State Museum Awarded IMLS Museums for America Grant

The South Carolina State Museum has been awarded a third Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Museums for America grant for a new phase of the museum's extensive collections digitization project. This third phase includes inventorying over 3,500 objects within the museum's science and technology collection as well as the nearly 2,000 objects currently on view in the museum. The grant, totaling nearly $250,000, will help ensure these tangible pieces of South Carolina history will be accessible to our museum visitors today and future generations many years down the road.

Over the past few years, our the museum's IMLS Team has been hard at work cataloguing and photographing objects and artwork in the museum’s collection. Their efforts to create detailed object descriptions and high-resolution images are vital in launching for our online collections portal in the Spring of 2023. This monumental project has already been supported by two IMLS Museums for America grants in prior years. The first grant supported the digitization of the museum’s art collection, which involved inventorying over 4,400 works of art, pottery, basketry and quilts plus another 5,000 slides capturing the work of mid-20th century SC artists. The second grant, of which the museum is now halfway through, focuses on objects in the Military and Housewares collections.

About IMLS: The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. We advance, support and empower America’s museums, libraries and related organizations through grantmaking, research and policy development. Our vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov.