For Applicants

Please note: the application period for the 2013 cycle is now closed, and the information provided below is for reference only. Pending renewed funding, the application for the 2014 cycle will be available on this site in early 2014.

The application process has two phases. The initial proposal round is open, and anyone interested in applying for a grant through this program must submit an initial proposal by March 22, 2013. The final proposal round is by invitation only. Only those applicants whose initial proposals have been approved by the program's review panel will be able to submit a final proposal.

Links to the application forms, outlines of initial and final proposals, and the program guidelines may be found in the "Important Documents" box on the right side of this page. For questions about the proposal process which are not answered in the guidelines or the Questions and Answers section below, please email us at hiddencollections@clir.org. We regret that we cannot answer questions by telephone.

CONTENTS

PROGRAM TIMELINE, 2013

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

For questions which are not answered below or in the Application Guidelines, contact Amy Lucko, Program Officer, at hiddencollections@clir.org. During the application period, CLIR accepts inquiries by e-mail only; no phone calls, please.

General questions about the program

What is the rationale for this grant program?
The program is designed to overcome the pervasive lack of awareness of special collections and archives held by libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions by making information about these materials accessible to teachers and scholars. Applicants are welcome to view the original grant proposal from CLIR to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

What are the program's main goals?
The program supports:

1. Cataloging collections of “national significance” which will have an impact on current scholarship;
2. Using appropriate standards and tools to maximize access, efficiency, interoperability, and sustainability;
3. Using model approaches to cataloging and outreach that engage scholars and other user communities. These “model approaches” may:

• Be models for others, or
• Adapt others’ models.

What kind of project is a "model for others"?
A "model project" takes an innovative approach that may establish a new, effective way for dealing with an urgent, common problem related to cataloging and processing. Examples of these problems might be (but are not limited to):

• Describing born-digital collections or mixed analog/digital collections;
• Implementing linked data or "crowdsourced" metadata.

How do you define "special collections" and "archives"?
For the purposes of this program, special collections are any kind of rare or unique materials housed in secure, monitored environments and made available to researchers. Archives are unique, often unpublished materials associated with a specific individual, topic, or organization that is of interest to researchers. By not limiting these terms to particular subjects, media or formats, CLIR hopes to encourage proposals that encompass the broadest possible range of evidence of our historical, scientific, intellectual, and cultural heritage.

What do you mean by "hidden"? [See also: What if some finding aids already exist for a collection?, below]
Collections eligible for cataloging through this program should be truly hidden to scholars; in other words, scholars and graduate students who have a good command of their fields of study would not reasonably be expected to find basic information about the collections using good, thorough research techniques. Some nominated collections may have a type of documentation that is of no value to scholars, such as an accession record or machine-generated administrative metadata, but collections for which finding aids, catalog records, inventories, or other types of descriptions suitable for use by researchers have already been prepared are not eligible. This remains the case even if such descriptions are only available to researchers on-site in analog form.

Who is eligible to apply for funding under this program?
CLIR welcomes applications from any United States library, museum, archive or other cultural heritage institution that holds hidden collections of broad scholarly import and meets the program's general eligibility requirements:

• The applicant institution* must be a not-for-profit organization as defined by the U.S. Internal Revenue Codes Section 501(c)(3) or a university or college exempt under Section 115, Section 170(c)(1), or a similar designation. Federally operated and for-profit institutions are not eligible for this program. If you have questions about your institution's status as an eligible non-profit, please contact CLIR at hiddencollections@clir.org.

• The applicant institution* must be located in the United States or in an associated entity, e.g. the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or American Samoa (for a full list of eligible areas please consult the application guidelines).

Eligible applicant institutions may include, but are not limited to:

• Associations or societies, including local historical societies and cultural associations.

• Libraries and archives, including public libraries, college and university libraries, research libraries and archives that are not an integral part of an institution of higher education and that make publicly available library services and materials that are suitable for scholarly research, and library consortia or parent organizations such as academic institutions that are responsible for the administration of the library.

• Museums, including aquariums, arboretums and botanical gardens, art museums, youth museums, general museums, historic houses and sites, history museums, nature centers, natural history and anthropology museums, planetariums, science and technology centers, specialized museums, and zoological parks.

**Beginning in 2013, CLIR will consider collaborative projects that include partnerships between U.S. and Canadian institutions. Collaborators at Canadian institutions may serve as co-PIs, but the lead institution (i.e. the institution that will lead the work; that will manage the project, including assuming financial responsibility for any funds awarded; and that submits the application) on any project submitted to this program must be a U.S. institution that meets the criteria listed above.

Collections eligible for cataloging through this program must be held by the U.S. applicant institution and its U.S. or Canadian partners.

What are the criteria for awards? [See also: Reviewer Questions (PDF)]
The main criterion for determining the priority of the collections to be cataloged is the value of the materials for scholars and students. Rather than solicit for collections related to a specific topic, the review panel will consider all nominated collections and then set priorities on the basis of that pool. Scholars increasingly work in a digital environment and are interested in finding related collections across many institutions. Consequently, collaborative proposals that aggregate disparately located but similarly themed collections may be more favorably weighed than those that do not feature such collaboration. Alternately, the review panel might suggest the aggregation of several candidate collections as a single project. In general, the panel grants preference to applications from institutions or consortia that agree to employ graduate students, paraprofessionals, and other staff that will contribute to a cost-effective and swift generation of records.

In 2013 the program expects to award about $4 million in grants that range from $50,000 to $500,000. Proposals will be evaluated and award recipients selected by a review panel composed of scholars, information and cultural heritage professionals, and technologists. Decisions will be announced by December 31, 2013, and applicants may begin their projects anytime between January 1, 2014, and June 1, 2014. Projects must be completed by May 31, 2017.

Applicants should be prepared to address these questions:

• What is the importance of the collection(s) to be cataloged and/or processed to the scholarly community? Does the proposal clearly demonstrate the value the materials will hold for a broad range of scholars once they are made accessible?
• How innovative and cost-effective is the proposed approach to the cataloging process in respect to local institutional practice and to library/archival/curatorial practice in the United States?
• What models have informed or inspired your project’s design, and why are these models well suited to your project’s aims? Or, alternatively, how will the project serve as a model for others?
• What will be the project's outcomes and how will these be made broadly accessible to scholars and other professional specialists?
• How well are scholars and other subject experts, including students (graduate or undergraduate), represented in the proposed project? CLIR encourages even those applicants not directly affiliated with an educational institution to consider ways in which they might effectively incorporate outside scholars, researchers, or students who may be interested in using their materials into their projects.
• How hidden are the materials? Are similar materials available at other institutions? If so, what added value will the exposure of the proposed collections have to our country's intellectual record? Materials that can be found by scholars at other institutions are not generally considered by the reviewers to be "hidden," even if records do not exist for those materials at the applicant institution. If the materials are not available elsewhere, are scholars already aware they are held at the applicant's institution? If so, have these scholars used the materials? What value will the applicants' project add for their collections' users that would justify a grant? (NOTE: Acknowledging awareness and prior use of un-cataloged/unprocessed collections by scholars does not disqualify an applicant from funding.)

For further information about how reviewers evaluate Hidden Collections proposals, consult the list of Reviewer Questions [PDF].

How will this program reveal hidden collections?
All applicants are required to submit descriptions of their hidden collections to the program's online registry. Current and future applicants should use this registry to locate institutions with unprocessed collections related to their holdings. Award-winning projects will use appropriate technology and standards for recording accurate descriptive information about collections quickly and cost-effectively. The resulting records and finding aids should be compatible with existing online records for related materials where possible, resulting in a growing body of standardized, web-accessible descriptions that can be built upon over time. Institutions must acknowledge local ownership of the data generated through the program and agree to keep it available long-term.

Will a single technological platform be used?
No. Applicants will be expected to employ software platforms that already exist for swift and efficient entry of data, which can then be translated into standard records formats such as EAD and MARC. Examples of such technologies include the Archon program produced by the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the collaboratively-developed CollectionSpace, and the Archivists' Toolkit (that will ultimately merge with Archon to become ArchiveSpace). Further information about the strengths and drawbacks of the varied cataloging platforms in use in special collections and archives is available in Archival Management Software: A Report for the Council on Library and Information Resources (Lisa Spiro, 2009).

Because tightly defined fields can impede interoperability, recent reports on hidden collections emphasize the need to make descriptive categories and schemata less rigid than those of the past. Cataloging special collections and archival materials has routinely been defined as a local practice. The shift to understanding hidden collections as a national problem requires an acknowledgment that in the 21st century, collaboration, coordination, and coherence of response to users is fundamental and takes precedence over local practice. Applicants should demonstrate an understanding of how their proposed approach to description fits into this national picture.

Are there models that can be adopted for use in this program?
CLIR expects that this program will bring to light innovative and increasingly efficient methods of cataloging, archival processing, and dissemination of information about cultural heritage materials to scholars and the broader public. Applications that propose sound yet truly ground-breaking innovations in practice generally receive preference in the review process, while those that propose adopting others' established best practices in ways that improve the efficiency of local methods and maximize access are also highly prized.

For examples of previous successful proposals to this program, applicants may consult the following:

Aspects of other ongoing projects could be adopted to save time and expense. One early model for this program was the Uncovering New Chicago Archives Project developed by Jacqueline Goldsby and Jacqueline Stewart at the University of Chicago, in which graduate students catalog Chicago-area hidden collections. Because the students work with a template of well-defined descriptive data fields, a high level of cataloging expertise is not necessary. The students are salaried employees of their respective institutions, and all work is done in rigorous consultation with faculty and librarians. Many past grant recipients have adopted and adapted this model of student engagement in the processing of hidden collections.

Although past grant recipients and others have in the past few years established many useful standards and best practices, CLIR leaves its definition of "innovation" deliberately open so that applicants may describe what it means in their own institutional and professional contexts.

Innovative practices may include but are not necessarily limited to:

General guidelines for the application

What will be the term of a project grant?
Applicants may request terms as short as 12 months or as long as 36 months, or any period in between. For the 2013 application cycle, projects may begin as early as January 1, 2014 or as late as June 1, 2014. All projects must be completed no later than May 31, 2017. Each principal investigator receiving a grant will be required to submit annual narrative and financial reports.

What will be the typical size of a project grant?
The sizes of the grants will vary. In 2013, applicants are required to request funds in amounts ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 (not including cost share). Requests which fall outside this range will not be considered.

What if some finding aids already exist for the collection?
The collections that will be candidates for cataloging should be truly hidden to scholars; in other words, scholars and graduate students who have a good command of their fields of study would not reasonably be expected to find basic information about the collections using good, thorough research techniques. Some nominated collections may have a type of record that is of no value to scholars (such as an accession record or machine-generated administrative metadata for a digital collection). If a small part of a proposal includes cost-effective reconstitution and enhancement of existing records into a unified, broadly accessible platform, this may be acceptable provided the enhancement is very significant and/or the reconstitution of records is a very minor part of the project. The proposal must explain clearly how the newly created descriptions make materials accessible in ways that go well beyond straightforward adaptation of pre-existing records to a digital environment. Applicants must demonstrate how their project adds substantially to users' understanding of their holdings and how their materials relate to other scholarly resources covering the same subject matter.

Some applicants may wish to include partially processed collections in a proposal. The program's primary purpose is to fund description of important collections that had not yet been cataloged or processed, so applicants should be aware that including partially processed collections in their proposal can have a detrimental impact. CLIR generally encourages applicants to exclude such collections from a project, or fund the completion of their processing in some other way, but recognizes there may be valid reasons for including this kind of work in a proposal (e.g. the temporary availability of certain kinds of subject expertise, or the inclusion of more institutions in a consortial effort). The review panel will consider several issues when evaluating proposals that include such collections: the applicant's reasoning behind the selection of the collections, the proportion of the collections in the overall project, the amount of work remaining, and how closely the partially processed fraction of collections in a proposal adhere to the overall theme of the project. In any case, applicants should make clear that grant funds are to be used for processing currently unprocessed materials and not for revising past work on the collections.

Applicants are advised that the simple conversion of existing analog records or finding aids into their equivalent digital form does not fall within the scope of this program. The fact that existing records are not digital and/or web-accessible does not mean they are considered "hidden" by the standards of this program. For these reasons, applications requesting support for straightforward retrospective conversion activities will not be considered eligible for review.

What formats will be considered?
The range of media that can be termed special collections or archives is not restricted. Increasingly, valuable collections are composed of many formats, from paper, moving images on film or video, all types of sound recordings, ephemera, specimens, electronic files or data sets, works of art, to myriad types of artifacts. Since one goal of the program is to assess the scale and scope of hidden collections, the broadest possible range of materials of high scholarly interest will be considered. Since the need for innovation in the processing of digital special collections and archives is acute, CLIR is particularly interested in proposals from applicants with sound, sustainable plans for processing mixed analog/digital and born-digital collections.

Will conservation be an element of grant consideration?
The physical condition of the materials will be considered as reviewers decide how program funds may be best spent; for example, reviewers may be reluctant to fund the processing of materials requiring extensive conservation treatment before they could be made available to scholars. However, the focus of this program is not conservation, and no funds will be allocated for conservation purposes.

Are collections of genealogical materials eligible?
Collections that are primarily genealogical in nature are not eligible for funding through this program. However, CLIR does recognize the importance of collections that are local or regional in nature but may be reflective of larger historical and cultural issues. Applicants may seek funding for such collections, but must show how use of the collections will advance scholarship beyond the region in which they are located.

What costs may be requested in the budget?

Applicants may request funds for:

Requests for the following are discouraged. If requested, they must be specifically and strongly justified in the proposal:

Requests for the following are not allowed. Proposals which include a request for funds for these items may be rejected as ineligible for review:

Are applicants required to show a cost share?
Cost sharing is strongly encouraged, but not required. However, applicants are advised that reviewers will consider cost sharing as one indicator of institutional support when evaluating the proposal. If your institution prohibits cost share in grant proposals, you should specifically note this in your Budget Narrative.

What items may applicants include in their cost share?
All items included as cost share must be directly related to the project being proposed. CLIR encourages applicants to think broadly about what activities or items they might include in their cost share. In some cases items for which CLIR will not grant funding may be included as part of the applicant's cost share. Cost share items may include indirect costs, or salaries of full-time staff who will contribute significantly to the project. Please note, however, that activities related to digitization may not be included as part of the applicant's cost share.

May an institution submit more than one proposal?
Institutions may submit more than one proposal, but each proposal must have a unique principal investigator. A principal investigator may not be listed on more than one proposal in a cycle, even as a co-P.I.

May consortia or multiple partnering institutions, as well as single institutions, apply for a grant?
Yes. CLIR encourages applications from consortia, or partnerships of two or more collaborating institutions, now including U.S.-Canadian partnerships [See also: Is the program limited to collections in the United States?, below]. The submitted budget should aggregate the total funds requested; all funds will be disbursed to the applicant institution. CLIR will not disburse funds for one award to several institutions. One applicant institution or organization must serve as the administrator.

Any division of funds and responsibilities should be addressed in the project plan and other explanatory sections of the proposal. Applicants submitting a joint or consortial project must include the project plan appendix with their final proposals.

Applicants should also clearly explain on the Institutional Priorities tab how the collaboration or partnership advances the missions and meets the priorities of the partner organizations or institutions. To what extent will the project enhance the capacity of each partner to provide access to its collections and support the creation of new knowledge? Collaborating partners should identify any additional benefits afforded by the project that would not be possible if the partners worked individually.

CLIR also encourages applicants to consider working together on a less formal basis. Applicants may note in their proposals that they will be collaborating with other institutions who hold similar collections, or are engaged in similar activities, without necessarily submitting a joint proposal, and the review panel will take these informal partnerships into account when making final determinations about awarding grant funds.

Is the program limited to collections in the United States?
Beginning in 2013, CLIR will consider collaborative projects that include partnerships between U.S. and Canadian institutions. Collaborators at Canadian institutions may serve as co-PIs, but the lead institution (i.e. the institution that will manage the project and awarded funds, and that submits the application) on any project submitted to this program must be a U.S. institution that meets the eligibility criteria listed above. At this time only Canadian institutions are eligible to serve as partners on proposed Hidden Collections projects.

In cases where one or more of the collaborating institutions are Canadian, the U.S.-based applicant institution must contribute substantive work of its own, and assume responsibility for the management of all grant funds awarded. The proposal should make clear that the U.S. institution is a fully engaged partner in and leader on the project, and is not merely a fiscal agent for the Canadian institution(s).

Will all information contained in the proposals remain confidential?
One section of the application will ask for information that will become public, as part of the Hidden Collections Registry. A second section will remain confidential to the review panel. Contact information for Principal Investigators will only be shared with others with their express permission and for the purposes of facilitating collaboration among applicant institutions.

Questions about initial proposals

For a step-by-step guide, please consult the application guidelines.

Why does CLIR have a two-phase proposal process?
The decision to require initial proposals prior to accepting final proposals was taken in response to feedback from both applicants and reviewers. The purpose of the initial proposal is, first, to allow applicants to receive feedback on the suitability of their proposed project for the program prior to expending the extra effort required to prepare a final proposal; and second, to give reviewers a way to assist applicants in improving the quality of their final proposals.

If our institution does not submit a initial proposal, will it still be possible for us to submit a final proposal by the final deadline?
No.

If our institution submits a initial proposal which is deemed ineligible for review by the panel, will it still be possible for us to submit a final proposal by the final deadline?
No. Applicants submitting initial proposals which are do not adhere to the stated requirements of this program, and are accordingly deemed not eligible for review in the initial proposal round, may not advance to the final proposal round. These applicants may, however, resubmit a revised proposal in a future cycle.

Are applicants required to complete all sections of the initial proposal application?
Yes, all sections are required. Because of the great variety of collections and institutions who participate in the Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program, certain questions will be more relevant to some applicants than they are to others. If a question does not pertain to the proposed project, a response of "N/A" is sufficient. Incomplete applications will not be considered eligible for review and advancement.

How specific must applicants be in giving details of their proposed project's budget in the initial proposal?
Applicants should give their best possible estimate of costs. The initial budget is an important factor as the reviewers decide which applications will advance to the final proposal phase. If available, evidence supporting budget figures may be included in the budget narrative. When institutional policies or practices make it difficult for applicants to include cost share figures in a grant budget, even if they will be making a significant investment in the proposed project, this may also be explained in the budget narrative. A brief explanation of how the recipient institution will manage the grant funds must also be included in this section. [See also: What kinds of information must applicants include in the budget narrative?, under "Questions about Final Proposals", below.]

Costs presented in final proposals should be reasonably close to those indicated in the initial proposals, although reviewers recognize that there may be some variation as applicants continue to refine their projects and seek to respond to feedback.

How will I know my initial proposal has been successfully submitted?
The application system will send an automatic e-mail message confirming that your application has been successfully submitted to the e-mail address associated with the account on file. The message is generated immediately upon submission of the application; however, because this e-mail is automatically generated, please be advised it may be quarantined by your institution's spam filter.

Applicants may also log into the application system at any time to verify their proposal's current status. When an initial proposal application has been successfully submitted, the status line will read "initial proposal Submitted." This indicates the application is ready for review.

How do the questions asked in the initial proposal compare with those in the final proposal?
Most elements of the initial proposal and the final proposal are the same. In the final proposal phase applicants will be asked to submit additional supporting information, such as a cover sheet, an expanded technical plan and several letters of support. Applicants will be able to revise information submitted in their initial proposal during the final proposal phase. Please see "Questions about final proposals" for further information.

Questions about final proposals

For a step-by-step guide, please consult the application guidelines.

How will applicants prepare final proposals?
Applicants approved to advance to the final proposal round will be notified by e-mail and will receive access to the final proposal elements of the application system by May 31, 2013.

May I receive a copy of my submitted proposal?
Applicants may log into the online application system to print out a PDF version of their application at any time prior to or following submission, and CLIR encourages applicants to print a copy of the application for their files.

What additional materials will be requested in the final proposal round?
Applicants are advised that for the final proposal, they will be asked to provide the following in addition to the information requested in the initial proposal:

May applicants revise answers submitted in the initial proposal during the final proposal phase?
Yes, with one exception. The collection(s) targeted for cataloging in the initial proposal should not be expanded upon unless the revision is in direct response to reviewer feedback. Final proposals which list collections not included in the initial proposal phase may be considered ineligible for review. All other answers may, and should, be revised in the final proposal in response to reviewers' feedback. Applicants should bear in mind that reviewers will have access to initial proposal information during the final selection phase, and may raise questions about details that vary significantly from initial proposal to final proposal without explicit justification.

May budget figures be revised?
Costs presented in final proposals should be reasonably close to those indicated in the initial proposals, although reviewers recognize that there may be some variation as applicants continue to refine their projects and seek to respond to feedback.

What kinds of information must applicants include in the budget narrative?
The budget narrative should include a full description of the budget, explaining the need for each budget line and the method(s) used to compute the projected costs. If software or equipment is being purchased or work is being outsourced, the vendors being considered should be mentioned. Vendor contracts should be included as an appendix to the Budget Detail form.

A brief explanation of how the grantee institution will manage the grant funds must also be included in the narrative.

At the final proposal phase, applicants are strongly advised to give particular attention to the preparation of their budget narrative. For example, the budget narrative is a good place to address issues related to cost share; if an institution restricts an applicant's ability to indicate cost-sharing in the budget, the applicant should explain those restrictions.

Applicants must give explicit justification in the budget narrative for any costs falling into the "discouraged" categories listed in the guidelines [See General Guidelines, above], indicating the reasons why such costs cannot be covered in the normal operating budget of the recipient institution(s). Applicants may also use the budget narrative to give additional details about ways project expertise and outcomes will be sustained beyond the life of the grant, if it has not been possible to provide these details elsewhere in the proposal.

NOTES: There is no page limit for this document. Applicants whose organizations are private foundations must provide an additional section in the budget narrative addressing their institutional need for external funding support through this program. The rationale should identify the major funding sources of the organization and state the reasons the activities described in the proposal cannot be supported from these sources.

May consortia or multiple partnering institutions submit more than a total of three résumés with their application?
No. Applications submitted by consortia or multiple partnering institutions are limited to three two-page résumés. Applicants may describe the qualifications and expertise of other relevant staff in other sections of the application, and, in the case of consortia or partnerships should describe the specific benefits of the collaboration to all project stakeholders.

May consortia or multiple partnering institutions submit more than a total of three letters of recommendation with their application?
No. Applications submitted by consortia or multiple partnering institutions are limited to three letters of recommendation that speak to the scholarly value of the collective submission as well as the importance of individual collections that make up elements of the submission.

How will I know my final proposal has been successfully submitted?
The application system will send an automatic e-mail message confirming that your application has been successfully submitted to the e-mail address associated with the account on file. The message is generated immediately upon submission of the application; however, because this e-mail is automatically generated, please be advised it may be quarantined by your institution's spam filter.

Applicants may also log into the application system to verify their proposal's current status. When a final proposal application has been successfully submitted, the status line will read "Final-Proposal Submitted." This indicates the application is ready for review.

For additional information contact Amy Lucko, Program Officer, at hiddencollections@clir.org. During the application period, CLIR accepts inquiries by e-mail only —no phone calls, please.