Building Tools, Building Communities: NEH Funding for Digital Projects

The National Endowment for the Humanities has a long history of support for initiatives that leverage technology to engage diverse audiences. In recent years, NEH's Office of Digital Humanities has funded a range of projects that not only promote access to cultural heritage, but also invite community partners to help shape new technologies in ways that reflect their needs and experiences. This session will highlight three current efforts to develop tools that can be adopted and adapted by a wide range of museums and allied organizations: • Mukurtu, a grassroots project developing open-source digital heritage management tools that respond to the needs of indigenous communities • Immigrant Stories, a platform that invites recent immigrants to the United States to produce, share, and preserve multimedia narratives • TourSites for Wordpress, a new initiative that will build on the successful Curatescape project to enable institutions of all sizes to create, deploy, and maintain digital tour experiences across multi-location networks The session will also include an overview of NEH funding opportunities and current priorities. Speakers Session Leader : Perry Collins, Senior Program Officer, National Endowment for the Humanities Co-Presenter : Phil Sager, Digital Projects Developer, Ohio History Connection Co-Presenter : Elizabeth Venditto, Project Manager, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota Co-Presenter : Jason Wesaw, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Pokegnek Bodewadmik, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi MCN 2016 Presenting Sponsor: Piction New Orleans, LA