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The Metropolitan New York Library Council, known as METRO, has recently announced a second cycle of the Equity in Action grant program. While eligibility is open only to METRO member institutions, or an institution that partners with a METRO member, DHPSNY thought it was important to highlight this work as an active example of direct financial support for “digital [cultural heritage] projects that focus on anti-racist practices and marginalized communities.” METRO serves a network of libraries,…

We're excited to announce a new Planning & Assessment Services class from our second application round of 2021! We look forward to beginning virtual site visits for the following institutions in the coming months. The next deadline to submit applications is Friday, November 5, 2021.

Click here to read the full press release.

Archival Needs Assessments

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In our most recent live webinar presentation, Christine Persche, Archivist, Storm King Art Center, shared insight and lessons learned from the implementation of cold storage solutions. This presentation covered obtaining funding, purchasing equipment, packaging collections, and figuring out how to monitor temperatures.

Click here to view the recording.

Click here to download the slideshow.

Join us on…

In our most recent live webinar presentation, Kate Philipson, Archives Specialist, DHPSNY, explored practical steps to help you create finding aids on a basic level. She discussed how to prioritize the required elements of a finding aid so that archival description feels attainable, while building upon the 2017 DHPSNY webinar about finding aids. She also shared further details about Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS) by discussing the DACS update process, and examining how the DACS Principles help to frame description work.

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Understanding the 10 Agents of Deterioration is a 2-week, virtual course that will cover basic knowledge needed to identify and understand the 10 Agents of Deterioration that may threaten your collections: Light; Incorrect Temperature; Incorrect Relative Humidity; Fire; Water; Pests; Pollutants; Physical Forces; Theft & Vandalism; and Custodial Neglect. Risk assessment and mitigation strategies will also be discussed.

This online course is intended for individuals who manage cultural collections, with a focus on those who are new to archival preservation,…

This month marks one full year that DHPSNY has been coordinating, writing about, and sharing antiracism resources for collecting institutions in this blog series. We have compiled a lot of ideas and projects from around the archives, libraries, museums, conservation, and public history fields that speak to improving access to collections and highlighting the stories of BIPOC and traditionally marginalized populations in the historical record. We hope that some of these tools and examples have been beneficial for expanding and improving your work towards inclusion and equity, both in…

Tropical Storm Henri is expected to strengthen into a hurricane over the western Atlantic by Friday, potentially continuing on a path that could affect northeastern states from Long Island to Cape Cod.

Here are some tips to help you protect your collections:

• Know what's coming your way. Track the storm here.
• Visit the State Archives disaster assistance guidelines.
• Call the State Archives main number …

DHPSNY is excited to announce a new addition to our Planning & Assessment Services—Foundational Planning Assistance! Foundational Planning Assistance is geared towards organizations that may not feel they are ready for DHPSNY’s Archival Needs Assessment, Preservation Survey, or Strategic Planning Assistance processes.

Foundational Planning Assistance has been designed as an informal and accessible process that provides participating institutions with a framework for institutional advancement, with an emphasis on strengthening the organizational components…

One of the most direct ways to drive change in a community can be deciding where to spend your money. Shopping at BIPOC-, LGBTQ+-, and women-owned and/or operated businesses are great ways to make a difference by supporting underserved groups. But how do we make this possible on an institutional scale? Today we are highlighting a few resources for choosing inclusive vendors for your institution's supply needs.

This past March, the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) hosted …

Just a few weeks ago in this series, we discussed the importance of conscious editing and reparative description, and some resources to help engage in this work internally. There has been a lot of discussion lately around antiracist descriptive practices, so this week we’re taking a look at some recent webinars and podcasts that provide examples of how some organizations are putting conscious editing and reparative description efforts into practice. 

The Native American Archives Section (NAAS) of the Society of American…