Archives- Detailed Processing Projects

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The NHPRC supports projects to conduct activities to promote the preservation and use of America's documentary heritage essential to understanding of our democracy, history, and culture.The National Historical Publications and Records Commission seeks proposals for detailed processing and preservation of collections of national significance. The collections should also have high research demand or substantial preservation challenges. Applicants must have virtually all of their collections processed sufficiently so that researchers can find them. In addition, they must have procedures in place to prevent the creation of new backlogs that delay access to their holdings. If archives have not achieved these goals, they should review the Archives - Basic Projects announcement to see if their projects are better suited to that funding category.Detailed Processing Projects may include reformatting records onto microfilm or other media in order to ensure their permanence in the face of high demand. Applicants may process and create detailed descriptions at the series or file level. Such descriptions will improve user access to historical records and help preserve collections. If parts of collections deserve processing to the item level, applicants must provide specific justifications for this detailed degree of work and provide estimates of the percentage of collections to be processed to the item level.Projects should revise corresponding collection-level records and submit them to national library catalogs. They must also create or revise detailed finding aids using Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and provide them to a national archival database and appropriate regional and institutional databases. If other search mechanisms, descriptive methods, or name indexes are necessary for parts of collections, applicants should explain the reasons for creating these tools. Applicants should also outline their publicity and outreach plans for promoting use of collections.Applicants should describe the level of preservation treatment to be carried out in the project. The Commission expects that most preservation work will take place at the file level and may include selective refoldering and basic cleaning of loose dirt and other foreign matter. Applicants must explain whether any item level treatment will be necessary. Item level treatment generally includes removing fasteners, opening envelopes, and flattening, copying, encapsulating, de-acidifying, and mending documents.For collections of fragile textual materials, applicants may apply for grants in support of preservation microfilming. When appropriate, applicants should consider hybrid microfilm/digitization (using dual head cameras, or microfilm-to-digital or digital-to-microfilm techniques). Applicants who wish only to engage in digitization should see the Digitizing Historical Records announcement. For collections of unstable audio or video materials, applicants may propose preservation reformatting or migration.Applicants may propose limited digitization of series or items that have the most potential to reach a broad public, or to provide illustrations of the type of records and documents found in the series and collection. Applications should detail the standards to be used in this process, itemize anticipated expenses, and estimate the percentage of the collections to be digitized. A grant normally is for one to three years and ranges between $40,000-$200,000. The Commission expects to make up to 5 grants in this category, for a total of up to $500,000. The Commission provides no more than 50 percent of project costs for Detailed Processing Projects.Cost sharing is the financial contribution the applicant pledges to the cost of a project. Cost sharing can include both direct and indirect expenses, in-kind contributions, non-Federal third-party contributions, and any income earned directly by the project.

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