RBS Receives $100,000 Matching Grant from NEH

Rare Book School has received a $100,000 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) through their Humanities Access Grant program.

These matching funds will support thirty-six scholarships, to cover full tuition to a Rare Book School course as well as travel and housing costs. These scholarships will be awarded to librarians, humanities scholars, students, conservators, and other professionals working with humanities-based heritage collections; eligible applicants will either identify with underrepresented racial or ethnic communities, or will work primarily with collections that document minority, immigrant, and non-western cultural traditions. Applications for the first group of scholarships will be available in September 2017.

Programming funded by this 1:1 matching grant is designed to build on Rare Book School’s ongoing Global Book Histories Initiative, which seeks to expand and strengthen RBS’s course offerings in non-western book history and bibliography over the next several years.

In addition to the scholarship program, matching funds will be used to subsidize six public lectures relating to global book cultures, to be offered between 2018 and 2021. These lectures will be delivered by leading specialists from around the world, and RBS will share audio and video of each lecture via our YouTube and podcast channels.

“We are delighted that the NEH has given us the opportunity to pursue these matching funds,” said Rare Book School Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. “These monies will help us provide ongoing access to RBS courses for students from groups underrepresented in the cultural heritage professions. We look forward to securing the funds necessary to prove ourselves worthy of the NEH’s trust, so that we can help shape the future of special collections in salutary ways.”

Per NEH’s timeline for the Humanities Access Grant program, Rare Book School will raise the $100,000 in matching funds before May 2018, with grant-funded programming offered between June 2018 and September 2021.

If you are interested in supporting Rare Book School by donating funds toward this programming, to be matched 1:1 by the NEH, please contact Development Director Megan Gildea (megan.gildea@virginia.edu; 434-243-1010).

See the full NEH announcement.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: www.neh.gov.