The Northern New York Library Library Network has awarded $36,208 in Engaging Communities member grants this year!
Read about the five exciting projects, and the ways they’ll impact communities, below.
SUNY Oswego and its Penfield Library, $3318
Preserving The Oswegonian 2010-2025
The library will pick up where they last left off, digitizing and contributing recent years of the student-run campus newspaper, The Oswegonian, to New York State Historic Newspapers.
Zachary Vickery, University Archivist Librarian, Marissa Caico, Digital Collections Librarian, and Austin Richardson, Office Assistant
Historic Saranac Lake, $6700
Preservation of Audiovisual Materials
Building on recent successes in its community resurrecting almost-lost home videos, the museum will conserve and digitize for New York Heritage old films by William Morris, Sr., iconic Hollywood agent and tuberculosis sufferer, and audio recordings from the local radio station, as well as oral histories conducted by the museum itself in the early days of the organization.
Just one example of the many “crispy film” reels that will be preserved and made accessible through the project.
Massena Public Library, $3200
Growing Community Health
Massena Public Library Director Krista Briggs in the library’s teaching garden.
Frederic Remington Art Museum, $12000
Permanent Collection Preservation and Access Project
The museum will re-house historical documents, books, and artwork for preservation and prepare select works for exhibition and study. Their focus will be on sketches, correspondence, and ephemera not previously viewed by the public.
Curator/collections Manager Romi Sebald gives a talk about caring for collections.
Samaritan Medical Center, $10900
Samaritan Historical Preservation Project
The hospital harbors records starting in the 1880’s chronicling the history of Samaritan Medical Center and its role in advancing healthcare in Northern New York, none of which are known or accessible to the public or researchers. The project will create finding aid(s), a structured access system for all records, a physical exhibit, and an assessment of candidates for digitization of archival photographs, documents, and historical records from the House of the Good Samaritan nursing school.
Samaritan Medical Librarian Ellen Darabaner displays items from the collection.
Congratulations to all the grantees for their work in increasing access to special content and collections and for advancing the priorities of their communities!
For details on the upcoming rounds of grant funding, see https://nnyln.org/services/member-grants. Engaging Communities grants are awarded annually, and Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging grants are awarded quarterly, with the next deadline on June 30, 2025.