Constructing Digital Humanities Grant Proposals as a Librarian

RECORDING: https://youtu.be/kJlH3NduRY8 

The DHDG conveners invite you to join us on Monday, June 29th, at 1p-2:15p Central Time, for a webcast on “Constructing Digital Humanities Grant Proposals as a Librarian.” We’ll feature five 10-minute presentations offering various perspectives from library professionals who have served as primary investigators (PIs) and Co-PIs on grants supporting Digital Humanities projects and initiatives, including local, NEH, IMLS, and Mellon funding opportunities (abstracts below [1]):

1. “Creating Grant Timelines: The Ideal and the Real,” Amanda Rust, Northeastern University Library
2. “The Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium Digital Archive: Organizing Workflows Among Among Academic Libraries, Public Libraries, and Community Partners,” Charlotte Nunes, Lafayette College Libraries
3. “Breaking Barriers: Librarians as Public History Scholars,” Hayley Johnson and Sarah Simms, Louisiana State University
4. “Shut Up and Take the Mellon Money: Adapting a Library-Led Digital Humanities Program to Accommodate Grant Funding,” R.C. Miessler and Kevin Moore, Gettysburg College
5. “GLAMorous Collaboration: Supporting Digital Humanities Faculty Research Projects,” Franny Gaede and Erin Passehl Stoddart, University of Oregon

Please register in advance to receive the Zoom link: https://bit.ly/dhdg629. 

We ask that you do not enter the meeting room any earlier than 10 minutes before the start time to allow our presenters to set-up. Installing a zoom add-in is required; see instructions on ACRL's Virtual Meetings LibGuide: http://acrl.libguides.com/virtualmeetings/home 

This page will be updated with the recording when it’s available. Meanwhile, we wish you all well and look forward to seeing you on June 29th.

Best wishes,
DSS Digital Humanities Discussion Group Co-Conveners
Laurin Paradise, Manhattan College
Dr Angela Dressen, Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies
Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, University of Colorado Boulder

[1] Presentation Abstracts

1. “Creating Grant Timelines: The Ideal and the Real”
   • Amanda Rust, Associate Director for Services, Digital Scholarship Group, Northeastern University Library
   • This short presentation will, drawing on personal experience, share lessons learned about constructing grant timelines that are both concrete and ambitious but also flexible enough to account for unforeseen events. It is difficult to authoritatively project into the future, particularly in large projects with multiple collaborators, and this presentation can offer reflections on both success and failures. 
2. “The Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium Digital Archive: Organizing Workflows Among Among Academic Libraries, Public Libraries, and Community Partners”
   • Charlotte Nunes, Director of Digital Scholarship Services, Lafayette College Libraries
   • I will be presenting on the innovative workflow developed by Lafayette College Libraries Digital Scholarship Services to actualize the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium Digital Archive (https://lvehc-archive.lafayette.edu). The LVEHC Digital Archive is one deliverable of a four-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (https://sites.lafayette.edu/lvehc/) on which the Lafayette library is a formal partner; in my role as Director of DSS, I co-Direct the grant with a faculty member, and all staff members of DSS contribute to the construction of the in-process regional digital archive. The LVEHC Digital Archive represents diverse collection-building efforts across the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. It also features curated interpretive exhibits generated by undergraduates at area colleges. The range of primary source materials collected in the archive include oral histories, family photographs, historic maps, ephemera, and other materials that document ethnic and immigrant communities, emergent economies in the de-industrial era, relationships between culture and the environment, and other topics. Contributors include faculty, students, archivists, academic librarians, public librarians, and community partners such as members of local chapters of the NAACP. In order to facilitate a highly collaborative collection-building process that centers the autonomy of community partners while positioning digital assets for long-term stewardship, the department of Digital Scholarship Services has created a series of workflow documents that structure an intentional relationship between supporting academic archives and community partners. I can talk about strategies that have worked for us to organize work among multiple collaborators. I would also be happy to speak about other aspects of proposing and administering a DH-inflected grant from an academic library. 
3. “Breaking Barriers: Librarians as Public History Scholars” 
   • Hayley Johnson, Head Government Documents & Microforms, Louisiana State University
   • Sarah Simms, Undergraduate & Student Success Librarian, Louisiana State University
   • Two librarians at Louisiana State University, Hayley Johnson and Sarah Simms, have uncovered the hidden history of a World War II alien internment camp for Japanese men at Camp Livingston, Louisiana.  This history had been long forgotten in the state and even, in some cases, around the nation.  In order to find information about the men in camp as well as the program of "enemy alien" internment, Johnson and Simms had to write numerous grants which funded much of their travel to archives across the country.  Through presenting on their research and findings, they have connected with eminent scholars in the field that study internment and incarceration.  Because of these relationships, Johnson and Simms were approached to partner with both a scholar and organization to write a grant to fund the creation of an online repository dedicated to the Japanese and Japanese American experience in Louisiana. Johnson and Simms found the NEH Digital Projects for the Public grant that fit the needs and scope of the project and successfully applied for the $30,000 Discovery phase of the grant.  Johnson and Simms will cover what makes a compelling grant argument, how to find scholars to support your grant and your research, and the importance of grants in social justice work.
4. “Shut Up and Take the Mellon Money: Adapting a Library-Led Digital Humanities Program to Accommodate Grant Funding” 
   • R.C. Miessler, Systems Librarian, Gettysburg College
   • Kevin Moore, Research & Instruction Librarian, Gettysburg College
   • Since 2016, Gettysburg College’s Musselman Library has facilitated the Digital Scholarship Summer Fellowship (DSSF), a library-led introduction to Digital Humanities tools and methods for undergraduates. With the support of librarian partners, students conduct independent research around a topic of their choosing and apply DH methods and tools learned during the summer program to their final projects. For the first two years of the program, the fellowship was funded by various library and college funds. In 2017, the college received a Presidential Leadership Grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation which included funding for the DSSF program for three years. This presentation will discuss how the team of librarians who facilitate the DSSF program has negotiated the shift from local to grant funding, focusing on how we have organized our team and adapted program outcomes, assessment, and reporting to fit the requirements of the Mellon grant. We will review some unexpected challenges when working with grant funding and how we have successfully worked within the parameters of the grant to fit our needs locally. Finally, we will give an update on the state of the program post-grant and how we successfully advocated for a return to local funding.
5. “GLAMorous Collaboration: Supporting Digital Humanities Faculty Research Projects”
   • Franny Gaede, Head, Digital Scholarship Services, University of Oregon
   • Erin Passehl Stoddart, Strategic Projects and Grants Development Librarian, University of Oregon
   • In 2017, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded the University of Oregon Libraries and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art a grant to support enhanced collaboration among campus libraries and museums. One outcome was to increase the use of GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) assets in research, teaching, and learning. The grant provided funds to hire the first joint library/museum postdoctoral fellow and two graduate assistants to help support six digital scholarship faculty projects to develop new exhibitions, learning objects, and coursework. This presentation will briefly address supporting and mentoring grant-funded staff, project team organization across organizations and departments, and overcoming administrative challenges pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic.