award Amount: $147,150; Applicant Match: $604,597
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Candy Madrid
(252)977-2483; madrid@ci.rocky-mount.nc.us
331 South Franklin Street
PO Box 1180
Rocky Mount, NC 27802-1800

Project Title: "The Completion of the Natural Sciences Gallery"
The city of Rocky Mount is rebuilding the Children’s Museum and Science Center (CMSC) as part of a flood recovery and downtown revitalization project. The old Imperial Tobacco Factory will be the new home of the CMSC and Arts Center. As visitors enter the natural sciences gallery, they will pass through “Elements of Life”—exhibits and models designed to bombard the senses. Visitors will see, hear, and feel the three vital forces that support life on Earth: water, solar energy (light and heat), and air (wind). The museum uses photographic images, mounted specimens, and interactive computer stations linked to cameras along the banks of the Tar River to show the richness of local flora and fauna.

Historic Hope Foundation, Inc. - Windsor, NC
Award Amount: $55,249; Applicant Match: $57,131
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Glenn Perkins
(252)794-3140; gperkins@coastalnet.com
132 Hope House Road
Windsor, NC 27983-7458

Project Title: "Plantation at the Crossroads: Learning and Teaching Beyond the Hope Manor house"
Historic Hope Plantation (1803) is an architectural marvel and home to a renowned decorative arts collection. There is a need to interpret the history of Hope Plantation outside the manor house, including the lives of its enslaved African Americans and the Tuscarora Indians who inhabited neighboring lands until the early 19th century. This project will provide visitors, students, and teachers with new ways of understanding the complex landscape of the plantation through a permanent exhibit and educational resources. The project will research materials for interpreting life at Hope Plantation; install a permanent exhibit focusing on areas such as Tuscarora civilization, plantation agriculture, and African American life; and develop resources for teachers and students.

Museum of Anthropology, Wake Forest University - Winston Salem, NC
Award Amount: $149,000; Applicant Match: $149,040
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Dr. Stephen Whittington
(336)758-5827; whittisl@wfu.edu
P.O. Box 7267
Reynolda Station, Wake Forest University
Winston Salem, NC 27109-7267

Project Title: "Web Access for the Museum of Anthropology's Collection Catalogue"
The museum will continue work begun under a previous IMLS award to install new collections database software, train staff in its use, and input more than 21,000 archaeological object records from a research collection. The project will ultimately produce a complete Web-based public-access version of the museum catalog for use by universities, scholars, schoolchildren, and the general public. Under the registrar's supervision, students will assist with inventory, basic condition assessment, and digital photography of all objects not photographed before 2002. This project will provide physical and intellectual control of the collections, expand the museum's education and collections care missions, and support its vision of becoming a culture center for the university and the community.

Ohio

Ohio Historical Society - Columbus, OH
Award Amount: $149,923; Applicant Match: $182,042
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Elizabeth Nelson
(614)297-2512; enelson@ohiohistory.org
1982 Velma Avenue
Columbus, OH 43211-2497

Project Title: "Connecting Ohio's History"
The Ohio Historical Society seeks to strengthen intellectual control over its collections, which number over 300,000 objects and document 300 years of state history. Important legacy records—including ledgers, punch cards, catalog cards, forms, and files—were not incorporated into the society's online public access catalog (OPAC) when it was launched in 1999. Adding these paper-based records to the OPAC will preserve organizational memory of history objects—their acquisition, provenance, physical characteristics, and significance; allow staff and the public to find and use history collections more effectively; and develop and refine a methodology that can be applied to other collecting areas and shared with other institutions facing similar fragmentation. Activities will include consolidation, conversion, and dissemination.

Oklahoma

Bartlesville Area History Museum - Bartlesville, OK
Award Amount: $14,815; Applicant Match: $15,015
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Brenda Smith-Patten
(918)338-4290; bdpatten@cityofbartlesville.org
401 South Johnstone Avenue
Bartlesville, OK 74003-6619

Project Title: "Processing of the Ulrich Photographic Collection"
The City of Bartlesville will hire an assistant archivist who will be responsible for processing the Ulrich photographic collection. All items will be accessioned into a database; all images will be scanned into the database; and items will be rehoused in archival storage. The city has adequate facilities for the rehousing but will need to buy a new computer and scanner. The time frame for the project is approximately 1½ years. The photo archivist and registrar will oversee the project and will ensure that the collection is being properly accessioned.

Pennsylvania

Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania - Harleysville, PA
Award Amount: $18,657; Applicant Match: $21,584
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Sarah Heffner
(215)256-3020x112; sarahh@mhep.org
Mennonite Heritage Center
P.O. Box 82
Harleysville, PA 19438-0082

Project Title: "The Isaac Clarence Kulp Pennsylvania German Collection"
The project will catalog and conserve the Isaac Clarence Kulp collection, which represents three centuries of Pennsylvania German folk culture and religious belief. The Mennonite Historians of Eastern Pennsylvania (MHEP) will hire an archivist to process the collection, which has been stored in suboptimal conditions. MHEP plans to house the collection at the Mennonite Heritage Center in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where the public will have access to the books, documents, photographs, frakturs, and broadsides, and the collection will receive proper care and storage. The collection will benefit historical and genealogical researchers as well as the general public. Artifacts from the collection will be used for exhibits that interpret Pennsylvania German folk life and Dunkard history.

Please Touch Museum - Philadelphia, PA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $277,677
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Elaine Vaugh
(215)963-0667x3120; evaughn@pleasetouchmuseum.org
210 North 21st Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103-1001

Project Title: "School Readiness Initiative"
Please Touch Museum's school readiness initiative is part of a citywide initiative—Kindergarten Is Key—that mobilizes families and educators to work together to transition young children into kindergarten. The museum offers a wide range of programs in partnership with numerous community organizations, such as the School District of Philadelphia, United Way, and North Philadelphia Head Start. The continued development and fine-tuning of the initiative will help the museum expand the range and depth of the programs it offers for children and increase its ability to successfully partner with local community organizations, as well as the Philadelphia community at large. Sustaining the initiative over the long term will increase the museum’s ability to manage and evaluate programs.

Rosenbach Museum and Library - Philadelphia, PA
Award Amount: $140,713; Applicant Match: $147,110
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Judith Guston
(215)732-8230; jmguston@rosenbach.org
2008-2010 DeLancey Place
Philadelphia, PA 19103-6510

Project Title: "Sendak on Sendak: A Self-Portrait"
The Rosenbach Museum and Library will research, plan, and implement a major exhibition celebrating the life and work of author and illustrator Maurice Sendak on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 2008. Titled “Sendak on Sendak: A Self-Portrait,” the project will achieve three goals: (1) document Sendak's accounts of his life and creative process, including his artistic, musical, literary, and historical influences; (2) use Sendak's original artwork in a new exhibition that will reach a wider audience and expand the Rosenbach’s capacity for presenting exhibitions in a limited space; and (3) turn the exhibition into a traveling exhibition, creating institutional knowledge about such exhibitions as a way to achieve strategic goals and increase earned revenue.

National Constitution Center - Philadelphia, PA
Award Amount: $45,737; Applicant Match: $45,737
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Dr. Stephen Frank
(215)409-6633; sfrank@constitutioncenter.org
525 Arch Street
Independence Mall
Philadelphia, PA 19106-1514

Project Title: "National Constitution Center Revised Teacher Activity Guide"
The National Constitution Center (NCC) will (1) develop a standards-based teacher activity guide based on its permanent exhibition and interactive website, (2) involve teachers and students in the development process, (3) expand its capacity to create effective partnerships, and (4) enhance its role as a premier provider of civic education materials. The teacher guide will be the gateway to the museum for school visits. NCC's partners in creating the guide will be the Pennsylvania Coalition for Representative Democracy—a union of education, advocacy, and government organizations committed to improving civic learning for students; the Pennsylvania Council for Social Studies; and Philadelphia Reads, which works with schools and community organizations to strengthen the literacy of Philadelphia's neediest children.

Atwater Kent Museum - Philadelphia, PA
Award Amount: $134,100; Applicant Match: $143,256
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Viki Sand
(215)685-4826; viki.sand@atwaterkentmuseum.org
15 South 7th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106-2313

Project Title: "Inventory of the Philadelphia City History Collection"
The Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia will conduct the first complete inventory of its nearly 100,000-object collection. The inventory has six primary goals: (1) secure American Association of Museum accreditation and expand institutional capacity through improved intellectual control of the collection; (2) identify the most historically significant objects as the foundation for the Philadelphia City History Collection and further collection building; (3) develop electronically searchable information, including storage location, on all collection objects; (4) identify collection areas and individual objects that require conservation attention; (5) develop a list of objects outside the museum's stated collection policies; and (6) develop a list of objects particularly appropriate for feature in exhibitions, publications, educational materials, and on the Internet.

Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium - Pittsburgh, PA
Award Amount: $110,126; Applicant Match: $117,463
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Frank Cartieri
(412)365-2504; frankc@zoo.pgh.pa.us
One Wild Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15206-1178

Project Title: "Warlus Exhibit Educational Interactive Interpretives and Graphics Project"
The Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium will develop concept designs and educational content for interpretives, develop a formative evaluation strategy, review the content and graphics with the Interpretives Advisory Committee, finalize the content and design, and create models. Using these models, the zoo will conduct an evaluation with focus groups that reflect visitor demographics. The zoo will then create and install the interpretives and graphics, develop a maintenance plan, and train staff on how to use the interpretives and how to assist visitors

Mattress Factory - Pittsburgh, PA
Award Amount: $145,529; Applicant Match: $157,076
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Jennifer Baron
(412)231-3169x2121; jennifer@mattress.org
500 Sampsonia Way
Pittsburgh, PA 15212-4444

Project Title: "Artists and Learning"
The Mattress Factory is a museum of contemporary art that invites artists to work in residence. It is a unique hybrid of an artist residency program and a cutting-edge art museum, and provides the framework for innovative educational programming. The Mattress Factory will enhance and deepen the opportunity for more museum learners to experience the creative process under the guidance of professional artists through the following activities: museum/school partnerships that provide tours and school visits by museum educators; multisession teacher courses and one-day teacher workshops; ARTLab for families and adults; hands-on activities for all visitors; artist-led workshops; and artist talks. The museum will evaluate the learning that takes place with artists in the museum and in schools.

Children's Museum of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh, PA
Award Amount: $149,996; Applicant Match: $152,478
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Penny Lodge
(412)322-5058x226; plodge@pittsburghkids.org
10 Children's Way
Allegheny Square
Pittsburgh, PA 15212-5250

Project Title: "Real Stuff"
The heart of the Children's Museum (CM) is its “Real Stuff” exhibits. These exhibits and art, coupled with quality educational programs, offer visitors the opportunity to play with real materials and experiment with real processes. In this project, the CM will focus on areas with low levels of visitor engagement. The museum will modify exhibit components and create new ones in the “Garage/Workshop” and “Waterplay” exhibits to increase the level of visitor engagement. The CM will continue to use its team-based development process, will create prototypes before building new exhibits or modifying existing ones, and will continue its partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments to evaluate the “Real Stuff” exhibits.

Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania - Strasburg, PA
Award Amount: $132,634; Applicant Match: $179,532
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Bradley Smith
(717)687-8628x3013; brasmith@state.pa.us
P.O. Box 15
Strasburg, PA 17579

Project Title: "Collection Record Automation Project"
The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania will automate its collection records. The process will include updating, editing, and entering catalog data using Cuadra Star software to document the collection of 112 locomotives and railcars, 12,866 artifacts, and 3,000 cubic feet of archival material. A photography component will provide photographs of the half of the collection currently without photographic documentation in the catalog record. When this project is complete, 100 percent of the records will be accurate and automated, which will eventually allow the museum to make them available online to museum staff, outside researchers and scholars, and the general public. The project will achieve many of the goals stated in the museum's long-range strategic plan.

York County Heritage Trust - York, PA
Award Amount: $85,165; Applicant Match: $86,141
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Richard Banz
(717)848-1587; rbanzx@yorkheritage.org
250 East Market Street
York, PA 17404-2103

Project Title: "The Eureka Project"
The York County Heritage Trust (YCHT) will develop communications and activities with local educators to facilitate creative methods of teaching history to children in grades four through six. The museum will hire an experienced educator with a working knowledge of Pennsylvania Commonwealth curriculum standards for two years to compile a contact list of educators and education advocates, establish and build a network with schools and educators for future cooperation in lifelong learning activities, increase YCHT visibility in the schools through an electronic newsletter, conduct workshops in which teachers and administrators develop new programming, create and implement a list of traditional and electronic outreach products that schools can use, and publish and distribute an education service guide.

Puerto Rico

Museo de Arte de Ponce - Ponce, PR
Award Amount: $15,323; Applicant Match: $18,823
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Cheryl Hartup
(787)848-0505; chartup@museoartponce.org
P. O. Box 9027
Ponce, PR 00732-9027

Project Title: "Puerto Rico in the Artistic Imagination (1785 to 1948)"
Puerto Rico in the Artistic Imagination (1785-1948) is a traveling exhibit developed by the Museo de Art de Ponce, which will travel to three cities in the United States that have large communities of first and second generation Puerto Ricans. The exhibition seeks to describe how the artistic vision of the island's painters evolved over the course of nearly two centuries. The exhibition focuses on the work of three important artists of different periods: José Campeche (1751-1809), Francisco Oiler (1833-1917) and Miguel Pou (1880-1968). The paintings to be exhibited capture the island's landscape and people as they evolved over a two hundred year period, and demonstrates Puerto Rico's rich cultural legacy as interpreted by its most extraordinary painters. IMLS funds will be used to fund the cost of: (1) curriculum development; (2) production of materials such as activity guides and classroom cd's; and (3) creation of 10 podcasts.

Rhode Island

Blithewold Mansion, Gardens and Arboretum - Bristol, RI
Award Amount: $30,327; Applicant Match: $31,950
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mrs. Marion Murray
(401)253-2707x16; mmurray@blithewold.org
101 Ferry Road
Bristol, RI 02809-2902

Project Title: "Blithewold's Collection Management System"
Blithewold must have intellectual control of its expansive collection to manage it well and share it well. Blithewold serves a wide audience: casual visitors, amateur horticulturists, horticultural students, and researchers. This project will provide an effective management system with GPS capabilities for Blithewold's living collection. The system will enable Blithewold to maintain complete and consistent plant records for daily operations and as a historical and scientific record, respond promptly to requests for information, and improve staff productivity for records maintenance and development of educational materials. MySQL will expand Blithewold's accessibility on the Internet by creating static Web pages that, unlike databases, are recognized by search engines. Thus, the public can easily access and use the information.

South Dakota

Mammoth Site of Hot Springs - Hot Springs, SD
Award Amount: $41,401; Applicant Match: $41,595
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Joseph Muller
(605)745-6017; mammoth@mammothsite.com
P.O. Box 692
Hot Springs, SD 57747-0692

Project Title: "Museum Bonebed Baseline Re-establishment and Integration"
A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database will be designed and implemented. A bonebed baseline will be established using existing bone condition reports and laboratory and bone storage records. Once these data are loaded, a new baseline will be established. Existing data will be reviewed and reconciled with other museum data, the area will be photographed and remapped, and field inventory numbers will be verified or assigned. Data from the new baseline will be merged with existing bonebed and laboratory–bone storage data to provide a complete description of the fossil from its discovery through excavation, processing in the laboratory, and storage in the bone storage facility. Existing records will be linked to the new database.

National Music Museum - Vermillion, SD
Award Amount: $127,800; Applicant Match: $147,090
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Jayson Dobney
(605)677-5306; jdobney@usd.edu
414 East Clark Street
Vermillion, SD 57069-2307

Project Title: "Self-Guided Multi-Media Tour Program at the National Music Museum"
The National Music Museum (NMM) will create a self-guided multimedia tour using a Web-based platform and the latest generation of handheld tour technology. Visitors will be able not only to hear musical instruments on exhibit in NMM's nine permanent galleries but also to see them used in performance, learn how they work, and understand their cultural context. NMM will digitize images, documents, and video footage from its archives, and make relevant information available as part of the tour. The program will include interviews with experts from the museum and other institutions. Material will be developed for various age levels and grouped by topic. The program will be available in English, Spanish, and German.

Tennessee

Hermitage: Home of President Andrew Jackson - Hermitage, TN
Award Amount: $68,780; Applicant Match: $68,896
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Daniel Brock
(615)889-2941x200; dbrock@thehermitage.com
4580 Rachel's Lane
Hermitage, TN 37076-1331

Project Title: "The Hermitage Archaeology Processing Plant"
The Hermitage Archaeology Processing Project will process an archaeological collection of an estimated 800,000 artifacts. The activities include assessing the collection, then processing, cataloging, and analyzing artifacts. The goal is to make this information available for educational and research purposes. The artifacts are contained in more than 400 boxes. They will be inventoried and the contents listed in a database. Processing includes washing, labeling, and reboxing. After the artifacts are processed, they will be cataloged using the Hermitage’s own archaeological cataloging system and entered into a relational database that will allow the data to be manipulated for analysis. The information will be a resource that is available to professionals and the public alike.

Jonesborough-Washington County History Museum - Jonesborough, TN
Award Amount: $24,620; Applicant Match: $26,950
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Randall Sanders
(423)753-9580; rsanders@jwcheritagealliance.org
212 East Sabin Drive
Jonesborough, TN 37659-1306

Project Title: "Moving to a New Stage of Historic Interpretation in Jonesborough, Tennessee"
The Jonesborough–Washington County History Museum is a major source of heritage education for this region of southern Appalachia. The objectives of the project are (1) to construct a Storytelling Porch in the museum gallery to provide an engaging and interactive experience for visitors and to achieve greater flexibility for special exhibits, and (2) to tell the story of Jonesborough through interpretive panels, using the National Register Historic District as an outdoor exhibition space and tying specific panels to stories visitors can listen to on the Storytelling Porch. Through this project, the museum aims to make its exhibits more engaging and to make use of the historic downtown as a unique resource for outdoor interpretation.

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art - Memphis, TN
Award Amount: $73,520; Applicant Match: $74,735
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Marina Pacini
(901)544-6204; marina.pacini@brooksmuseum.org
1934 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104-2756

Project Title: "Carl Gutherz Catalogue Project"
The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (MBMA) has an extensive collection of works by Carl Gutherz. The museum will publish a catalog examining his life and work; it will include biographical information, essays on his paintings and murals, and excerpts from his journals, and will examine his work in the context of late 19th century American art. It will include images of his works and period photographs. University Press of Mississippi will distribute the catalog nationally; MBMA will distribute it through the museum store and website and through a Gutherz traveling exhibition scheduled for 2009. The catalog will help fulfill the museum's artistic and educational goals, and expand the community's knowledge of its cultural heritage.

Frist Center for the Visual Arts - Nashville, TN
Award Amount: $49,179; Applicant Match: $75,481
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Anne Henderson
(615)744-3338; ahenderson@fristcenter.org
919 Broadway
Nashville, TN 37203-3822

Project Title: "Hispanic Outreach Partnership in Education (HOPE) Project"
The project will consist of three major activities in conjunction with an exhibition of Mexican printmaking: (1) a teen printmaking workshop, (2) a multiple visit program with community partners, and (3) free affinity days. Twenty teens will be invited to participate in a 10-day printmaking workshop culminating in their own exhibition. They will learn about the ideas behind these prints and their historical impact. Five outreach partners that serve the Hispanic community will host participants for three visits at the community centers and a final visit to the museum. The museum will schedule a free affinity day during the Mexican printmaking exhibition and will provide shuttles to facilitate participants’ transportation from the community centers.

Adventure Science Center - Nashville, TN
Award Amount: $74,840; Applicant Match: $104,511
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Jeri Hasselbring
(615)401-5069; jhasselbring@adventuresci.com
800 Fort Negley Boulevard
Nashville, TN 37203-4833

Project Title: "Adventure Science Outreach Shows (SOS)"
Adventure Science Outreach Shows create educational experiences for students that complement school curricula. The program will be expanded to eight counties surrounding Davidson County. The outreach coordinator will develop and implement a research and evaluation program using students from the Boys and Girls Clubs to determine the best programs and assess their effectiveness, design new tours and write curricula for them, and establish relationships with curriculum leaders in counties around the Nashville metropolitan area. A scholarship program will allow 200 students of Adventure SOS programming to participate in a weeklong summer camp that encourages hands-on learning and in-depth science interaction at the Adventure Science Center. This program makes the Adventure Science Center accessible to lower-income households.

Texas

Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute - Fort Davis, TX
Award Amount: $76,006; Applicant Match: $83,146
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Dr. Cathryn Hoyt
(432)364-2499; choyt_cdri@overland.net
P. O. Box 905
Fort Davis, TX 79734-0010

Project Title: "What's the Buzz: Pollinators of the Northern Chicuahuan Desert"
The Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute (CDRI) will display “Partners in Pollination,” an exhibit designed by the Botanical Research Institute of Texas and the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. The exhibit will include a brochure, a complete curriculum for teachers, and a series of workshops and lectures to raise awareness about pollinators and encourage conservation activities. A survey will be conducted of the pollinators in the botanical gardens. Visitors and students will be encouraged to participate in the project and interact with the scientists. The resulting field guide will be published and distributed through CDRI's gift shop. CDRI will use this information to establish a pollinator garden featuring plants native to the northern Chihuahuan Desert region.

Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston - Houston, TX
Award Amount: $147,234; Applicant Match: $203,592
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Terrie Sultan
(713)743-9522; tsultan@uh.edu
Library Administration
114 University Libraries
Houston, TX

Project Title: "Art Focus"
Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston will use its IMLS grant to fund Art Focus. IMLS funds will enhance the museum's ability to support lifelong learning through a rich array of interlocking projects and programs that provide access to information through accessible learning opportunities and cross-generational mentoring. The goal is to fully integrate the cross-disciplinary and cross-generational aspect of these existing programming into a unified philosophical whole that will result in increased attendance for all Blaffer exhibitions and public programs; expand the museum's outreach into adult and young adult continuing education; and deepen the museum's contribution to the lives of our constituents.

Children's Museum of Houston - Houston, TX
Award Amount: $149,847; Applicant Match: $160,649
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Cheryl McCallum
(713)522-1138x220; cmccallum@cmhouston.org
1500 Binz
Houston, TX 77004-7112

Project Title: "The People to People Learning Initiative"
The Children's Museum of Houston will implement People to People, an initiative to establish a sustainable plan for staff recruitment and training. The museum will select and develop metrics to identify and recruit people who are likely to succeed as Discovery Guides, create a toolkit of training resources, develop procedures to quickly train new Discovery Guides and increase the competence of experienced Discovery Guides, and create systems to capture feedback and provide opportunities for mentoring and reinforcement. The initiative will coincide with the completion of a major expansion of the museum's facilities in summer 2008, and will enable the museum to recruit and train a significantly expanded team of Discovery Guides to staff the expanded galleries.

Utah

Utah State University Museum of Anthropology - Logan, UT
Award Amount: $35,312; Applicant Match: $35,412
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Dr. Bonnie Pitblado
(435)797-1496; bpitblado@hass.usu.edu
Office of Sponsored Projects
1415 Old Main Hill
Logan, UT 84322-0730

Project Title: "Digitizing Museum Material for Electronic Access, Preservation and Management"
The Utah State University Museum of Anthropology will digitize the records associated with 6,500 ethnographic and archaeological objects and approximately 100 works of art and photographs. Student employees and docents will be trained in techniques of artifact handling, condition assessment, and photography; negative and flatbed scanning; and data entry into the museum cataloging system. A student employee will photograph each of the 6,500 artifacts for the digital database in a high-resolution format. More than 100 two-dimensional works of art and photographs will be scanned. Documents pertaining to artifacts (such as gift records and appraisals) will also be scanned for recordkeeping purposes. Artifact accession numbers and other information will be entered into the cataloging system.

Treehouse Children's Museum - Ogden, UT
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $182,035
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. Wesley Whitby
(801)394-9663; treehouse@relia.net
P.O. Box 727
Ogden, UT 84402-0727

Project Title: "Step into a Story on Stage"
Treehouse Children's Museum will build on established partnerships to provide more opportunities for children, families, and school groups. The Step into a Story on Stage project grew out of the museum’s popular ParticiPlays, which combine improvisation and scripts, and make children the stars. The museum will publish a booklet of ParticiPlay scripts that can involve up to 35 students and will create Treehouse Theater Trunks for loan to teachers who want to stage ParticiPlays in their classrooms. Treehouse Castle Theater productions will travel to area schools, and theater camps will be offered for children ages 6–12 years. Treehouse Museum will add a theater arts component to every public and school program offered at the museum.

Museum of Peoples and Cultures, Brigham Young University - Provo, UT
Award Amount: $134,172; Applicant Match: $145,937
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Dr. Marti Allen
(801)422-0018; mla3@email.byu.edu
105 Allen Hall
Provo, UT 84602-3600

Project Title: "Casas Grandes Exhibition and Catalogue"
Brigham Young University's teaching museum will walk students through professional-level curatorial activities. Over a 28-month period, staff will train and mentor 15 students as they select and research objects for the project; develop an exhibition theme; catalog and digitally photograph artifacts; conduct a front-end evaluation; design cases; conduct a formative evaluation of exhibit components; write labels; build object mounts; design supporting materials; prepare video stations, music stations, and other educational materials; plan a promotional campaign and opening events for the exhibition; mount the exhibition; train volunteers to give tours; edit text; design the catalog; check footnotes; secure copyright clearances; create an online version of the exhibition and the catalog; manage the publication process; and market the catalog.

Utah Museum of Natural History, University of Utah - Salt Lake City, UT
Award Amount: $136,786; Applicant Match: $136,908
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Mr. Ephriam Dickson
(801)585-6310; edickson@umnh.utah.edu
1471 E. Federal Way
Salt Lake City, UT 84112-8930

Project Title: "The Frontiers in Science Demonstration Theater"
The Utah Museum of Natural History will develop a demonstration and exhibit space known as the Frontiers in Science Demonstration Theater. This space will use live presentations, temporary exhibits, and technology to make science more accessible to the public. The museum will develop relationships with researchers and engage them in the communication of their work to the public. It will include the creation, performance, and evaluation of live demonstrations and museum theater skits; training and use of university students as demonstrators; hiring of a gallery program coordinator to develop content, train student facilitators, and strengthen partnerships on campus; and development of a Web page template to facilitate quick updates of content.

Vermont

Mount Independence Historic Site, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation -
Award Amount: $28,500; Applicant Match: $28,502
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Elsa Gilbertson
(802)759-2412; Elsa.Gilbertson@state.vt.us
National Life Building
Drawer 20
Montpelier, VT 05620-0501

Project Title: "Discovering Mount Independence: Train Interpretive Signage"
Discovering Mount Independence: Trail Interpretive Signage is a project to create and install interpretive signage on the 1¼-mile trail to be constructed in the fall of 2006 at the Mount Independence State Historic Site. Project activities will include research on the historic, archaeological, and natural features to be highlighted in the signs; text writing; and graphic design. The signage and new trail will be promoted through press releases and announcements, and celebrated at the June 2007 trail opening. A series of guided hikes will be offered, as well as a special outdoor program for school field trips. The signage will complement the story of this Revolutionary War site as told in the state-of-the-art visitor center.

Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium - Saint Johnsbury, VT
Award Amount: $74,908; Applicant Match: $92,893
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Raney Bench
(802)748-2372; rbench@fairbanksmuseum.org
1302 Main Street
Saint Johnsbury, VT 05819-2248

Project Title: "Bringing a Legacy to Life: New Collections Standards for the 21st Century"
The Fairbanks Museum will apply a process of accelerated collections inventory and automation to its remaining historical, cultural, and natural history collections. The project will prepare these categories of the museum's core collections for new standards of care and interpretation in new facilities. Specifically, the museum will complete inventories of these core collections; complete the automation of records; draft an institutional collections plan for development, preservation, and interpretation; and create an action plan (staffing, handling and packing standards and materials, documentation) for moving the collections into the new facility. The master plan envisions the storage and use of education collections in spaces dedicated for those purposes, once accessioned collections are relocated to new facilities.

Shelburne Museum - Shelburne, VT
Award Amount: $81,446; Applicant Match: $81,605
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Catherine Wood-Brooks
(802)985-3348x3393; cbrooks@shelburnemuseum.org
P.O. Box 10
5555 Shelburne Road
Shelburne, VT 05482-7491

Project Title: "Support, Improve and Evaluate Education Programs at Shelburne Museum"
The project includes the implementation of four on-site education programs at the Museum and the administration of one comprehensive visitor survey to evaluate the effectiveness and visitor response to these programs. The project's goal is to provide interactive and diverse points of access to the collections for a broad audience, furthering both the mission and strategic priorities of the institution. The four programs include: (1) Five residencies of artists and artisans, (2) Children's art workshops offered daily in July and August, free of charge, that address a wide range of themes related to the collections, (3) Working exhibition sites bringing traditional practices of blacksmithing, weaving, and letterpress printing to life for visitors, and (4) Supporting and improving guide training to improve exhibition interpretation for Museum visitors The final component of the project is a new, comprehensive visitor survey examining the visitor response to programs, exhibitions, the Museum experience, and the links between them.

American Precision Museum - Windsor, VT
Award Amount: $136,936; Applicant Match: $178,355
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Ann Lawless
(802)674-5781; alawless@americanprecision.org
P.O. Box 679
Windsor, VT 05089-0679

Project Title: "Collections Information Project"
American Precision Museum (APM) has been collecting artifacts without a curator, registrar, or collections manager since the museum's founding 40 years ago. Through the Collections Information Project, APM seeks to achieve intellectual control over its three-dimensional collections, estimated at 6,000 objects. The project will permit APM to (1) hire a trained collections manager for three years to plan and implement recordkeeping, inventory, documentation, and numbering; (2) install an improved computer network system, implement collections management software, and train staff in its use; and (3) rearrange the collections in storage to promote their longevity and ease of access. The collections manager will develop a collecting plan and will recruit, train, and manage volunteers to identify the artifacts.

Virginia

Peninsula Fine Arts Center - Newport News, VA
Award Amount: $64,235; Applicant Match: $66,533
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Mr. Michael Preble
Program Director
(757)596-8175x210; mpreble@pfac-va.org
101 Museum Drive
Newport News, VA 23606-3758

Project Title: "ARTreach: Experience Mali"
The traveling exhibition “ARTreach: Experience Mali” consists of photographs selected from the National Museum of African Art and traditional objects that depict ceremony and ritual, adornment, architecture, and daily life in Mali. The exhibition will provide cost-effective, comprehensive learning for approximately 10,000 elementary students in the first school year, with increasing numbers the following year as more schools become part of a communitywide network and participate in the electronic field trip program. The exhibition includes a distance learning element that features live broadcast presentations by educators, collectors, and curators, interactive question-and-answer sessions, dance and music demonstrations, storytelling, and art instruction. The broadcasts will be taped for future rebroadcast as electronic field trips through the pfac website.

Art Museum of Western Virginia - Roanoke, VA
Award Amount: $22,845; Applicant Match: $47,992
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Mary LaGue
(540)224-1235; mlague@artmuseumroanoke.org
One Market Square, SE
Second Floor
Roanoke, VA 24011-1436

Project Title: "Permanent Collection Digitization Project"
The grant will fund the digitization of the Art Museum of Western Virginia's permanent collection, which features important works by regional artists and American masters such as Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. Digitizing the collection will enable greater outreach capacity through the use of the Web and distance learning technologies, and help improve internal operations as the museum moves into a new building. A primary focus of the museum is to provide educational programming to remote audiences. By making digitized images universally available, the museum can better serve its 40-county western Virginia service area and bring the collection into the classrooms and homes of people who are unable to visit the museum.

Washington

Museum of Flight Foundation - Seattle, WA
Award Amount: $50,746; Applicant Match: $50,746
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Beverly Clevenger
(206)764-5700; bclevenger@museumofflight.org
9404 East Marginal Way South
Seattle, WA 98108-4097

Project Title: "Docent Recruitment and Training: Joining with the Community to Encourage Life-ling Learning"
In the Museum of Flight Foundation’s docent program, 295 docents help museum visitors enjoy and learn from the exhibits and help educators provide enhanced programs to more than 80,000 area youth. Because of the opening of two new galleries and the establishment of new education programs, the museum will need 75–100 new docents in 2006–7. The current docent corps, primarily retirees from careers in aviation, is mostly between the ages of 60 and 80; it includes only a few women, and only one African American and one Asian. The museum will conduct a recruitment drive to build a larger and more diverse docent corps through an expanded outreach program to the community of retired professionals.

Suquamish Museum - Suquamish, WA
Award Amount: $21,830; Applicant Match: $27,863
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mrs. Marilyn Jones
(360)394-8495; mjones@suquamish.nsn.us
P.O. Box 498
Suquamish, WA 98392-0498

Project Title: "Suquamish Museum Digitization of Oral History Tapes Project"
The project seeks to sustain Suquamish tribal cultural heritage by conserving an irreplaceable collection of oral histories that currently reside on tape cassettes that will soon acetate and demagnetize. The museum will transfer the oral histories onto digital compact disks, which have a longer effective life and are easier to copy, share, and work with on computers and websites. Museum staff will acquire the technical ability to make the transfer in-house. To ensure quality and safety, two audio conservation consultants will train the staff and oversee the project. The museum will purchase digital transfer equipment that interfaces with its PCs to ensure that the technical capabilities for the project will reside with the organization indefinitely.

Tacoma Art Museum - Tacoma, WA
Award Amount: $114,516; Applicant Match: $135,372
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Paula McArdle
(253)272-4258x3026; pmcardle@tacomaartmuseum.org
1701 Pacific Avenue
Tacoma, WA 98402-3214

Project Title: "Second Tuesdays at Tacoma Art Museum"
Second Tuesdays at Tacoma Art Museum is designed to more deeply engage military retirees and seniors of the South Puget Sound region. The program addresses several unmet needs of this audience, including providing information in easy-to-understand formats, removing real or perceived physical and financial barriers, and encouraging seniors to be engaged in the community and enjoy the pleasures of art. The program has three components: (1) creating awareness, (2) eliminating barriers to participation, and (3) delivering a customized museum experience. The Speakers Bureau will send lecturers to senior centers to invite participation in Second Tuesdays, which will include discounted admission, comfortable seating, a tailored gallery tour, a lecture and lunch series, and optional art-making activities.

Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art - Tacoma, WA
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $458,330
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Susan Warner
(253)284-2128; swarner@museumofglass.org
1801 Dock Street
Tacoma, WA 98402-3217

Project Title: "Science of Art"
Science of Art is an innovative interdisciplinary program that uses glass as an educational medium for teaching math and science to middle school and high school students. Since the program’s inception in 2002, more than 5,200 students have participated. In 2006, the museum will expand its outreach program by creating a mobile hot shop that will travel with educators and glass instructors to classes that are unable to participate onsite. The museum will also expand the program’s Web presence and its curriculum library, and will devise an evaluation model. The museum will continue to engage general visitors in the model through lectures that connect science and art through the vehicle of glass.

Walla Walla Valley Historical Society - Walla Walla, WA
Award Amount: $26,475; Applicant Match: $27,735
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Laura Schulz
(509)525-7703; laura@fortwallawallamuseum.org
755 Myra Road
Walla Walla, WA 99362-8035

Project Title: "Lloyd Family Indian Artifact Collection: Positive Interaction of Cultures in Southeastern Washington"
Fort Walla Walla Museum will design and create a new exhibit and accompanying guide interpreting the peaceful coexistence of a pioneer family and lndian people in southeast Washington. The project is a collaborative effort that includes consultation with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The Lloyd family has lived in the Walla Walla Valley since 1855, when they negotiated use of the land with the Palouse people. Recently, the museum received the Wes and Ma Lloyd collection of more than 180 Indian artifacts, photographs, and associated records. The collection documents the peaceful, respectful, and mutually beneficial relationships between Indians and the Lloyd family, a story of positive interaction between tribal peoples and settlers.

West Virginia

Historic Beverly Preservation Inc. - Beverly, WV
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $159,102
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Michelle Depp
(304)637-7424; info@historicbeverly.org
P.O. Box 227
Beverly, WV 26253-0227

Project Title: "Beverly Heritage Center Exhibit"
Over three years, the Beverly Heritage Center interpretative museum will be planned, researched, scripted, designed, and tested, and an initial significant section will be implemented. The center will be located in a complex of rehabilitated historic buildings and will include visitor interpretation for the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike National Scenic Byway, Rich Mountain, and the Civil War First Campaign. It will include visitor information center functions, collection care and archives facilities, and a thematically related museum store. Planning will support multimedia components and associated exhibits throughout the community. The project will build capacity of the partner organizations and train staff in the skills they need for ongoing care of the collections and creation of rotating exhibits.

Huntington Museum of Art - Huntington, WV
Award Amount: $40,500; Applicant Match: $64,325
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Katherine Cox
(304)529-2701x31; kcox@hmoa.org
2033 McCoy Road
Huntington, WV 25701-4999

Project Title: "Museum Making Connections"
The Huntington Museum of Art will pursue Museum Making Connections (MMC), a multipronged outreach program designed to offer an array of art education choices to schools and day care centers in its geographic service area. The projects include MMC Tri-State Elementaries, a slide show of museum objects accompanied by hands-on workshop activities for first and fifth grade classrooms; MMC After School, which provides sequential, discipline-based arts instruction to eight institutions that already have after-school programs in place; MMC Middle School, which provides a synthesized art/science/language arts project to gifted middle school children (the project lasts the entire nine-week school term); and MMC Distance Learning, which offers virtual field trips for schools in remote locations.

Oglebay's Good Zoo, Wheeling Park Commission - Wheeling, WV
Award Amount: $43,029; Applicant Match: $43,029
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Ms. Penny Miller
(304)243-4027; pmiller@oglebay-resort.com
Route 88 North
Wheeling, WV 26003-9512

Project Title: "Can You Hear Me Now?"
Oglebay's Good Zoo and Planetarium will purchase audiovisual equipment and employee training, an upgraded telephone and intercom system, graphic design software and a CD duplicator, a high-brightness CRT projector in the planetarium to improve the quality of shows (now viewed by only 16 percent of zoo visitors because of the poor quality), and a functional public address system and wireless classroom microphone system. Other items that will help the zoo communicate its activities in innovative ways to a tech-savvy audience are a nest-box camera to give visitors a peek at a newborn animal and a video projector to display tiny creatures on a giant screen. A touch screen kiosk will allow visitors to observe offsite research work.

Wisconsin

Chippewa Valley Museum - Eau Claire, WI
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $203,094
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Susan McLeod
(715)834-7871; susanm@cvmuseum.com
1204 Carson Park Drive
P.O. Box 1204
Eau Claire, WI 54702-1204

Project Title: "Arrivals"
The Chippewa Valley Museum (CVM) Arrivals project will result in public programs at the museum, at Schlegelmilch House, in the community, and in area schools. During the three-year period, CVM will plan public programs on late 20th century immigration and migration (Amish, Hmong, Hispanic, Somali); prepare Schlegelmilch House for a new role as an orientation/study center for immigration history and the starting point for theme tours of downtown Eau Claire; incorporate research on ethnic neighborhoods into new segments of the “Neighborhood” exhibit; and invite students, teachers, and other community members to learn actively by participating in project research, program development, and new educational programs. The Arrivals project will increase CVM's institutional capacity by strengthening collaborative partnerships.

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art - Madison, WI
Award Amount: $17,155; Applicant Match: $19,466
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Sheri Castelnuovo
(608)257-0158x227; scasteln@mmoca.org
211 State Street
Madison, WI 53703-2793

Project Title: "MMoCAKids School Tour Program"
Beginning in fall 2006, the museum’s Kids School Tour Program will offer a comprehensive tour program, including small-group guided tours, hands-on workshop experiences, and pre- and post-tour teacher resources. The program will leverage opportunities created by the opening of a new building that has expansive galleries, a lecture hall, and an education workshop to better serve student audiences. The program will build on current partnerships with area schools and will seek to overcome obstacles faced by school groups in the past. To eliminate financial barriers that have kept some urban and ethnically diverse schools from participating, the museum will offer transportation subsidies and substitute teacher subsidies to schools in the 16 Dane County school districts.

New Visions Gallery - Marshfield, WI
Award Amount: $20,192; Applicant Match: $20,192
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Nan Curtis
(715)387-5562; nan.newvisions@verizon.net
1000 North Oak Avenue
Marshfield, WI 54449-5703

Project Title: "African Art Permanent Exhibition"
New Visions Gallery will create a permanent exhibition using objects of African art from its collection, which contains 105 masks and other sculptural objects representing a wide variety of peoples and cultures in sub-Saharan Africa. The accompanying 40-page, four-color catalog will include an image of each item in the collection. The catalog will be available free of charge at New Visions Gallery and at libraries, travel organizations, regional arts agencies and centers, and from the New Visions Gallery website. In addition to interpreting the gallery’s African art collection, the catalog will be a valuable tool for encouraging the public to investigate its other exhibitions and collections, as well as aspects of other nonwestern cultures.

Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University - Milwaukee, WI
Award Amount: $7,479; Applicant Match: $7,479
Grant Category: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement

Contact: Dr. Curtis Carter
(414)288-7290; curtis.carter@mu.edu
P.O.Box 3141
Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881

Project Title: "Haggerty Visual Arts and Writing Project"
The project is a collaboration among the Haggerty Museum curator of education, Marquette School of Education professors and students, teachers from three Milwaukee public schools, and two local artists. The goal is to better equip teachers to integrate visual arts into the standard curriculum to enrich the learning process for students. Students from three Milwaukee public schools will visit the Haggerty to view specific works of art. They will then participate in workshops on art and writing as means of storytelling. These themes also will be integrated into the language arts and social studies curricula at the three schools. Marquette students will serve as assistants during the workshops, and the School of Education will evaluate the project.

Milwaukee Public Museum - Milwaukee, WI
Award Amount: $143,708; Applicant Match: $235,571
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Carter Lupton
(414)278-2797; lupton@mpm.edu
800 West Wells Street
Milwaukee, WI 53233-1478

Project Title: "Digitization of MPM History Catalogues"
The Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) will convert its paper-based history collection catalog records to electronic form. The need to computerize these records has been recognized in surveys since 1991. The 12-month project will use onsite data entry technicians to convert portions of the 266,000 catalog cards to the KE EMu collections management system, which the institution has purchased and configured. After card fields have been keyed, images of the cards and objects will be captured and transferred. Error-trapping and data validation procedures are emphasized in the project design. Selected fields will be Web-accessible, allowing MPM's collections to reach new audiences and to better serve a number of strategically important audiences that need easier access to collections data.

Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum - Wausau, WI
Award Amount: $103,947; Applicant Match: $104,026
Grant Category: Supporting Lifelong Learning

Contact: Ms. Kathy Foley
(715)845-7010; kfoley@lywam.org
700 North 12th Street
Wausau, WI 54403-5007

Project Title: "Which Way? Wayfinding @ the Woodson"
Which Way? is a seven-phase project that will lead to the design and installation of a comprehensive, integrated wayfinding plan for the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. The plan will encompass the approaches to the museum, the grounds, the sculpture garden, and all interior facilities. The seven phases are (1) identify signage needs; (2) establish project benchmarks; (3) create three sign concepts and choose one; (4) create and install prototype signs; (5) evaluate the effectiveness of the sign design and content, and make revisions; (6) install all wayfinding signs and compile a complete specification manual; and (7) conduct a staff evaluation of the project and share accomplishments and lessons learned.

Wyoming

Fort Caspar Museum - Casper, WY
Award Amount: $150,000; Applicant Match: $168,705
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Mr. Richard Young
(307)235-8462
200 North David
Casper, WY 82601-1815

Project Title: "Fort Casper Museum Permanent Exhibit Project"
The Permanent Exhibit Project is a three-phase project: Phase 1 activities include creating a master plan and exhibit outline, beginning the schematic design process, researching exhibit themes and stories, and conducting front-end evaluation. This phase began in March 2005 and continues through July 2006. Phase 2 activities include completing the schematic design, writing label copy, conducting formative evaluation, approving the final exhibit design, and fabricating exhibit components. This phase will be undertaken primarily by the exhibit designer with help from museum project staff, the evaluator, and volunteer consultants from August 2006 through July 2007. Phase 3 activities include exhibit installation, remedial and summative evaluation, and the grand opening, which will occur in fall 2007.

University of Wyoming - Laramie, WY
Award Amount: $113,000; Applicant Match: $123,545
Grant Category: Sustaining Cultural Heritage

Contact: Ms. Susan Moldenhauer
(307)766-6620; amsm@uwyo.edu
1000 E University Avenue
P.O. Box 3924
Laramie, WY 82071-2000

Project Title: "Collection Advancement Project"
The Collection Advancement Project for the University of Wyoming Art Museum is the first planned assessment of the collection since the museum began acquiring objects in the early 1970s. The purpose of the project is to evaluate the collection for content and value; establish a framework for redefining collecting and cataloging areas; identify collection strengths, limitations, needs, gaps, and overlaps; and create a development plan. The project will be conducted through a systematic process of surveying the collection, identifying data gaps, gathering data for assessment and valuation, researching valuation, prioritizing the collection, compiling all data, and writing a final report. The results will provide essential information for future collection planning and promotion, and will advance scholarly use.