Electronic archive projects receive $1 million from NEH

From staff reports

Six U.Va. projects, most having to do with digital preservation of historic archives, received just over $1 million in funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities spring round of grants, the NEH announced this month.

The University's total of $1.01 million was second only to $1.3 million awarded to Columbia University. In all, the NEH doled out $30.5 million to 295 applicants in the second of its three funding rounds for the 2000 fiscal year.

The spring grants included $18.8 million in preservation and access grants. All five of U.Va.'s major awards came in that area.

The University Library, representing the Virtual Library of Virginia, received $250,000 for its Virginia Heritage Project, a database of primary source materials held by major academic and research libraries in Virginia. The database includes thousands of "Encoded Archival Description" finding aids for searching the electronic collection, which is freely available via the Internet.

The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities received $233,824 to complete an electronic archive of the works of British poet and artist William Blake, which includes material from both British and U.S. repositories.

David F. Germano, an associate professor of religious studies, received $225,479 to further develop an online, descriptive catalog of "The Collected Tantras of the Ancients," Tibetan and Indian Buddhist texts originating between the eighth and 15th centuries.

Religious studies professor Benjamin C. Ray received $100,000, plus up to $50,000 more if matched by the University, to continue his work transcribing and archiving documents from the Salem Witch Trials.

English professor Hoyt N. Duggan also received $100,000 and a $50,000 challenge grant for his electronic archival work on "Piers Plowman" (profiled in the April 7 edition of Inside UVA). The international project seeks to reconcile the 56 surviving, and slightly varying, medieval copies of William Langland's religious poem.

In addition, English professor David L. Vander Muelen received a $4,000 summer stipend to continue working on a book dealing with the publishing history of Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man.