We are excited to announce that the National Endowment For Humanities (NEH) has awarded the University of Houston a Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant to continue the second phase of “Survey of Small Historical Societies, Libraries and Museums for Hispanic Materials and Their Management,” directed by Dr. Nicolás Kanellos. The NEH awarded 32 grants in this category, which “allow institutions to preserve and provide access to collections essential to scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities.”[1]
This grant will support the planning and development of an online directory of libraries, archives, and museums containing sources on Hispanic history and culture in the United States, from the colonial era through 1960, with a focus on small institutions in the South and Southeast.
During the first phase of this project in 2017-2018, Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage conducted a survey of small historical societies, libraries and museums in the Southwest that might hold Hispanic archival materials and to assess how they were preserved and made accessible. The project also involved inviting personnel from these small institutions to a meeting to offer feedback and other projects that could plan out a larger, second project and to offer basic training to the personnel at these collections, to help stabilize the collections and make them accessible. To view the results and browse the guide to Hispanic materials at small institutions compiled from the 2017-2018 survey, please visit our Museum Survey page.
[1] “NEH Announces $22.2 Million for 224 Humanities Projects Nationwide.” 4 April 2020. National Endowment for the Humanities.