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The National Endowment for the Humanities has opened the FY 13 competition for Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections, a longstanding program designed to help “cultural repositories plan and implement preservation strategies that pragmatically balance effectiveness, cost, and environmental impact.” Applications are due by December 4, 2012.

Awards support the preservation of books, manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings, motion pictures, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art, and other historical objects. Because of time limits on funding and the nature of fragile collections—which are often prone to unexpected problems—applications should “aim to mitigate the greatest risks to collections rather than to meet prescriptive targets.”

Two levels of funding are available: planning grants of up to $40,000 for preliminary studies, pilot projects, and testing; and implementation grants of up to $100,000 for more substantive projects such as rehousing collections or installing environmental stabilization equipment.

Contact preservation@neh.gov for additional information.