NEH, ALA Public Programs Office announce ”Picturing America” Pilot Project Grant Recipients

Contact: Lainie Castle
Project Director, PPO
312-280-5055
lcastle@ala.org
 
For Immediate Release
June 13, 2007
 

NEH, ALA Public Programs Office announce ”Picturing America” Pilot Project Grant Recipients

 

More than 1,500 schools selected to receive American art resource collection

 

CHICAGO - The American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office (PPO), in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), is pleased to announce that more than 1,500 schools have been selected to receive Picturing America, a new grant opportunity for schools and school libraries.   For a list of participating schools, visit http://www.ala.org/publicprograms.

 

A pilot project of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ We the People program, Picturing America was created to promote the teaching, study and understanding of American history and culture in K-12 schools through examples of the nation’s most significant works of art and architecture, and to facilitate interdisciplinary partnerships between school library media specialists, art teachers, classroom instructors and other educators. Picturing America will provide a collection of 40 large-scale reproductions of American art on 20 double-sided, laminated posters; related reading lists; and a 125-page resource booklet with information about the paintings, sculpture, architecture, and crafts reproduced. A complete list of Picturing America images is available online at http://publicprograms.ala.org/picturingamerica.

 

Applications for Picturing America were accepted January 8 – March 19, 2007. In May, NEH increased the number of available awards from 500, in response to the high number of applications received. A total of 1,556 public, private, parochial and charter schools and home school consortia (K-12) were selected to receive the Picturing America collection.  Awards were given to schools in all 50 states and the Virgin Islands. The collection will ship in September 2007, for programs conducted during the 2007-2008 school year.

 

Picturing America grants are part of the NEH's We the People initiative, which aims to encourage and strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture through libraries, schools, colleges, universities, and cultural institutions. In collaboration with ALA, NEH plans to issue a second round of Picturing America grants in 2008. Further details will be available at http://www.wethepeople.gov in fall 2007.

 

Established in 1992, the ALA Public Programs Office has a strong track record of developing library programming initiatives, including the acclaimed reading and discussion series "Let's Talk About It!," film discussion programs on humanities themes, traveling exhibitions, LIVE! @ your library®, and other programs. Recently, it established the Cultural Communities Fund, an endowment created to help all types of libraries across the country bring communities together through cultural programming (http://www.ala.org/ccf).  More than 10,000 libraries and at least 10 million individuals have participated in library programming initiatives supported by the Public Programs Office. For more information, visit http://www.ala.org/publicprograms.

 

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports lifelong learning in history, literature, philosophy and other areas of the humanities. NEH grants enrich classroom learning, create and preserve knowledge and bring ideas to life through public television, radio, new technologies, exhibitions and programs in libraries, museums and other community places. For more information about NEH and its We the People program, visit www.neh.gov and www.wethepeople.gov.