Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections

Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections helps cultural institutions meet the complex challenge of preserving large and diverse holdings of humanities materials for future generations by supporting preventive conservation measures that mitigate deterioration and prolong the useful life of collections. Libraries, archives, museums, and historical organizations across the country are responsible for collections of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art, and historical objects that facilitate research, strengthen teaching, and provide opportunities for life-long learning in the humanities. To preserve and ensure continued access to such collections, institutions must implement preventive conservation measures, which encompass managing relative humidity, temperature, light, and pollutants in collection spaces, providing protective storage enclosures and systems for collections, and safeguarding collections from theft and from natural and man-made disasters. As they strive to be effective stewards of humanities collections, cultural repositories are increasingly interested in sustainable preservation strategies. NEH therefore invites proposals that explore and implement energy-efficient and cost-effective preventive conservation measures designed to mitigate the greatest risks to collections. To help institutions develop sound preventive conservation projects, NEH encourages collaborative and interdisciplinary planning, which may be especially helpful for identifying sustainable strategies. Such planning would include consideration of the following factors: the nature of the materials in a collection; the performance of the building, its envelope, and its systems in moderating internal environmental conditions; the capabilities of the institution; the nature of the local climate and the effects of climate change; the cost-effectiveness and energy efficiency of various approaches to preventive conservation; and the project’s impact on the environment.