For Immediate Release: April 4, 2001
Contact: Deanna Marcum 202-939-4750
Mellon Foundation Funds New CLIR Dissertation Fellowships
WASHINGTON D.C.In 2002, dissertation fellowships for archival research in the humanities will become available from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
A grant just awarded by the Mellon Foundation will enable CLIR to award up to ten dissertation fellowships per year for three years. The fellowships will provide encouragement and opportunities for graduate students in any field in the humanities to do dissertation research in original source materials.
Archives, libraries, and other repositories of research material will be asked to work with CLIR to provide special assistance to dissertation fellows who choose to use their collections. CLIR and the Mellon Foundation expect the program to
- educate young scholars from humanities fields in how to develop knowledge from original sources
- enable dissertation writers to do research wherever relevant sources may be rather than just where financial support is available
- provide insight for CLIR and collaborating repositories into how scholarly resources can be developed helpfully for graduate students and other scholars.
Fellowships will be granted for periods of one year. Some fellowships may be awarded for research abroad. Application guidelines for what will be called the Mellon Fellowship Program for Dissertation Research in Original Sources will be issued later this year. Successful applicants will receive awards in time to begin dissertation research in the summer of 2002.
The Council on Library and Information Resources is a private, nonprofit organization that works in partnership with the nation’s libraries, archives, and universities to develop and encourage collaborative strategies for preserving and providing access to the accumulated human record and to help them adapt to changes produced by digital information.
