>> Laurie Allen: Thank you once again for joining us for this, the Connecting Communities Digital Initiatives Libraries, Archives, Museum Grant Information webinar on this Friday afternoon. We appreciate your time. Thank you for joining us. This is -- let's start with some housekeeping. This webinar is being recorded. This webinar is being recorded, and this time is a time for all of you who are here to ask questions and for us to try to answer those questions. Please use the Q&A feature of Zoom for questions about the grant that you want answered. Feel free to use the chat for other things, but if you're asking a question about the opportunity or about the process, please use the Q&A feature of Zoom. So, that's next to the chat. Thank you so much. I'm Laurie Allen.I work in the Digital Strategy in the Office of the Chief Information Officer. I'm joined here by my colleagues Sahar Kazmi and Eileen Jakeway Manchester, and we may be joined by another colleague Hope O'Keeffe. Over the next hour, I'll talk about what we're going to do, but over and over again, I'm going to refer to information that will be posted to the website, and when I say that, it's this. Usually, I mean, this URL here, which is the place, the homebase for information about this particular grant, and I'll show it again several times over the course, and, you know, you'll see it in the chat. But just to point out that's there, the website where we keep track of these questions and answers as they come in and where this webinar -- in a couple of weeks, we'll post the video of this webinar. Okay, so in this hour or maybe a little bit less than an hour, I'm going to give -- start with an overview of the People Program and then a brief overview of the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative, a part of the program that's housed in Digital Strategy, and then for much of the time, we're going to focus on this grant opportunity for libraries, archives, and museums. We'll talk through how to apply. So, I'll just run -- go through some slides of what the application process will be and what you -- we hope that you'll put into your application, how to fill out that application, and then we'll break for questions and answers to make sure that we're picking up on questions that didn't come up during the run through of the application process, and then we've got a few examples for inspiration of kinds of projects we could imagine, as well as information about how to learn more about what the Library of Congress holds and how you can get access to that, so. And then we'll keep going with questions and answers. Please, as I said, use the Q&A feature of Zoom, but please do use it. We -- this time is for you to get your questions answered, and we really want to make sure to do that. So, we'll just dive right in. Of the People: Widening the Path is a multi-year initiative that creates new opportunities for Americans to engage with the Library of Congress and to add their perspectives to the Library's collections, allowing the national library to share a more inclusive American story. This is a grant-funded program that is thanks to a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Of the People: Widening the Path, the larger program consists of three programmatic arms. Those three programmatic arms are the Internships and Fellowships Office, the American Folklife Center, and the Digital Strategy Directorate. So, just -- I'll just give a brief overview of what's -- what the two other thirds, the two other pieces of the program are doing and then the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative, which is a part of the Of the People program that's being run by us in Digital Strategy. That I'll talk about in the following. So, the first third is the Internships and Fellowships Program, and this -- they offer a huge range of a really great range of internship and fellowship opportunities, and they're open right now. So, if you know any college students or graduate students or recent grads who are interested in a paid internship opportunity, a remote paid internship opportunity over the summer. They're -- the applications are open now, and they're available on this website, and that's part of the Of the People program. In addition, the American Folklife Center has been offering and will continue to offer grants that are called Community Collections Grants. This is -- these support cultural documentation by communities. So, that's public participation in the creation of archival collections that support contemporary cultural documentation. So, the American Folklife Center has a very long history of collecting cultural documentation, collecting documentation of what happens every day around the country in cultural communities, and in this grant, they're offering funds to community members themselves to document their communities from their own perspectives. And there they issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity earlier this year. This year's notice for your application period is closed, however, it will open again, and so it's a really exciting opportunity. They're awarding 10 grants in that program each year. So please, please keep an eye on that opportunity. I think we're going to really add some spectacular collections to the Library of Congress that are created by community members themselves. Okay, so we talked about what the Internships and Fellowships Program is doing. We talked about what American Folklife Center is doing. In Digital Strategy, we're actually hiring new people. So, I am shepherding the program now, but it will be led by new staff who were funded for four years by the Mellon Foundation, who are going to work in Digital Strategy, and that work that they're doing is building on and inspired by the work that has been happening in LC Labs for the past few years. LC Labs incubates great ideas and experiments with how the Library can use technology to connect to expand what we are able to do with, for, and on behalf of the American people. So, that's part of what the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative is building on, but it's -- and I encourage you to take a look at LC Labs and see the kinds of projects that people have done there. So, it's partially built on that. It's also partially built on the reality that around the country communities and especially communities of black Americans, indigenous people, and other community members of color around the country are gathering and sharing stories about their histories. They're doing -- it's really inspiring around the country -- small house museums, local public libraries, lots of different kinds of institutions, college libraries, lots of different kinds of institutions are gathering community stories and sharing histories. So, that is really inspiring and part of what the Library of Congress is looking to engage with, because the Library of Congress has been investing in digitizing materials from across this giant range of collections. We have the largest digital library in the world. So, making collections digital or collecting materials that are already digital, and so the point, you know, we've got this huge digital library, and around the country, there are communities telling their own stories in their own ways, and so part of what the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative is designed to do is to make these materials, that the Library has, available to and work with the community groups and organizations like libraries, archives, and museums that have been doing this work already. Okay. So, inside the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative, there's really kind of three areas. One is the Artist or Scholar in Residence program, and there's webinars about that. It's a grant that's open currently for individuals for a two-year overlapping residency for scholars or artists, who will engage with digital collections, demonstrate possibilities, and share insights. And I urge you to take a look at the website for that or sign up for one of those webinars, if you're interested in that program. There's another grant program, the Grant Program for Minority Serving Higher Education Institutions. This is similar to the one that we're talking about today but is targeted specifically to minority serving higher education institutions, and it's up to $60,000 to support the development of a digital interface, publication, exhibit, or experimental approach to bringing digital Library Congress materials together with something that's happening in an educational two or four year higher education institution. Okay, so let's get into this one, the Grant for Libraries, Archives, and Museums. There's the website again. That's the place where we put questions and answers, where we'll post this webinar after it's -- in a few weeks, and the goal is well, I'll get into the goal in a moment, but here we're supporting the design and implementation of digital projects to include any of these digital exhibits, interfaces, multimedia productions, or publications that use digital materials from the Library of Congress to engage black, indigenous or other community members of color. Okay, so how do you apply for this grant? The answer is the Notice of Funding Opportunity. The Notice of Funding Opportunity or what I'll call the NOFO from now on. The Notice of Funding Opportunity contains all the information that is necessary to apply. There's a lot of sections in there, and I'm going to spend a little time talking through what some of those sections are. Because it's a long document, the federal government requires lots of -- there's a lot to be said, but I'm going to call attention to the parts that you can pay special attention to in this webinar to help you get a handle on what is really being asked for here. So, the -- but the Notice of Funding Opportunity is absolutely the how do I apply for this grant, you read the NOFO. Okay, how do you get to the NOFO? Well, there's a couple of ways, but I'm going to show you the way that I would recommend, which is starting off by going to the Library of Congress Of the People blog and clicking on the grant that's listed there that you're interested in, so Grants for Libraries, Archives, and Museums. From there, you'll come to this page that I keep talking about, that's got the information on it, and it has a breakdown of, you know, what is the grant overview, how to apply or what the dates are, how to make reminding you again to use the the Notice of Funding Opportunity, but several times on that page, there's this link at the bottom that says -- it's listed throughout the page says. It says visit the notice that is the NOFO on grants.gov, click on related documents and download all forms. So, if you follow that link, you'll go to grants.gov. When you click on related documents, you'll be able to see the documents that you need there, and you can get to this Notice of Funding Opportunity, which is a long document, but that has, as you can see here, a table of contents. It has these sections. Section A is program description. Section B is very short. Section C is about eligibility. Section D is the meat of it, and let's just start going through it, but that's how you get to it. Okay, reading through the NOFO. So, Section A, the Library of Congress. So, what is the purpose? Why are we issuing a grant to other libraries, archives, and museums? The Library of Congress will expand the connections between the Library and diverse communities and strengthen the use of the Library's -- of Congress' digital collections and digital tools. We seek to award a grant to support a creative and wide-ranging ranging use of Library collections and the connective powers of technology to serve black, indigenous, Hispanic or Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander or other racial and ethnic minority populations within the United States in sharing stories about America's past, present, and future. That's why we're doing this. What is the program description? Well, the idea is to fund projects. Projects funded through this program will use items from across the Library's digital collections. So, they are going to, you know, you have to use items from the Library's collections. You can describe, display, remix any of those things as long as you're in keeping with copyright and other laws and as long as you are doing it in a way that is valuable to communities. So, the technology can be simple or it can be really complicated. You can use existing tools and platforms or develop new ones. You can -- so -- and the important thing, the important factor, so how -- the important factor in a successful project is the connection it enables in communities and the impact of the project on its creators, users, and audience. So, that's the -- that's why we're doing this whole project, this whole program and it -- just to be really explicit again, the idea is you develop or design a digital project, that you use materials from the Library of Congress, and you engage black, indigenous, or other community members of color. And to be really clear, the funded project will not be incorporated into the Library's collections or hosted on Library technical infrastructure. Okay, so that was Section A. Section A was like what is this thing, what is -- what's this for. Section B is very short. You can take a look at it. Section C is eligibility information. So, there's more in Section C than this, but the big things I want to call attention to here are in order to be eligible, you have to be a library, archive, museum, or community archive, and you have to be a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, unit of state or local government or federally recognized tribal community or tribe. Okay, that's section -- so that was Section C, eligibility information, who's eligible, these folks. All right, Section D is where the bulk of the information is, and Section D starts with a table to help you see because what you need to do to apply. So, once you understand what's the program about and am I eligible, then the question is, how do I actually apply, and there's a table that says here's what you're going to need, and it starts with -- in Section D, and it starts with that DUNS number. So, if you're on this webinar or you're watching it, presumably you have some interest potentially in thinking about applying, and if that's the case, this is a great time to start getting that DUNS number. There's information in a couple places but on the website and in NOFO about how to register for a DUNS number, but it sometimes takes a couple of weeks, and we need that number. Any federal agency that's going to award federal money needs that DUNS number in order to do that. So, it's just a registration process, but it's one of the things you need to do. Then you need the proposal narrative. We're going to come back to what that needs to be. So, you need to include a proposal narrative. We need a budget plan worksheet and a budget narrative. Those are two separate but very related documents. They basically say the same thing in two different forms, and this is a form, which is a short organizational form. It's not a big lift, you know, that's a pretty short federal form. So, that's the kind of big picture of what does an application look like. So, let's get into that proposal narrative, that second piece, because that's the big one. The proposal narrative, again, has pieces, and I think, you know, just kind of looking through, so there's a cover page. You have to describe the organization, what's the organization, key project staff, consultants, who's going to work on this, and then there's -- we ask for a detailed description of what the project is going to be and then a section where we say, what are some past activities that your organization has done, that would help us understand, you know, make sure that you can do this kind of thing or what the context that you're working in is. And then there's a section that's called other information conditional, and that is if your organization meets a requirement. I think one of them is, for example, if you already get -- and I might get the number wrong here, so please look at the NOFA, but I think one of the conditions is, for example, if your organization gets more than, I think it's like $10 million a year in federal money, you have to do some other stuff. So, you look at the condition. Does the organization meet that condition? And then if they -- you do, we need more information. If you don't, then you pass that over, but that's what that last section is for. So, let's talk about the detailed description of the project. We are asking for, and all of this is in the NOFO. So, what is the context that you're working in, and who will be served by this project? What is the planned activities? How will those activities accomplish the goal? Which Library of Congress collection, so what from the Library of Congress will be useful for this? And then also, we are excited to imagine other collections being woven in. So, where will other collections come from, whether it's your own institution or elsewhere? Which technologies will you be using, and why are those the technologies that work for your community and for your needs? How will you share what you learn in this project with other people? And then a work plan, like a timeline, what's going to be happening when? So, it's a full plan that goes into the proposed project detailed description, and that's sort of it for the narrative, and then you come to the budget. So, the budget is -- we have a template. When you go to that grants.gov website, there's a template, and you'll download the template, and it has categories, salaries, wages, and benefits, travel equipment, supplies, contractual and other costs. So, you take what money, what are you going to do with this money, and you put it into those categories, describing, you know, in a spreadsheet, that's what the template is, and then there's a narrative where you just describe in sentences, we're going to use this money to do this thing. And why does that -- doing that work? Why will it meet the proposed project activities? So, that's the the last big piece there is the budget. Then there's this form, which as I said, is a pretty straightforward short form, hopefully not too onerous. All of that becomes the package, and it gets emailed. So, I will say this again, it gets emailed to -- email the package to LOC-grants@loc.gov. We do not accept applications through the grants.gov interface, instead you email them through grants.gov. So, that's how you apply, and then any time through the process that you have questions that aren't answered today or if you ask questions in this Q&A that I can't answer or none of us can answer, we will follow up by posting answers to those questions on the website where we post the -- that I've been describing all along or you can email questions to LOC-grants@loc.gov. Please do include this number in the subject. It's the number that's also on the NOFO. It's the Notice of Funding Opportunity number. So, and we already answered them. Okay, let me get into these questions. I'm going to not look at the chat. So hopefully, Sahar or Eileen can-- >> Sahar Kazmi: Everyone's been really very diligent, and most of the questions are in the Q&A feature. So, thank you all very much. It makes things much easier on our end. >> Laurie Allen: Thank you. Okay, so it says you are emphasizing communities of color. What about immigrant communities? Well, I think that I'm going to -- that's not a question that we've gotten before in one of these webinars, and I think that my colleague, Hope, isn't here. So, I'm going to-- >> Hope O'Keeffe: I am here. >> Laurie Allen: Thank you. You are here. Hi. >> Hope O'Keeffe: Yeah, no, I just [inaudible] meeting, because this is important. >> Laurie Allen: Thank you. I'm so glad that you could make it. Would you mind-- >> Hope O'Keeffe: You're not, I think in terms of immigrant communities, you're not not eligible, but we're -- I think it will sort of depend on the immigrant community. You know, I, for example, my heritage is Irish. A few generations ago, we were immigrants, but I probably would not submit something for this project. The real emphasis is on underserved immigrant communities, and the Irish don't fall as that kind of thing. >> Laurie Allen: Thank you, Hope. Okay, are we able to use photographs that LOC presents on their website, such as the related resources page? I'm going to say that -- actually, Hope, can I just turn that one over to you? I mean, as long -- in keeping with copyright, you're allowed to use-- >> Hope O'Keeffe: Yeah, no, of course, I looked -- I knew I was going to get this one. >> Laurie Allen: Thanks. >> Hope O'Keeffe: You know, we're going to need to think about it. I don't think it makes you ineligible. I think you do need to disclose that potential issue just in the basis of both of transparency, but it should not -- I don't think it should be -- necessarily make you ineligible. We talk about staff being ineligible, but I don't think this is that kind of -- in that kind of [inaudible], since I believe that the board of the Folklife Center is not paid, but I'm going to run this by our ethics folks just to confirm, but my initial instinct is that it should be okay. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Laurie, would you like me to go ahead and just read some of these questions verbally, because I think some of them actually are quite similar to one another? >> Laurie Allen: Yes, thank you. That would be great. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Okay, awesome. Great. So, that was -- what we just heard from Hope is the answer to a question about an organization's executive director serving on the board of the American Folklore Center, and so you just heard Hope's answer there about a potential conflict of interest, and the other question we had answered was about related resources found in a research guide. And I think, Laurie, I don't know if you can speak to this, but some of the resources linked there are on the Library's websites but are not necessarily primary digital collections. So, there are teacher resources, there are presentations that are related to the topic of the Harlem Renaissance, and so I think that was one of the questions here about using photographs from that research guide that are linked. >> Laurie Allen: Thanks, Eileen, I think the answer -- so one thing I will say is that in the grant we -- it is explicitly about Library of Congress digital collections. So, I think if something is on the website that isn't a Library of Congress digital collection, then that probably isn't the kind of thing that we were most looking for. That isn't to say that you can't also use those materials or that you can also, you know, as long as you're not, you know, infringing on rights restrictions or anything like that, absolutely include materials of as many materials as you're interested in or would be useful for the community, but the grant is focused on Library of Congress digital collection. So, if the materials from the website that you're including are not Library of Congress digital collections, then we probably would want to see which Library of Congress digital collections might be most useful. Eileen, did that answer that question? >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: I think so, yeah, and I would just ask if the person has a follow up question, please feel free again to use the Q&A feature. The next two questions I heard you already address, but I do want to just restate, because two people asked about pitching a project that juxtaposes and or integrates both Library of Congress digital materials and an organization's own digital materials in the design of a digital archive or exhibit. >> Laurie Allen: Absolutely, absolutely. That is certainly -- it's one of the examples that is -- would be very welcome. I think the important thing, just to call out, is the ways in which that will serve the communities that are -- that you're describing or who you're working with, but I think that's a really exciting possibility, yeah. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Okay. Thank you. The next question is about the non-profit arts service organization that is engaged in the collection, cataloging, and public presentation of archival materials through their online collections, and they're asking, since they're not a library or museum, do they qualify as an eligible community archive. | >> Laurie Allen: I'm going to take a stab, and then Hope can jump in on this one, if I get it wrong. How's that, Hope? >> Hope O'Keeffe: Yeah, I think it's sort of -- I think the answer is it depends, but go ahead, Laurie. Lets see if-- >> Laurie Allen: Thank you. I think, you know, I -- we do not, in the NOFO, we do not include a legal definition of library, archive, museum, or community archive, and an organization that engages in collecting, cataloging, and public presentation of archival materials through online collections strikes me as one of those things. So, I would leave it to the organization to make that call, but that's my inclination. Hope, did I get that wrong? >> Hope O'Keeffe: No, that sounds about right. The definition of libraries and archives that I'm familiar with is in copyright law and in Section 108, so which talks about it being open to the public and sort of generally [inaudible]. Excuse me. So, as long as it's not -- I think as long as you're a non-profit and you play an archival role, you're probably going to be okay, but the devil's in the details. If your primary purpose is something other than being an archive, you know, for example, if you're a, I don't know, I'm trying to come up with an example but I think if you're a non-profit working on something unrelated, who happens to have some archival materials on your website, whether you're eligible or not, it's not going to be a particularly persuasive grant application. >> Laurie Allen: Okay. I think the community archives, it does -- has a bit more of an expansive segment, but as you can tell from our answers, I think this is something that it's about the strength, not about sort of are you in or are you out in that case. >> Hope O'Keeffe: Yeah, I think absolutely, and the question is whether an online archive is eligible. Absolutely. >> Laurie Allen: Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Grant deadline. Why isn't this in my head? November -- give me a second. I'll get back to that one. Is it possible to be on this particular grant opportunity through a library and also apply for an individual Artist Scholar Grant? The same project cannot be funded through -- with two different pots of money. So, the same work can't be funded twice. We have not said that an applicant can't be on multiple applications at this point, yes. And the grant deadline, let me look that up. I'm sorry. It's something that is in my head 90% of the time but has slipped out at just at this moment, of course. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Laurie, right now, November 15th at noon is what's listed on the blog site, and I just want to reiterate, I think Laurie said this multiple times, but that will be the best place to look for the most up-to-date information, and I'll put it in the chat again. >> Laurie Allen: Thank you. Thank you. Okay, it looks like those are the questions at the moment. I'm going to keep going, but please, what I'm, you know, what I'm offering from here on is just a little bit some ideas and some places to look for more about the Library. Please keep the questions coming. We really want to make this time as useful for you as we can. So, okay. Okay, so here's a few ideas for inspiration. Sorry about that. Okay, these are just -- they're in the Notice of Funding Opportunity, but I'll just sort of call out these are some ideas. A small house museum could be awarded funds to create a lightweight digital exhibit for their gallery to showcase Library of Congress and other materials that complement their collections focus and invite participants to add their own digital collections to the exhibit. So, there's a bunch of examples here, and they're in the Notice of Funding Opportunity as well. So, I, you know, would encourage you all to look through those sort of these are some ideas of what would projects -- what kinds of projects might be supported. Okay. So, one of the questions we've gotten a couple of times is, how do I know what the Library of Congress has that might be valuable to my library, archive, and museum, and, you know, now that I think of it, we might have gotten that a little bit more from folks who are interested in the other grants than from our library or kind of museum colleagues. But I really, I want to call attention to the tremendous resources created by curators and reference librarians across the Library. It's a huge organization with so much expertise, and one of the great places to go is guides.loc.gov, in order to understand what are the kinds of collections that we have, what might work in your community or serve your users best. So, just to point out here, we have at guides.loc.gov 79 different subjects with guides at each one, and I'll point out, for example, just a couple. These are just for examples. These aren't -- this is very, you know, very selective examples, but, for example, here's one where you can look at digital resources, author portraits, and literature available online just -- that are about African American women authors of the Civil War era. So, that's an example of the kind of guide that our colleagues have been making to help people find their way through these giant collections. Another one is, for example, how to do jazz research at the Library of Congress or a great, a really great guide to Native American cartographic resources at the Library of Congress. So, that's digitized primary sources. These are really, really great resources to draw from, and here's another one about Filipino-American materials. In particular, what are the research guides? How do you find that? How do you figure out what we have that might be valuable for your community? And then another resource that I really want -- that I think it would be wonderful to see people who are considering this opportunity to take advantage of is the Ask a Librarian service. So, if you go to ask.loc.gov, you can ask someone, hey, you know, I'm looking for what we have in this area, what does the Library offer, what might we be able to use, and someone there will help you, will point you in the direction of some resources that will deepen the possibilities for what might work for your particular needs or community. So, and there are [inaudible] also other resources available through the ask.loc.gov. Those are the examples for now. So, for the rest of the time, for as long as there are questions, we'll be answering them. So please, please, you know, bring us other questions about the opportunity about, you know, anything we can help with here, we'd love to. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Here's a question, Laurie. It's a question about defining the word local. >> Laurie Allen: Wow. I want to like talk for the next 20 minutes. It's a great question. I will happily say that I don't think that there's a legal definition in the -- I mean, I'm sure there is a legal definition, I'm sure there are many legal definitions, but we don't require -- so what -- I'm sure there's -- I shouldn't have said there's no legal definition. Why would I ever start a sentence that way? What I meant was local is not meant to limit what a community might mean to any geographic area. I think we're -- what we're getting at here is the notion of communities, and so your community might be bound geographically. It might be bound in some -- in many other ways, and I want -- but there are many, you know, location does matter, people in proximity, but I think we don't -- the notion here is not to make it to make connections that are particular to geographic regions. It's really about communities and community needs. So, I guess that's my answer for this one. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Thank you. I'll keep monitoring the Q&A, but right now it doesn't look like we've got any open questions. So please, please do put them there if you have them. We're eager. >> Laurie Allen: I'm so amazed that all these people came on a Friday afternoon. So, I'm very happy to keep answering questions. I would love, you know, as you -- if you think about this, you have some ideas, we would be, you know, please do send those in over email, and here, you know, we're here. We're here for the questions. [ Inaudible ] All right, if anyone's in there about -- did we just get another one? Yes. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: We did. I'm going to read it just because I think it's nice, and it's good for the recording. So, this is a team of faculty who are applying for the grant, and I wonder if there's any advice for first timers doing this as a team? >> Laurie Allen: That is a great question. Thank you. So, one thing just to point out is that this one is for libraries, archives, and museums. So, I'm assuming that it is library faculty or archival faculty, which is great. If not, you should go talk to your library, archive, or museum colleagues, but let's assume that it is library, archive, museum faculty? That's a really great question. I know there are some resources on grants.gov about how to apply for grants, and so I would encourage you to look around there. I would also say that depending if you're a faculty, presumably you work at an educational institution, that local grant offices that your institution probably has a grant office, a grants office or a funded research office or maybe it's just called the Office of Research or maybe it's just someone in administration or someone who, you know, there's a number of different depending on the institutional context. There might be different offices that this runs through, but often, institutions have their own policies around what does a team look like. You know, my -- I know that as far as the grant proposal goes, what the NOFO calls for is to include information about anyone who's going to be a team member and then what their role will be, what -- who -- what will they be responsible for, and what will they be doing? So, I hope that helps. Those are some places I would send someone. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: We got two more questions that just came in. The first is about the emphasis on technology use for the archival project. Can this be to develop a better use of I'm guessing an existing technology? >> Laurie Allen: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I think this is not -- this, the opportunity is not at all limited to -- the opportunity is not at all limited to the creation of new technology. I think improving something that exists to make it serve the communities better is a great -- it's a great -- as long as it includes Library of Congress digital materials and it, you know, connects with communities of color and it -- we're -- I think -- and it uses technology in some way, I think improving technology is a really important -- something we all know has to be done on occasion and does require resources. Great, I saw this one. Go ahead, Eileen. Thanks. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Yeah. Do you expect additional opportunities to merge with the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative and or Of the People? >> Laurie Allen: Yes. Thank you so much for asking. I'm so sorry I didn't say that already. Yes. Yes, this is the very first time we're doing this. So, in this round, we are offering one grant for libraries, archives, and museums and one grant for higher education institutions, and, you know, that's the beginning. There are absolutely funds in the grant from the Mellon Foundation to the Library that we will offer more opportunities in future years. So, this is a four-year project. So, absolutely we will be offering grant opportunities over the next few years and more of them, and that's just from the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative. The American Folklife Center offered 10 grants this year as part of their Community Collections Grants, and they will be making a call for applications coming up again in the coming year and again after that. So, I'm so glad that question was raised. Yes, this is the very first time we're doing this, and it will happen again. Yes, thank you. It's just -- I'll just read it since I'm already talking. So, the person asks, will there be only one award made for this Notice of Funding Opportunity? Yes, for this Notice of Funding Opportunity, there will be one award only. In future years, there will be -- we -- there will likely be more. A question I got -- we got at one of the earlier webinars, that was a great question that I didn't have an answer to you, but I think it might be useful for people to know is, someone asked, you know, how many applications do you anticipate getting? And again, I'll say because this is our very first year, we don't know. So, we really don't know whether we'll get a huge number or a very small number. We really want to work hard to make the process better. So, if you don't apply, please, I think we'd love feedback about the process, and if you do apply, we'd love feedback about the process. This is the first year. We don't know what to expect, and we really would love to hear from folks who are interested and who, you know, about the experience in addition to answering any questions that we can. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Laurie, since you shared a question -- there is a new question in the chat, but since you shared a question before from a previous webinar, I might do the same, so folks can benefit from the answers. But there is a new question here today. So, will it be only one successful applicant awarded in this category, just to reiterate? >> Laurie Allen: Yes, thank you, one successful applicant will be -- one grant will be awarded, one applicant will get the money in this time around. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Thanks, Laurie. So, there was a question previously about whether applicants could concentrate on a specialized aspect of their communities or their diaspora, such as people with accessibility disparities or LGBTQIA people within their communities. >> Laurie Allen: The answer is absolutely. Please, you know, I really -- I think we're the both, local and community, are terms that we want to use to open the possibilities rather than anything else. So absolutely, if you want to focus on one particular aspect or subgroup or anything like that, as long as there are people who will benefit, yes, absolutely. Thank you for that question. I see this question. Why is there only one? It's discouraging. And, you know, I think it's a fair question. The answer is, this is our first time with this process, and so awarding one in this process, I think, we want to, you know, learn and make sure that we're presenting an opportunity that people are interested in and that we are, you know, that we can make adjustments as needed. I'll also say that the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative will, you know, is in the process of hiring staff, and so just in -- for the sake of transparency, there will be many more staff who are specialists in this area, who are -- who -- and we want to make sure that the Library and potential applicants benefit from their expertise in addition to the expertise of the rest of the Library. So, in future years, there will be, you know, it won't be massively more, but there will be more of these opportunities, and the reason is because we are at the beginning of a learning process, and we wanted to, I think, the spirit of try it, try it and see how it goes before getting too too far down the path is the honest answer to that question, and thank you for it. >> Eileen Jakeway Manchester: Laurie, I don't see any other questions. I'm going to wait a little bit longer. They've all been great. So, let's see if they come in. But it might just be that we're at the end of our afternoon on Friday, and people have the information that they need. >> Laurie Allen: Yes, those of us on the East Coast are really quite -- I think it's going be hard for me to accomplish a tremendous amount in that final hour of work today, I'm going to be honest. Thank you all so much for joining us, and please follow along, please keep checking in on the blog and on the web page, send in your questions. We really welcome feedback and are really interested in your perspectives on this opportunity and the process, and I hope that you'll apply really very much. I mean that's the biggest thing. Please, I hope folks will apply. So, if there are no other questions, we'll call it a day and thank you so much for joining us. [ Music ]