For centuries, important cultural materials—from books, historical documents and letters to photographs, carvings and paintings—could be stored away, only to be rediscovered at some point in the future.
However, as Northern Illinois University Libraries’ Jaime Schumacher points out, many contemporary materials that might be used by future generations to understand us are now only digital in nature, including videos, photos, social media communications, blogs, artwork, news reports, music, articles and emails.
“Preserving these materials for future access is a complex challenge,” said Schumacher, who serves as NIU Libraries’ director of scholarly communications and is known internationally for her expertise in the preservation of digital materials. She and NIU colleague Drew VandeCreek have been working for the past decade to help NIU and other institutions nationwide preserve digital materials of cultural value.
Now the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is providing a major boost to their efforts.
NEH has awarded the pair with a $349,000 grant to provide training to archivists through NIU Libraries’ Digital POWRR Project, short for Preserving Digital Objects with Restricted Resources. The project, which has already trained hundreds of professionals at medium and smaller institutions, is focused on preservation of digital materials that increasingly make up large parts of the collections of libraries, archives and museums.
“This new grant will focus on helping organizations that serve cultural heritage institutions in under-represented communities, including the Native American, Latinx and Black communities,” Schumacher said.
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