KSC recently received grants to preserve and protect its most valuable collections and archived material.
The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded the College $5,560 for “Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan and Staff Training to Preserve Special Collections and Film Archives.” The project will help create a disaster preparedness and recovery plan for the College’s archives, special collections, and film holdings; provide staff with training in emergency preparedness and response planning; and prepare disaster supply kits. The College’s holdings consist of over 250 linear feet of archival and manuscript material and over 6,000 volumes of print and bound materials, covering predominantly the disciplines of history, literature, poetry, film studies, Holocaust and genocide studies, and anthropology. The Film Archives holdings include approximately 1,000 color and black & white motion-picture films.
Conservator Carolyn Frisa of Works on Paper, LLC, will serve as the project’s consultant and work closely with Rodney Gorme Obien, KSC archivist and project director. Work will be completed over a seven-month period, beginning in January 2012 and ending in July 2012.
(Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.)
Moose Plate
Keene State College also recently received slightly less than $20,000 from the New Hampshire State Conservation License Plate Trust Fund to assist with the preservation of the college’s art collections. The collections include art and decorative pieces in the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, the Children’s Literature Festival Art Collection, the Hubbard Art Collection, and several pieces of art enjoyed throughout the Keene State College campus.
The funds will allow Keene State College to hire a part-time art archivist, who will inventory and evaluate and prepare a preservation assessment of the College’s art holdings. The program is supported in part by a grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
