Penobscot Marine Museum among recipients of national grant

Fri, 09/19/2014 - 8:15am

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced grants for five museum projects in Maine, totaling $185,017. The institutions receiving the grants are the Penobscot Marine Museum, the Victoria Mansion, the Aroostook Micmac Council, and the L.C. Bates Museum, which received two grants.

"Maine's museums support the public by providing resources for lifelong learning, serving as stewards of the state's collections, and addressing specific community needs," said IMLS Director Susan H. Hildreth. "These federal investments will ultimately help museums deliver enhanced learning experiences, improve collections care, and address community needs."

Museums will use these funds to support learning experiences, engage community members, make rich collections more accessible, and safeguard the state's cultural and scientific heritage represented by the collections. Grants support a wide variety of projects, including exhibits; onsite and offsite arts and education programming; projects to digitize collections; partnerships to reach underserved neighborhoods and to address community needs; projects for people with disabilities and underserved populations; conservation of threatened or fragile collections, including living collections in zoos and botanical gardens; creative physical spaces for hands-on learning; internships; makerspaces and STEM-based learning projects; and much more.

Penobscot Marine Museum - Searsport, ME
Grant Program: Museums for America
Category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $56,333; Matching Amount: $165,320

The Penobscot Marine Museum will catalogue, digitize, and re-house its National Fisherman photography collection. The catalog records and images will be published on the museum's online collections database. Web access to this collection will open a wealth of information relating to the post-World War II changes in the nation's commercial fishing industry from vessel construction and fishing gear to navigation and fish-finding technology.

L.C. Bates Museum - Hinckley, ME
Grant Program: Museums for America
Category: Learning Experiences
Award Amount: $27,994; Matching Amount: $56,629

L.C. Bates Museum will provide 1,700 rural fourth grade students and their families museum-based STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) educational programming including integrated naturalist, astronomy, and art activities that explore Maine's environment and its solar and lunar interactions. The project will include a series of eight classroom programs, family field trips, TV programs, family and classroom self-guided educational materials, and exhibitions of project activities including student work.

L.C. Bates Museum - Hinckley, ME
Grant Program: Museums for America
Category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $27,171; Matching Amount: $30,003

The L.C. Bates Museum will conserve 63 historically and scientifically significant ornithological taxidermy bird mounts and their associated case housing, and a large blue marlin caught by Ernest Hemingway. Treatment of these objects will be performed by a private conservator specifically hired for the project who will also provide two collections care-themed workshops and write an article about the project for the Maine Archives and Museums newsletter.

Victoria Mansion - Portland, ME
Grant Program: Museums for America
Category: Collections Stewardship
Award Amount: $24,122

Victoria Mansion will re-house its textile collection of 586 unique, high-end fabrics and trimmings dating from the 1860s. The textile collection is recognized as the only complete physical record of a Herter interior that has survived to the present and is an example of luxury goods available to America's upper classes on the eve of the Civil War. The project will enhance storage for the items in the collection, providing for their long-term preservation.

Aroostook Micmac Council - Presque Isle, ME
Grant Program: Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum Services Program
Award Amount: $49,397

The Aroostook Band of Micmac Museum will further its "Honoring Our Traditional Families" strategy by implementing a range of activities to professionalize the services it provides to the community. IMLS funds will be used to research, design, fabricate, and install a series of three exhibitions that will recognize and pay homage to Micmac basket-making families. Project activities will also include formalizing the museum's infrastructure and governance, hiring a part-time curator of collections, and caring for the Micmac split-ash basket collection.

The grants are among the 263 museum awards made in 2014 by IMLS totaling more than $30 million. A list of the grant recipients is available on the IMLS website.