WIXLIB

Best Practices: Focus on the CollectionDon’t just describe the relevancy of the project or the importance of theinstitution. Tell us what’s in the collection. Notebooks, letters, political texts, and handwritten diariesPersonal papers, organizational records, meeting minutes, posters from a politicalmovementRolls of nitrate film, shot in documentary style throughout documenting apre-modern rural lifestylePersonal collection of photograph documenting daily life from 1950 – presentExtensive documentation, including photographs, handwritten maps, andarchitectural drawings, of an archaeological site

Best Practices: Institution Project TeamDefine who will be working on the project and how they fit into the institution.Remember, MEAP seeks to build local capacity. Consultants, training, and management can be part of the project plan, but thebudget should not focus on consultants or travel costs. Budget salaries at an equitable rate for the staff who will conduct the work. Who will be imaging the material? Who will create the metadata? How does the project fit into the larger institution? Will the institution invest in the project through cost share?

Best Practices: Ineligible ExpensesMEAP will not fund INDIRECT COSTS. You should not list them as a line itemon your budget or as components of the budget. Salaries for people who will not be working on the project (i.e. finance team) Utilities or ongoing operations costs Space can be included as a cost, but we prefer that host institution or partnerinstitutions provide space as part of their investment Some preservation materials can be included, like archival folders or boxes, butlarge-scale infrastructure projects are not eligible.

MEAP Guidelinesmeap.library.ucla.edu About Resources and Documentation

Best Practices: Include ImagesBoth applications include the OPTION to upload photos or videos. Werecommend you use that module in the application to show our team and theapplication reviewers the state of your material.It can support your argument for ENDANGERMENT.Also, can help our team conduct a preliminary assessment of copyright byshowing us what’s in the collections.

Top Left: From “Ephemera from the Barbados Department of Archives” (HeritEDGE Connection)Top Center: From “Archival Images from the Albanian National Film Archive” (AQSHF)Top Right: From “The Photographer who woke up from the Dead - Mohlouoa T. Ramakatane” (Photography Legacy Project)Bottom Left: From “Archival Images from the Albanian National Film Archive” (AQSHF)Bottom Center” From “The Biobio Legacy: Mapuche-Pehuenche Organizing and Resistance in Chile” (Cristian Opaso)Bottom Right: From “Photo Slides from Afghanistan, Dupree Collection” (ACKU)

SIXQuestions and Answers

Representative QuestionsQuestion 1How are digital files displayed by UCLA? Would the content be displayed in fragments, as high-quality, etc.? Theartists sell copies of their work, so having fully high-quality copies online might interfere with it.A few different questions to address. First, files will be published on the MEAP website. Due to COVID-19related delays, we do not have any collections published yet. You can see what collections will look like on theIDEP website (another UCLA Digital Library project).As to the size or structure of the objects - they are published as you indicate to match the metadata youcreate. So, your project team may say that an object is one image or a paginated set of images or a full videorecording - depending on the collection particulars.Additionally, we require samples of digital objects and metadata early in the project lifecycle. One of the thingswe discuss is what constitutes a digital object for your project.Continued .

Representative QuestionsAnswer continuedThe question is also asking about the Open Access requirement. We ask each project team to providepreservation quality (high resolution, uncompressed) files as well as access quality (lower resolution) files. Theaccess files are published, the preservation quality files are hosted for long term preservation.Then, each project team has some flexibility about how they articulate the rights for reuse. In the metadatatemplate, you would indicate a rights statement. This can state that use is restricted for educational purposesor you can choose to assign a Creative Commons License that delineates use.The metadata template also has space to indicate the copyright holder and current contact information shouldusers want to inquire about publication or reuse.Please note that we also ask that materials digitized with MEAP funds are made accessible in their homecountry as well. So, if the materials will be inaccessible once sold, they may not be eligible for MEAP.

Representative QuestionsQuestion 2Is intangible heritage eligible for this grant?Generally, yes. The intangible heritage would have to be preserved or captured in some kind of archivalcollection that already exists. MEAP cannot fund the creation of new materials. So, we cannot fund oralhistory projects or video capture projects.If you have specific questions about the collection you want to work with, email us at meap@library.ucla.eduQuestion 3For a planning grant, if the application is successful, how early could the awardee start work?We work to send funds about 1 - 2 months after the paperwork is completed. This takes a different amount oftime for each project. In general, we recommend you plan to start no earlier than September or October 2021.

Representative QuestionsQuestion 4My registered trust with the government of India doesn't have what is called FCRA (permission to receiveinternational funds). Is it possible to apply under my trust in India, but receive the money in my personal account herein Singapore? I used the same arrangement with the British Library Endangered Archives program.Generally, yes. It is possible to register payment through a host institution that is in a different country thanyou. We would need to discuss this further when drafting the funding paperwork (after officially accepting theproject via email).

Representative QuestionsQuestion 5Some universities require a certain percentage of the grant to go towards administering the funds. Will the MEAPprogram cover indirect costs in addition to the grant? Or must it be accounted for as part of the grant budget?MEAP does not support indirect costs. You can refer to more eligible/ineligible costs in our GuidelinesDocument under “Budget Expenses”. If your project is recommended for funding, you will have to submit anexception request to your institution. We can try to help as best we can by sending a formal letter stating ourpolicy.

Representative QuestionsQuestion 6I’m a professor at a public university in Brazil. I have been working with the Landless Workers Movement to organizetheir archive. The movement is about 40 years old and it defends peasants here and also has international links throughthe Via Campesina. We have thousands of pages of published works, internal documents and reports to digitize. Themovement itself has a unit that takes responsibility for financial arrangements. The university’s role has been incoordinating the organization of the archive and the preservation of a large part of it. Who would apply for the funding?In this case, either organization could serve as the host institution. We recommend determining who would bethe best partner for you. Who will be most able to procure equipment, pay salaries, and provide financialreports as necessary?I also want to highlight something in this example: you note that the collection has published works, internaldocuments and reports. Please consider that these different types of materials might have different digitizationand rights challenges. Will you be able to publish online the published works? Are some of the materialsbounded and others not? Try to address these differences in your application - especially in the detailed phasewhen you write a work plan.

Representative QuestionsQuestion 7Are private manuscript collections held by individuals eligible? For example, in my country (Nigeria) we have oldmanuscript collections held by families that are prone to loss and deterioration. Will you consider such collections?Yes, we are open to personal/private materials as long as the authors approve of the material being publishedonline. You will also be responsible for ensuring that any sensitive/private data that should not be shared isomitted from the digitized materials sent to us. We will also ask that you find a local home for making materialopenly accessible as well. Would the families be willing to donate their materials to an archive? Or, will a localarchive host the digital materials?

Representative QuestionsQuestion 8If a library also wants to publish the materials on their website, is that possible?Yes, we welcome multiple points of access to digitized collections. Where relevant, we ask that MEAP becited as the founder of the project with the following language: “[This project] is supported by the ModernEndangered Archives Program at the UCLA Library with funding from Arcadia, a charitable fund of LisbetRausing and Peter Baldwin.”Material can also be published on a project website and you can designate some funds in the budget forwebsite development or maintenance.

Representative QuestionsQuestion 9Can the budget set in the preliminary phase be revised in the detailed application?Yes, the budget can be changed from the preliminary phase, as long as they fall within the boundaries for theappropriate application (planning grant within 15k, project grant within 50k).

Representative QuestionsQuestion 10In the budget, does MEAP look favorably on including cost share?MEAP does not require a cost share. However, our review panel does look favorably on institutions thatcontribute to the project. If the applicant comes from a US or Western Europe University, we like to see thatany travel costs are covered by other funds. However, a cost share might also look like the use of space, stafftime covered by a local archive, or the use of existing equipment.One note here: If you are applying from a national institution (.ie. a national library or archive), we do requiresome institutional investment. This might be dedicated space or additional staff.

Representative QuestionsQuestion 11We have some documents that the MST considers confidential. Do all documents have to be free to be published ona UCLA site?Our guidelines state that all materials digitized or documented (i.e. survey or inventory lists) with MEAP fundsmust be made openly accessible online. Additionally, “Viability of online publication” is one of the key criteriafor evaluating applications. So, we hope to see that the full collection you propose to digitize will be publishedonline.In reality, you may find some materials during the digitization process that cannot be published openly. Weaccept that up to 5% of a collection may need to be hidden or embargoed. If you know from the applicationstage - as you do here - that some of the material is confidential, we suggest leaving that part of thecollection out of the application. Can you focus on a different part of the collection for the MEAP project?

Representative QuestionsQuestion 12Do you only fund projects where the institution applicant itself does the digitizing, or could the project outsource theimaging?Outsourcing is acceptable for MEAP projects. However, we encourage you to consider how the project isbuilding local capacity as well. Will a local team create metadata? Will a local team ofarchivists/librarians/students manage the digitization of print materials while you outsource video or audio?Depending on the makeup of your collection, outsourcing can make a lot of sense. But, outsourcing shouldnot reflect a majority of your budget.

Representative QuestionsQuestion 13If my project deals with a section of a larger collection, and we have material already digitized from other sections,would UCLA include the other materials on the open access website?If your project is funded and you are working with a small part of a larger collection, we would welcome aconversation about the bigger collection. It’s possible that the UCLA Library and MEAP would want to hostadditional components of the collection to make the full set of materials available online. We certainlyunderstand the desire to have full collections be accessible as a whole.However, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to host or publish content beyond what we commit tothrough the MEAP contract. It’s possible that materials digitized before the MEAP grant were digitized at alower resolution than we require. It’s likely that the metadata you have for an earlier part of the project will notmatch our publication system and would need to be mapped into a new template.So, we are open to publishing and hosting larger collections - especially as your work continues after theproject grant cycle, but we cannot make any guarantees.

Representative QuestionsQuestion 14My institution has a collection of magazines and newspapers from the mid-20th century that belonged to a greatPeruvian thinker. This collection is composed of unique titles from various parts of the world that have been mailed toyou and contain valuable content on political and social history. Can this material participate?The best answer we can give is maybe. If your institution has the copyright of the individual’s collection, itdoes not mean that they have the rights to digitize and publish previously published materials. At theapplication phase, you would have two different jobs. First, you should highlight which pieces are, in fact,unique. Are they available in any libraries? Are they available online anywhere? If not, great! If they areavailable elsewhere, we suggest you apply to focus on a different set of the collection.Second, you will have to do research related to the rights of each separate publication. Do the publicationsstill exist? Do the publication companies exist? If a newspaper is no longer in print, was the paper bought byanother paper? It will be your responsibility to track down the rights owner(s) for those materials.

Representative QuestionsQuestion 15To contact you about very specific questions, do we email you directly or the MEAP general email address?Please contact us with questions specific to your project. We can correspond by email or set up time toconnect via zoom if it makes sense. You can reach out to us at this email: meap@library.ucla.eduWe will also host another webinar ahead of the Detailed Application due date to discuss the process for thelonger application.

THANK YOUContact usWebsite: meap.library.ucla.eduMailing list: tinyletter.com/ModArchivesUCLAEmail: meap@library.ucla.eduTwitter: @ModArchivesUCLA

MEAP: Eligibility MEAP funds are designated for work on collections outside North America and Europe. We aim to fund digitization of at-risk archival materials in geographic areas without resources available for preservation. 5 primary categories for eligibility based on the content of the project, not on the researcher.