University of Minnesota Awarded NEH Grant to Preserve Guthrie Theater Archives
From the U. of Minnesota:
The University of Minnesota Libraries’ Performing Arts Archives has been awarded $100,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to arrange, preserve, and describe the records of the Guthrie Theater. The Libraries also will work with the Guthrie to create a sustainable plan for the future to preserve its 21st century materials, including digital records.
As part of this yearlong project, the Libraries also will identify materials that may be digitized and included in the Digital Public Library of America and other national digital libraries and online sources.
The Guthrie Theater collection at the University of Minnesota contains documentation from every play produced at the Guthrie and the theater’s organizational history. Included are annotated scripts, performance reports, programs, reviews, photographs, costume bible scrapbooks, audio and video recordings, and more.
Though much of the Guthrie Theater history is already accessible at the Elmer L. Andersen Library [Archives and Special Collections], more recent materials have remained largely uncataloged. This project will allow the collection in its entirety to be accessed through online inventories and in the Libraries’ reading room.
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The Libraries, with this grant, proposes to:
- Arrange and describe nearly 800 cubic feet of records following current archival standards and best practices.
- Create an online archival finding aid.
- Photocopy at-risk materials.
- Identify priority content for digitization.
- Create a 21st century records management plan in collaboration with Guthrie staff and leadership that addresses born-digital preservation and access.
- The project will end in July 2016, with public access available to the full collection.
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Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Digital Preservation, Funding, Libraries, Management and Leadership, Preservation, Public Libraries, Reports, Video Recordings

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.