Financial assistance for digitization and online publication of scholarly texts

 

During recent years several foundations have provided funds to digitize images of art works in museum collections. In some instances the images have been made available online. For more details click here.

Less emphasis has been placed on digitizing paper-published scholarly texts owned by museums. Relatively few museums have paced these texts online. To bridge this gap, TFAO's Resource Library provides free online publication of texts for museums. Public access to sought after texts in catalogues both in print and out of print is of special interest to TFAO.

TFAO is interested in providing to museums funding towards digitization of paper-printed texts that critique, interpret and add to the body of knowledge of American representational art. Biographies of artists and scholarship on related topics are both of interest. Beyond Resource Library's service of free online publication of texts, funds may be provided by TFAO to museums for:

1. support of museum cooperation with Google Book Search -- and/or other organizations providing similar services -- in order to provide permanent online free "full view" access to TFAO-approved exhibition catalogues in instances where copyrights to texts are owned by the museum. A Google "full view" book may be read in its entirety online. For the Google Books publishers' program, costs may include obtaining ISBN numbers, excerpting copyrighted images within books, shipping charges, plus other expenses. A museum may elect to work with Google Books, or similar providers, to provide "full view" availability to recently-published catalogues in addition to those out of print. [1]
 
2. creation of a durable page in the museum's web site, if needed, to contain hyperlinks to converted texts.
 
3. in instances where museum cooperation with Google Book Search -- or other organizations providing similar services -- is not feasible, support of museum staff and intern expenses in providing text conversion, proofreading, formatting and online publishing on a permanent basis, or alternately, contracting with outside services for those functions. [2]

 

Conditions

Grants will be provided upon these conditions:

1. converted text relates to American representational art;
 
2. text is permanently available online, free to the public, within the museum's web site in HTML format (or in Google Books -- or like service -- using its format) and accessible through public search engines;.
 
3. museum provides a copy of the converted text to TFAO in .doc format so that TFAO may convert it to HTML and co-publish the text in order to provide a backup resource for free and permanent access (unless the text is placed permanently in full view format in Google Books or like service);
 
4. the converted text is forwarded to TFAO using the text presentation conventions in Resource Library's content presentation guidelines, (unless the text is placed permanently in full view format in Google Books or like service);
 
5. a commitment is made for rerouting -- on the museum web site -- of hyperlinks that relate to the online texts to relocated pages or new pages as necessary to facilitate live hyperlinks and correct routing;
 
6. the museum sends a letter of inquiry by email to TFAO, and unless waived, conducts a self-assessment prior to application;
 
7. upon TFAO's acceptance of the letter of inquiry, the museum and TFAO work together on further steps leading to project funding.
 
 

Additional funding

TFAO will partner with other in-kind or financial sources. TFAO has existing co-funding relationships with other sources of funds. There are further sources of funds with similar interests with which TFAO has no direct ties. These sources include:

 

Other information

Please see TFAO's pages on acquisition and deselection of content for its digital library, non-profit and commercial digitizing initiatives, and related methods and costs. Also please see benefits to museums and the public flowing from Resource Library's online publication service.

TFAO also offers an Institutional Sources Study Project which may be of interest to individual staff members The Institutional Sources Study Project has similar objectives to the grant program. For more information about this project please click here.

 

Go back to Financial Assistance Programs

Notes:

1. For example, as of June, 2008 the Hudson River Museum has arranged for Google Books to provide "full views" for three newly-published catalogues within TFAO's area of interest. Images of art objects were deleted in the online pages. The three catalogues are:

TFAO understands that the Hudson River Museum may continue its relationship with Google Books to provide "full view" availability of other new catalogues plus selected catalogues published on paper in prior years.

2. For reference, TFAO's Institutional Sources Study Project provides a template for contractors to provide text conversion for Web publishing. For more information about this project please click here.

 

rev. 7/2/08

Links to sources of information outside of our web site are provided only as referrals for your further consideration. Please use due diligence in judging the quality of information contained in these and all other Web sites and in employing referenced consultants or vendors. Information from linked sources may be inaccurate or out of date. Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc neither recommends or endorses these referenced organizations. Although Traditional Fine Art Organization, Inc. includes links to other web sites, it takes no responsibility for the content or information contained on those other sites, nor exerts any editorial or other control over those other sites. For more information on evaluating web pages see Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc.'s General Resources section in Online Resources for Collectors and Students of Art History.

Search Resource Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.

Copyright 2008 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights reserved.