LSU Libraries Grant Summaries
1996 - 2005
The following projects represent the efforts of the LSU Libraries, the LSU Computing Center, selected LSU academic departments, and cooperating member libraries of the Louisiana Online University Information System (LOUIS). The network proposals were the efforts of a team consisting of library and computing center personnel working with the former LSU Provost. Others were written by either individual library faculty or by librarians working with teaching faculty. Grants tagged with an asterisk (*) are ongoing projects supported by participating partners.
These summaries reflect the current decades' successful grant activities of the LSU Libraries, the LSU Computing Center, selected LSU academic departments, and participating member libraries of the Louisiana Online University Information System (LOUIS). Awards listed below that are tagged with an asterisk (*) support Louisiana network development and were the efforts of a team consisting of library and computing center personnel working with a former LSU Provost. All others were written and implemented by individual library faculty or by librarians working with teaching faculty.
2005 - National Endowment for the Humanities. $30,000.
Awarded in December 2005, this $30,000 emergency hurricane recovery grant was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grant received the NEH's designation as a "We the People Award." These awards are in honor of the NEH's 40th anniversary year. The LSU Libraries Special Collections have used the NEH emergency grant to help stabilize and restore archival collections damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We have also provided storage to affected agencies. We have assisted the Louisiana State Museum, the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, Notre Dame Seminary, the St. Bernard Parish newspaper, New Orleans Port Authority photographer Donn Young, the Cameron Parish Public Library, and a number of small Catholic churches in New Orleans.
Return to LSU Libraries Grants Overview2005 – U.S. Department of Education - $297,600.
This project will arrange, describe and make accessible to the American public, the political papers and historical research materials of former Senator John Breaux of Louisiana. Senator Breaux served in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1976-1986 and the U. S. Senate, 1987-2004. The collection consists of 900 cubic boxes. Staff will arrange, re-house and catalog all items and do archival conservation as needed. At the end of the three year project a comprehensive guide to the collection will be published in print and on the internet to aid researchers in locating materials within the collection.
Return to LSU Libraries Grants Overview2005 – National Historical Publications and Records Commission - $196,140.
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives and Records Administration has awarded a 30-month, $196,140 grant to the LSU Libraries Special Collections. Funds will be used for microfilming and creating an improved finding aid for the Historical Records Survey transcriptions of parish police jury minutes. The collection comprises over 200 linear feet and represents 130 years of county-level records for the state of Louisiana. The grant began January 1, 2005.
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2004 – Governor's Office of Coastal Activities - $116,759.
The LSU Libraries Special Collections received a grant from the Governor's Office of Coastal Activities to provide access to unpublished research relating to Louisiana coastal issues. These research documents, known as gray literature, will be included in a new, searchable database being developed by Special Collections and the Laboratory for Creative Arts and Technologies (LCAT). The one year grant of $116,000, will provide a prototype of the database in late Spring 2005
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2003 - Coypu Foundation - $80,000.
The LSU Libraries received a grant of $80,000 from the Coypu Foundation of New Orleans to complete an important photographic collection. In the 1980s the LSU Libraries received 30,000 negatives of an original photographic collection totaling over 100,000 images owned by Dr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Gandy of Natchez, Mississippi. Since then Dr. Gandy worked to salvage many of the other damaged negatives. The grant from the Coypu Foundation made it possible for LSU Libraries' Special Collections division to acquire the remaining pieces of the Gurney/Norman Photograph Studio Collection from the estate of Dr. Gandy. This extraordinary collection photographically documents 100 years (1851 - 1951) of history in and around Natchez, Mississippi.
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2003 - Chancellor's Distinguished Lectureship Series - $4,000.
The United States Civil War Center, LSU Libraries Special Collections, received a 2003 Chancellor's Distinguished Lectureship Series award. The speaker was Dr. Edward L. Ayers, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences, and Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History at the University of Virginia. The $4,000 award covered honorarium and expenses for Dr. Ayers. His presentation was "The Civil War at Eye Level: An Experiment in History" on October 30, 2003.
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2002 - State of Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism Louisiana Folklife Program Initiative - $17,000.
The Louisiana Folklife Program, a unit of the Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, State of Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, awarded the LSU Libraries a special initiative grant of $17,000.00. The funds were utilized to support arranging, describing, rehousing, and preparing access to the Project Files of the Louisiana Folklife Program. Funds were provided for two graduate assistants for a period of six months, January to June 2000.
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2001- Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities - $1798
"Blue and Gray for Boys and Girls: Selections from the Michael Lehman Williamson Collection of Civil War Books for Young People"
The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state branch of the National Endowment for the Humanities, has awarded the LSU Libraries a grant of
$1798 for this project. "Blue and Gray for Boys and Girls" is an exhibition in Hill Memorial Library sponsored by the United States Civil War Center and the LSU Libraries. The exhibition opens on November 12, 2001 and remains on exhibit through March 2, 2002. The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) grant funds a presentation by Professor James Marten of the Department of History of Marquette University on "Making Their Way: The Civil War in Children's Books and Magazines," on November 15.
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2001- The Louisiana Purchase: A Heritage Explored, 1800-1815 - $219,618
The LSU Libraries Special Collections has received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Washington, DC for a two year project which will create a digital repository of research materials in three languages relating to the era of the Louisiana Purchase, 1800-1815. This project will last for two years and digitize materials from Special Collections and from the City Archives at the New Orleans Public Library. The materials will be part of the LSU Digital Library. Grant money of $219 ,618.00 will be used to hire one full time librarian and two graduate students to work on the project, and will be used to fund work by an advisory panel of public school teachers who will help to devise lesson plans to use the digital library.
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2001- Louisiana Newspaper Statewide Preservation - $78,500
The LSU Libraries Special Collections was awarded $78,500.00 from the 2000 Louisiana Board of Regents Social Sciences Enhancement grants. The funds were used to purchase new microfilming equipment to produce preservation microfilm copies and researcher copies of Louisiana newspapers from the 18th through the 21st centuries.
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2000- Beyond Face Value: Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Currency - $6,273
Awarded by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities to the US Civil War Center for an on-line exhibit of Confederate currency and related financial instruments which depict images of slavery. Over 100 original documents will be scanned and placed on a series of web pages attached to the US Civil War Center homepage. Project Director is Leah Jewett. Dates: Jan - Dec 2000
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2000- Amistad Research Center - $186,003
Awarded by the U.S. Institute of Museums and Library Services National Leadership Grants Program. During this two-year project, the Amistad Research Center, in collaboration with the Louisiana State University Digital Library, will digitize rare documents and images related to the historic Amistad Incident case. Also included will be documents about the committee of defenders in the case, from which the American Missionary Association developed.
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1999-00 - Distance Education Electronic Delivery Network (DEED-Net) - $149,348
Awarded by the Board of Regents under a special initiative to support development of distance education in Louisiana, the funds will finance implementation of an enhanced Ariel network linking together 22 state academic libraries. Ariel technology supports delivery of compact scanned images, facilitates electronic transmission to other Ariel sites, and decompresses the images for printing on laser printers. The network will incorporate high-end flatbed scanners that provide high image resolution enabling participants to tele-transmit medical and technical images. This project enables libraries to deliver information in all formats for distance education students and faculty. Furthermore, it enhances the statewide library networks by providing rapid, high-quality and cost effective delivery of all information resources to distant Ariel sites.
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1999 - Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities -From Red Stick to River Capital: Three Centuries of Baton Rouge History - $2422.
The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the state branch of the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the LSU Libraries an Outreach Grant of $2422. The grant will help to fund and publicize the LSU Libraries Special Collections exhibition in honor of Baton Rouge's three hundredth year anniversary of discovery. A public lecture by Professor of History Light T. Cummins at Austin College, Sherman, TX will be held March 28, 1999. The exhibition will run from March 8 through June 1999.
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1999 - State of Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism Louisiana Folklife Program Initiative - $20,800.
The Louisiana Folklife Program, a unit of the Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, State of Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, has awarded the LSU Libraries a special initiative grant of $20,800.00. The funds will be utilized to support arranging, describing, rehousing, and preparing access to the Project Files of the Louisiana Folklife Program. They will also provide salaries for an archivist, a graduate assistant, and a library associate for a period of four months, March 1, 1999 to June 30, 1999.
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1999 - Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge Turning the Page: A Celebration of the Book as Art - $5,569
The Decentralized Arts Funding Program, administered by the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge, awarded the LSU Libraries $5,569 to fund "Turning the Page: A Celebration of the Book as Art." The grant will help to fund and publicize a city-wide series of exhibitions and events, organized by Leslie Koptcho (School of Art), Elaine Smyth (LSU Libraries) and participating organizations, including the Louisiana Arts and Science Center, the State Library, and the East Baton Rouge parish Library.
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1998-99 - Louisiana Educational Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)
Enhance and Expand the LSU Coastal Louisiana Digital Library - $371,739
The project enhances the State's digital library resources in coastal imagery and resource materials by providing interlibrary (Internet) electronic connections to these valuable and previously inaccessible data bases and historical aerial imagery for Louisiana's coastal zone. The principle medium to accomplish this is the expansion of the new and successfully operating LSU Coastal Louisiana Digital Library originally developed with the LSU Libraries under an LEQSF grant awarded in 1995. Materials from Special Collections and from the Cartographic Center are being scanned. Funds are also supporting related staff at the Computing Services Center and for equipment.
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1997 Federal Allocation for U.S. Department of Education Higher Education Act funded project, the Louisiana Library Network - $1,000,000
Funding supports continuation and expansion of the Louisiana Library Network, specifically for continued catalog conversion of research and doctoral institutions, networking of local libraries, and other statewide projects such as electronic reserve and the LSU Digital Libraries initiative.
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1997 - Louisiana Educational Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)
Louisiana Remembers: The Tunica-Biloxi Indians of Louisiana, a Pilot Project - $146,300
This project includes the LSU Libraries' Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections' Electronic Imaging Laboratory, the LSU History Department, the LSU-Alexandria Bolton Library, and the Tunica-Biloxi Indians. It will provide Internet access to original documents held by the Libraries relating to Louisiana Native Americans and to photographs of artifacts in the Tunica-Biloxi Indian Museum through the library online catalogs and Web home pages. Computer workstations will be installed at the Museum, in the LSU History Department, and in the LSU-Alexandria library. Access for handicapped users will also be provided in the LSU Libraries. Funds will support scanning and preparing searchable text and mounting these on access servers for use by K-12 students, museums, college and university libraries and classes, public libraries, and private homes. Plans for the future include seeking funding from other sources to expand the program.
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1997 - LEQSF Access and Preservation: Louisiana Photographs and Oral History - $25,000
The LSU Libraries, Special Collections, and the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History will acquire equipment for the Williams Center audio workroom and the Special Collections Image Resources darkroom to further the Libraries' oral history program and to preserve valuable photographs. This project will record and preserve the history of local institutions, neighborhoods, and families for use in public presentations by museums, historical societies, and other community groups. The Williams Center will set up a sound lab to preserve and edit audio tapes. Obsolete and dysfunctional darkroom equipment will be replaced and preservation of historical photographic collections improved by creating in-house archival negatives. These improved facilities will be maintained by the Libraries and Special Collections.
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1997 - Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
Recovering the Denied Past: Lessons from South Africa and the American South - $2,200
This project centers on the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The award will be used to sponsor a program on the topic at the Oral History Association's annual meeting in New Orleans in September 1997. The program will describe and analyze the meaning and possible effects of the TRC for South Africa and will suggest comparisons with the experience of Americans, particularly Southerners, in the generation since the climax of the civil rights movement.
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1996 - LEQSF*
LSU Libraries Electronic Readiness Laboratories - $182,700
Two electronic classrooms are being installed and equipped with twenty user workstations and two instructor stations in Middleton Library, the main library facility of the LSU Libraries system. The workstations are funded by this award. The project was proposed jointly by the LSU Libraries and the College of Education. Other equipment items funded are a work station with adaptive aids, several software packages, printers, computer projectors, TV/VCR, laser disk player, overhead projectors, and cassette players. Furnishings are also covered by the award. The classrooms will be used for library instruction and may be scheduled for other classes when available. Hands-on instruction will be provided in these classrooms using various search protocols. The workstations will be networked to LOUIS, the LLN, and the Internet. Ongoing support will be provided by the LSU Libraries.
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1996 - LEQSF*
Enhancing Teacher Education Through Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Approach - $39,400
A joint effort of the LSU College of Education and the LSU Libraries, this award supports the expansion of the secondary social studies and English teacher education curricula to include instruction in oral history methods and materials to improve teaching quality in Louisiana. Field recorders, high quality microphones, transcribing machines, and a video camera are being acquired. A course on oral history is planned for preservice teachers, an instructional handbook and video are being developed, and a summer institute for practicing teachers is in the works.
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1996 - Louisiana State Arts Council, Louisiana Division of the Arts and the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge.
Saving Lear's Parrots: A Preservation Project - $5,000
This award funded the deacidification of the LSU Libraries' copy of Lear's Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots, a rare portfolio of prints housed in the Rare Books & E. A. McIlhenny Natural History Collection. The copy had been endangered by the chemistry of the paper on which it was printed and by exposure to light, heat, and humidity. It also funded other preservation activities, an exhibition of the prints and a brochure and workbook related to the collection which was distributed to 1,000 upper elementary students in the Baton Rouge area.
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1996 - Louisiana Educational Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)
LSU Jewish Studies Program - $41,000
Funds supported library development in Jewish studies. Purchases in the amount of $41,070 enriched the LSU Libraries collection to improve support of research and courses in Holocaust history, American and Southern Jewish history, Hebrew texts, and other Jewish Studies areas. Some 6,226 titles were acquired during this project.
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1995 - Louisiana Educational Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)
LSU Enhancement for Coastal Sciences - $52,200
A combined effort of the LSU Departments of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences (DOCS), the Earth Scan Laboratory of the Coastal Studies Institute, the Information Services Division of the Center for Coastal, Energy, and Environmental Resources, Computing Services, the LSU Libraries, and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, this project provided Web/Internet access to important coastal and environmental information. It funded creation of the Coastal Louisiana Digital Library which includes 768 Mississippi Delta and southwest Louisiana aerial photographs taken in 1940 and 1951 that document coastal erosion. The images are also available on CD-ROM. Web/Internet access was enhanced with home pages linking link to related Web sites, satellite images from the Earth Scan Lab, the digital library, and a bibliography of relevant LSU Libraries' holdings.
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1994 - Louisiana Educational Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)*
LSU Engineering Information Resources Project - $250,000*
B-3This project enhanced library information resources for colleges of engineering users at six Louisiana public universities: LSU, Louisiana Tech University, University of New Orleans, University of Southwestern Louisiana, McNeese State University, and Southern University in Baton Rouge. It provided online access for approximately three years to engineering and science indexes and bibliographies including Compendex and Inspec. Compendex is the electronic version of the Engineering Index which provides abstracts of significant engineering and technology literature. Inspec is the electronic database which corresponds to three Science Abstracts print publications: Electrical and Electronics Abstracts, Computer and Control Abstracts, and Physics Abstracts.
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1994 - Louisiana Educational Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)*
LALINC Phase III: Academic Library Undergraduate Colleges - $220,000*
Four more academic libraries were brought into LOUIS with this award. Libraries automated with these funds included Southern University at New Orleans, Nunez Community College and LSU at Eunice. The Louisiana Academic Library Network Consortium (LALINC) and its members are active to date. The Louisiana Legislature has continued to provide funds annually for for network support since 1995. Participating libraries also contribute financial support..
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1994 - Louisiana Educational Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)*
Images Resources Network - $200,000
A joint project of the LSU Libraries and the LSU College of Design enabled the Libraries Electronic Imaging Laboratory to upgrade its equipment, add Windows based computer systems, and a network server. The College of Design Visual Resources Center also added software and equipment for digitizing and cataloging photographs. The grant supplied funds for an EIL Coordinator who completed digitizing and cataloging a collection of Andrew Lytle photographs for access via CD-ROM and the Internet.
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1993 - U.S. Department of Education Statewide Multi-type Library Database Program*
Louisiana Library Network - $2,480,000*
In 1993, Louisiana competed against 20 other states for funding to build a comprehensive statewide library network. The Louisiana proposal was ranked first by seven of the ten judges. The award funded workstations, telecommunications hardware and/or access fees for libraries in each of the state's 64 parishes (counties), the State Library of Louisiana, Grambling State University, Southern University, 20 K-12 schools, and the LOUIS libraries. The Louisiana Library Network (LLN) provides Internet access, some forty or more electronic indexes and abstracts, more than 1,000 full-text journals, and provides access to the LOUIS libraries collections. This statewide network is among the first in the country to combine academic, public, and school libraries.
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1993 - U.S. Department of Education Title IID*
LALINC Phase II - $162,500*
This award made five additional academic libraries "network ready" and supported bringing them online in 1994. These Phase II libraries included McNeese State University, Delgado Community College, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, LSU at Alexandria and LSU in Shreveport.
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1992 - Louisiana Educational Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)*
LALINC Phase I - $824,800 and $108,000*
These two initial network grants funded the creation of the Louisiana Online University Information System (LOUIS) and brought online the Phase I libraries. LOUIS is a Louisiana academic library network that provides faculty and students with online access to the catalog holdings of each participating academic library and to selected bibliographic and full-text databases through use of the NOTIS Library Management System software. These two awards extended the use of the LSU NOTIS system to the following public academic libraries: Nicholls State University, Northeast Louisiana University, Louisiana Tech University and the University of New Orleans. Southeastern Louisiana University was already automated with NOTIS but dropped their individual contract to join LOUIS. Phase I libraries were brought online in 1993. These funds laid the foundation for the Louisiana Library Network and were a strong factor in the LSU Libraries and Computing Center being awarded $3.64 million to develop the statewide multi-type library network.
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1991-92 - National Endowment for the Humanities
Research Libraries Group Retrospective Conversion Project - $15,100
The National Endowment for the Humanities allocated funds to fifteen Research Libraries Group member libraries for the retrospective conversion of manuscript records to machine-readable format for entry into their online databases and into the Research Libraries Group Network (RLIN). The LSU Libraries Special Collections entered 748 manuscript records into LSU databases and the RLIN system making that information available for nationwide use.
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1991 - Louisiana Educational Quality Support Fund (LEQSF)
LSU Libraries Electronic Imaging Laboratory: EIL - $285,000
Funds established an electronic imaging laboratory to preserve the state's written records found in printed materials, manuscripts, and archives. The EIL features a network configuration including document capture work stations, a quality control work station, an archiving distribution work station, and image retrieval work stations, with one equipped with a voice synthesizer and Braille keyboard. The system includes a Bernoulli disk backup capability and an optical WORM (Write Once Ready Many) used to create compact discs. Two important products of the EIL produced on CD-ROM are B. F. French's Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida, and the LSU Coastal Louisiana Digital Library, a collection of Louisiana/Gulf of Mexico historical maps.
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1990 - National Historical Records and Publications Commission
University Records Project - $97,400
Funds were used to establish the LSU University Archives. Archivists surveyed the records in University offices, wrote and promulgated records schedules and transferred archival records to the University Archives. A records management guide was published and records management workshop were held for University records clerks.
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1989 - National Endowment for the Humanities
Louisiana Newspaper Project Phase II - $125,800
Funds were used to prepare complete catalog records for the preservation microfilm. Records were entered into OCLC and the LSU Libraries online catalog. A published guide to Louisiana newspapers was also completed.
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