Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries and Museums (IMLS)
The Institute of Museum and Library Services will award grants for innovative projects that respond to the challenges and opportunities facing cultural heritage institutions in a rapidly changing information environment. Grant funding may include all activities associated with planning, deploying, and evaluating the innovation. Examples of successful grants: exploring the potential of highly original, experimental collaborations, implementing new workflows or processes with potential for substantial cost savings, testing new metrics or methods to measure the impact of promising tools or services, rapid prototyping and testing of new types of software tools, or creating useful new ways to link separate software applications used in libraries, archives, or museums, offering innovative new types of services or service options to museum, library, or archive visitors, or enhancing institutions’ abilities to interact with audiences in new ways to promote learning or improve services, such as through the deployment of innovative crowd-sourcing techniques.
Sparks! Ignition Grant funds may not be used for: evaluation of an existing program or service, projects that are only for planning or research (as distinguished from experimentation), projects that are limited to existing and traditional approaches to exhibitions, performances, or other types of public programs, projects that involve mainly digitization, unless the applicant is proposing an innovative method for digitization, activities that will produce only incremental improvements in operational or business processes,
support of conferences or professional meetings, or acquisition of equipment in excess of 50 percent of the total funds requested from IMLS.
AMOUNT: $10,000 to $25,000 ( no cost sharing required)
DEADLINE: November 15, 2010
MORE INFO
Webinars with Sparks! Grants Staff
Learn more about the Sparks! program at one of IMLS’s upcoming webinars. Sparks! program staff will talk about the purpose of the grants, the grant application process, and answer participants’ questions during three upcoming webinars. The webinar schedule is:
September 30, 2010 – 1:00 PM ET
October 13, 2010 – 1:00 PM ET
November 3, 2010 – 1:00 PM ET
Duration: 1 Hour
Webinar link Conference call number: 1-888-850-4523; Participant Passcode: 761243
Please test your computer’s compatibility with Adobe Connect Pro by visiting this link. It is recommended you do this well before the conference begins. Participants may begin logging in to the webinar up to 10 minutes prior to the conference start time. We recommend you log in to the webinar before calling the conference call line. If you do not have a computer available to you, you may participate solely through the conference call line.
About the Institute of Museum and Library Services
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute’s mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development. To learn more about the Institute, please visit http://www.imls.gov/.