NEH grant received!

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced $21.1 million in grants for 248 humanities projects. We are excited to share the news that this includes a planning grant to WiLS, project manager for Recollection Wisconsin! Recollection Wisconsin’s NEH-funded project, Listening to War: Uncovering Wisconsin’s Wartime Oral Histories, will find, assess, and create a plan for the digitization of oral history interview recordings documenting 20th-century military conflicts as experienced by residents of Wisconsin, held by libraries, archives, and historical societies throughout the state.

This yearlong project will bring together expertise from twelve partner institutions to assist dozens of public libraries and local historical societies in preserving the irreplaceable voices of our veterans.  The project, which begins this summer, will help to educate the community on preservation of oral histories, providing essential direction at a time when many of these audiovisual materials may be at risk.  It will also raise awareness of the unique collections held by these institutions and create a community of practice that will help all libraries and cultural institutions interested in audiovisual digitization and preservation.