About the Program

Goucher College Mapping Special Collections for Research and Teaching at Goucher College For this project, staff and students will catalog a 4,000 volume collection of Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Early Modern English texts and manuscript collections related to American dance, education, Jane Austen, Maryland history, U.S. history, women's studies, H.L. Mencken, and women in science. More award-winning projects University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California Berkeley Cataloging Hidden Archives of Western Botany and Beyond This project will significantly improve access to the archival collections at the University and Jepson Herbaria, which document the history of western American botany from the 1860s to the present. The archives contain letters and field books of at least 200 individuals in addition to documents, photographs, and slides from scientists around the globe. More award-winning projects Goucher College Mapping Special Collections for Research and Teaching at Goucher College For this project, staff and students will catalog a 4,000 volume collection of Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Early Modern English texts and manuscript collections related to American dance, education, Jane Austen, Maryland history, U.S. history, women's studies, H.L. Mencken, and women in science. More award-winning projects Goucher College Mapping Special Collections for Research and Teaching at Goucher College For this project, staff and students will catalog a 4,000 volume collection of Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Early Modern English texts and manuscript collections related to American dance, education, Jane Austen, Maryland history, U.S. history, women's studies, H.L. Mencken, and women in science. More award-winning projects Litchfield Historical Society Litchfield Historical Society's Revolutionary Era and Early Republic Holdings This project will produce descriptions of varied collections related 18th and 19th century America. Among the materials to be processed will be the archives of the Litchfield Female Academy, founded by Sarah Pierce. Image: Sarah Pierce, attributed to George Catlin, c. 1830. Watercolor on ivory. More award-winning projects Litchfield Historical Society Litchfield Historical Society's Revolutionary Era and Early Republic Holdings This project will produce descriptions of varied collections related 18th and 19th century America. Among the items related to the Revolutionary War are many letters, including this 1779 message from Peter Colt to Captain Moses Seymour, urgently requesting food supplies for American militiamen. More award-winning projects Litchfield Historical Society Litchfield Historical Society's Revolutionary Era and Early Republic Holdings This project will produce descriptions of varied collections related 18th and 19th century America. An example of the Society's Revolutionary War materials is this 1779 letter from Peter Colt to Captain Moses Seymour requesting supplies: "lose not a moments time - pick up every bit of public Flour on the Road & send it forward - and purchase all the Flour, Wheat, Rye, Corn in your district". More award-winning projects New York University The Records of the Communist Party, USA: A Preservation and Access Project This project will create finding aids for the records of the Communist Party, USA and the Library of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies, which together document the history of Communism and the American Left in the 20th century. Image: Hunger Marchers, Washington DC, 1932. Daily Worker photograph morgue, Tamiment Library. More award-winning projects New York University The Records of the Communist Party, USA: A Preservation and Access Project This project will create finding aids for the records of the Communist Party, USA and the Library of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies, which together document the history of Communism and the American Left in the 20th century. Image: Paul Robeson, Harlem, c. 1950. Daily Worker photograph morgue, Tamiment Library. More award-winning projects New York University The Records of the Communist Party, USA: A Preservation and Access Project This project will create finding aids for the records of the Communist Party, USA and the Library of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies, which together document the history of Communism and the American Left in the 20th century. Image: Workers Alliance of New York, 1936. Daily Worker photograph morgue, Tamiment Library. More award-winning projects Northwestern University Library The Africana Posters: Hidden Collections of Northwestern and Michigan State University Libraries Through this project, over 3000 posters held by Northwestern and Michigan State University Libraries will become bibliographically accessible to scholars and students worldwide. More award-winning projects University of Michigan Library Collaboration in Cataloging: Islamic Manuscripts at Michigan This project involves the creation and exposure of digital surrogates and catalog records for 1,250 manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish dating from the 8th to the 20th centuries. Its website will provide unified access to records and digital surrogates and will allow scholarly experts to contribute bibliographic information and commentary. More award-winning projects Amistad Research Center, Tulane University Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations This project will process and catalog nine collections of personal papers documenting Civil Rights era history, including branch and local chapter records of key Civil Rights organizations that have been hidden within the personal papers of individuals who were participants or officers. Image credit: Ronnie Moore Papers. More award-winning projects Amistad Research Center, Tulane University Working for Freedom: Documenting Civil Rights Organizations This project will reveal nine collections of personal papers documenting Civil Rights era history, including branch and local chapter records of key Civil Rights organizations that have been hidden within the personal papers of individuals who were participants or officers. Image credit: Ronnie Moore Papers. More award-winning projects Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center Processing the Voter Education Project Collection This project focuses on archival materials related to the Atlanta-based Voter Education Project (1954-1992), which was formed to increase political participation for minorities and develop a more informed electorate. More award-winning projects California Historical Society The California Ephemera Project This project will result in a searchable, online catalog linking the ephemera collections of four institutions: the California Historical Society; the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society; the San Francisco Public Library; and Society of California Pioneers. More award-winning projects Getty Research Institute Uncovering Archives and Rare Photographs: Two Models for Creating Accession-level Finding Aids Using Archivists' Toolkit This project will document two archival processing methods used to describe varied collections documenting the intersections of art and language in the 20th century. Materials selected for cataloging include 26,000 rare photographs. Image credit: Émile Fréchon, Ouled Näil women playing cards, 1890s. Ken and Jenny Jacobson orientalist photography collection. More award-winning projects Getty Research Institute Uncovering Archives and Rare Photographs: Two Models for Creating Accession-level Finding Aids Using Archivists' Toolkit This project will document two archival processing methods used to describe varied collections documenting the intersections of art and language in the 20th century. Materials selected for cataloging include 26,000 rare photographs. Image credit: A Coracle, Nos. 11 & 12, ii (detail). Coracle Press records, 1961-2001. More award-winning projects Emory University/Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History Archives from Atlanta, Cradle of the Civil Rights Movement: The Papers of Andrew Young, SCLC, and NAACP-Atlanta Chapter This three-year project involves processing materials relating to key civil rights organizations, leaders, and activities. The collections include materials related to some of the most transformational moments and movements of the era, including voter education, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the fight against Jim Crow laws, and desegregation. More award-winning projects Emory University/Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History Archives from Atlanta, Cradle of the Civil Rights Movement: The Papers of Andrew Young, SCLC, and NAACP-Atlanta Chapter This three-year project involves processing materials relating to key civil rights organizations, leaders, and activities. The collections include materials related to some of the most transformational moments and movements of the era, including voter education, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the fight against Jim Crow laws, and desegregation. Image: Andrew Young and the Rev. Fred Bennett. More award-winning projects Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston Providing Access to African American Collections at the Avery Research Center This project involves historical materials related to African American culture in coastal South Carolina, including the Holloway family scrapbook, papers and oral histories of civil rights leaders, materials related to the experiences of African American women and sweet grass basket makers, and the notes, recordings, artifacts, and files of renowned anthropologists Joseph Towles and Colin Turnbull. More award-winning projects Emory University/Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History Providing Access to African American Collections at the Avery Research Center This project involves historical materials related to African American culture in coastal South Carolina, including the Holloway family scrapbook, papers and oral histories of civil rights leaders, materials related to the experiences of African American women and sweet grass basket makers, and the notes, recordings, artifacts, and files of renowned anthropologists Joseph Towles and Colin Turnbull. More award-winning projects

Libraries, archives, and cultural institutions hold millions of items that have never been adequately described. According to a 1998 Association of Research Libraries' survey of 99 North American research universities' special collections, on average 15 percent of their printed volumes, 27 percent of manuscripts, and 35 percent and 37 percent of video and audio, respectively, are unprocessed or uncataloged. Nationally, this represents a staggering volume of items of potentially substantive intellectual value that are unknown and inaccessible to scholars.

With generous funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Council on Library and Information Resources administers this national program to identify and catalog hidden special collections and archives. In 2008, CLIR issued the program's first Request for Proposals (RFP, in pdf), to which 118 libraries, research centers, museums, historical societies, and other cultural heritage institutions responded. A distinguished review panel of librarians and scholars selected fifteen exceptional projects for funding. The primary criteria the panel employed in evaluating the proposals were the potential national significance of the nominated collections for scholarship and teaching, the application of description standards that would provide interoperability and long-term sustainability for project data, and innovations in the design of workflow processes that maximized both efficiency and the potential for outreach to user communities. Funded projects will continue for up to three years.

The program's strategy assumes local autonomy and responsibility but also requires participants to agree to governing principles that ensure enterprise-wide coherence. All nonconfidential information that applicants supply is made publicly available through CLIR's Hidden Collections Registry.

As the program continues, program staff will develop a descriptive record of a subset of collections that are deemed most urgently in need of cataloging and documentation. The record will evolve as funded proposals are completed. Although the program does not provide funds for the creation of digital surrogates of cataloged materials, CLIR hopes that many funded projects will ultimately be enhanced through the creation of publicly accessible digitized versions of the newly cataloged materials.

Additional Information

Join our Mailing List

We occasionally send announcements and news about this program by e-mail. If you would like to be added to our distribution list, please click here.

For other information, contact Amy Lucko, Program Officer, at hiddencollections@clir.org. Inquiries must be sent by e-mail only—no phone calls please.