Applicants should be in the field of visual resources and image management, and may include retirees, those currently unemployed, or students. Membership in the Visual Resources Association is not required. Former recipients of the Project Grant are not eligible for a period of two years following their most recent award. Other applications for funding for the same project must be disclosed.

The VRA has United States Internal Revenue Service status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit entity. All elements of a proposed project must be performed within the legal parameters of United States local, regional, and federal government requirements. International applications are welcome from institutions or individuals provided applicant institutions have the equivalent of US non-profit status and applicant individuals have a similar non-profit, educational purpose.

The project must be completed within one year from the time the grant is formally accepted. The grant will be disbursed in two increments: $1,500 at the start of the granting period, and $1,500 pending the submission of a mid-project progress report. A final report, including a financial statement, on how the funds contributed to the project is due within one month of the project’s completion. Failure to complete the proposed project may result in the grantee returning the funds.

Grant monies may not be used to cover indirect costs. Grant monies may be used for:

• Salaries and labor costs

• Transportation costs

• Cost of materials (grants generally do not fund the purchase of office and other/related equipment)

• Other appropriate expenses (as approved by VRA)

Grant recipients also agree to all of the following:

• The activities for which the grant is sought will be administered under the supervision of the applicant.

• The funds granted will be spent solely for the described project.

• No project changes will be made without consulting the VRA.

• A mid-project and final report outlining the use of the grant (including financial accounting) will be completed and provided to the VRA.

• In all publicity, press releases, and programs, the grant will be credited to the VRA.

• In conducting the project, you will comply with Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of Title V of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and any applicable local laws.

To apply for the grant, please provide the following information in the order listed. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

1. Primary Contact Information

   Please include your first and last name, mailing address, email address, and phone number.

2. Project Proposal

   1. Provide a brief description of your project.

   2. If the project is ongoing or built upon preliminary work, summarize what has been accomplished to date.

   3. Describe the project's objectives, and what need(s) it meets.

   4. Clearly define the measurable outcomes of the project.

   5. Outline the process and timeline that will be used to complete the project.

   6. Explain how the project supports the VRA's mission.

3. Project Participant Information

   1. List all project collaborators and partners, their institutional affiliation, and project role.

   2. Explain why the skills and experience of your project team make you suitable candidates for carrying out the proposed project.

4. Project Budget

   1. Provide a detailed budget for the project, with specific dollar amounts.

   2. List sources of additional funding support you expect or have applied for.

5. Additional Information

   Please include any additional information that will assist us in evaluating your project.

Please combine your application materials into a single PDF file. Spreadsheets may be submitted as separate files if needed. Email applications to grants@vraweb.org with the subject line “2023-2024 VRA Project Grant Application.” Applications will be accepted September 18 – November 3, 2023.

2022

Carolyn Lucarelli, Manager, Center for Virtual/Material Studies at Penn State.

The Center for Virtual/Material Studies will collaborate on this project with the School of Theatre at Penn State. During the fall 2022 semester, an undergraduate student will be hired to complete a digital inventory of the Fashion Archive. New identification numbers will be assigned while each piece is carefully photographed and documented (making use of the CostumeCore standard as funded in the 2019 Project Grant). This interdisciplinary project will provide open access to not just the Penn State community but also costume and fashion historians online.

2021

Jaime Fogel, Director, Arthur Vining Davis Library & Archives at Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida.

The funds from the project grant will allow for documentation and evaluation of nearly 1500 films in a variety for formats. The top 75 assets — those of greatest historical value and those most at risk of degradation — will be selected for digitization. Three films that have already been identified as top assets include oral history interviews with Mote’s founding director, Dr. Eugenie Clark; marine science pioneer and former Mote director, Dr. Sylvia Earle; and philanthropist and patron, William Mote. Once digitized, the films will be made available on Mote’s new digital collections site and freely accessible to the public.

2020

Stephanie Becker, Digital Collections Manager and Project Manager for Regionally Speaking: A Virtual Symposium, at Case Western University, Cleveland, OH. Regionally Speaking: A Virtual Symposium project will create transcriptions and time-based captions for A/V media files, in order to create needed accessibility features for user inclusivity. The VRAF Project Grant will allow Ms. Becker, and other project collaborators at Case Western’s, Kelvin Smith Library, to find, research and collaborate with a vendor, who will assist in transcribing approximately 70 moving image and oral history files regarding the community of Cleveland, Ohio. The text and/or captions will then be applied to the files, and the Regionally Speaking collaborators will create and build a framework for the audio and video files to be available with caption formatting for easy and intuitive public viewing and downloading. The project will create needed accessibility features for the public and provide a larger and more accessible portal for the Cleveland, Ohio community.

2019

Arden Kirkland, creator of the CostumeCore Toolkit, and Adjunct Professor at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. The CostumeCore Toolkit project will provide a toolkit to users, in order to streamline the process of setting up standards-based, interoperable metadata for collections related to the study of historic clothing. The VRAF Project Grant allowed Ms. Kirkland to update current templates in CSV/Excel formats, create plug-ins for Omeka S, templates and vocabulary for JSTOR Forum, and provide RDF extensions of VRA Core, incorporate AAT/EFT Uniform Resource Identifiers in CostumeCore, and create plugins and modules to support micro-thesauri for linked data. The project allowed the CC Toolkit to be available to the public under a Creative Commons BY- SA license.

2018

James Sobczak, Digital Imaging Assistant II, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. The Project Grant will allow University of Washington’s School of Art + Art History + Design to digitize a collection donation of 26,800+ 35mm slides from Patricia Young, which will provide a stipend to graduate student employees. The PYC Collection will be housed in their MDID collection, which crosswalks with CONTENTdm for further outreach to researchers worldwide. This project will also allow the PYC Collection graduate student workers to improve upon the GIS linking of images, network mapping of metadata, and semantic query integration.

2016

Stephanie Norby, Director Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access. This pilot project allowed The Smithsonian Institution Learning Lab (https://learninglab.si.edu/) to explore the process of creating science-based digital resource collections and to develop a series of best practices for the development of future digital science instructional resources. The grant supported collaborative efforts with high school instructors to create vetted teaching collections which reflect both the strengths of the Smithsonian’s science collections and the pedagogical needs of secondary educators.

2015

Fatemeh Baigmoradi, M.F.A Student, University of New Mexico, Documenting Iranian Artists. Expanded upon a developing digital archive of the works of contemporary Iranian artists, with plans to share the images with the scholarly community via either ArtStor or Shared Shelf Commons.

Sheryl Frisch, Visual Resources Specialist, California Polytechnic State University & Greg Reser, Metadata Specialist, University of California San Diego, MetaShotPpt 3. Developed a new, stand-alone version of MetaShotPpt, an application that transfers embedded metadata into PowerPoint. This version will work on both Mac and Windows platforms, and will include all of the updated features currently available only in the Mac version. The new version of MetaShotPpt will be developed using Visual Studio.

2014

Krystle Kelley, University of Colorado-Boulder, Digitizing the Ronald Bernier Image Archive

Matthias Arnold, Heidelberg Institute, VRA Core XML Transform Tool

2013

Amanda Rybin, University of Chicago, MetaShotPpt 2

Christopher Strasbaugh, Vanderbilt University, DIMLI: Digital Image Management Library

2012

Leslie Cade, Cleveland Museum of Art, CMA: Analog Master Negatives Digitization Project

Meghan Petersen, Currier Museum of Art, Currier Bulletins Digitization Project