Money, money, money – August 28, 2007

August 29th, 2007 relocated

More foundations join the Melon Fund in support of the Digital revolution. HASTAC and MacArthur Foundation are offering $2 million to improve Digital Media in learning; Moore foundation has given Fedora Commons $4.9 million to develop open-source software system that provides the basic infrastructure for on-line communities of scholars and the NEH is soliciting proposals to participate in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

HASTAC and MacArthur Foundation are holding a competition - DIGITAL MEDIA AND LEARNING COMPETITION to decide on who will receive their monies, the deadline for which is October 15, 2007. A common thread here, learning. The Moore foundation has awarded Fedora Commons its grant. Fedora Commons grew out of a collaboration effort between Cornell and University of Virginia. With this support, they will continue to develop their open source software platform, which “enables collaborative models of information creation and sharing, and provides sustainable repositories to secure the digital materials that constitute our intellectual, scientific, and cultural history.” Part of the grant is also to be used to grow and diversify the members of the Commons.

For those with newspaper archives, the NEH is soliciting proposals, which are due November 1, 2007, to participate in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). The current awards are up to $400,000. They are giving themselves 20 years to create “a national, digital resource of historically significant newspapers from all the states and U.S. territories published between 1836 and 1922.” The Library of Congress will manage the resource. So, if you have such an archive and want assistance in digitizing it, this could be provide the help you need. By the way, they are especially interested in those papers already migrated to microfilm. The grant is for a two-year period, which also shows their wisdom.