Everyone at CCAHA hopes you are safe and feeling healthy at this time! Like many other organizations, CCAHA's offices will remain closed until public health concerns related to COVID-19 are fully addressed and state officials announce it is safe to reopen. In the meantime, CCAHA staff (pictured above in a recent all-staff Zoom meeting) will continue to work from home to serve you. We are available by email to answer your questions.

CCAHA is also presenting new online programming, which includes a series of Community Conversations — virtual meetings on a variety of preservation topics —as well as interactive Facebook Live videos. We will also deliver our regularly scheduled webinars, and our Preservation Services Office will offer remote office hours in April. Learn more and register for upcoming programs below.
COVID-19 Resources for Cultural Institutions

With our clients and followers working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we want to help spread the word about the many professional development and teleworking resources that have emerged in recent weeks. To assist with this, CCAHA and our partners at DHPSNY have compiled COVID-19 Resources on a single page of our website. We plan for this list to evolve, and we will continue to update it as we receive new information. Click here to view our list of COVID-19 Resources for Cultural Institutions.
CCAHA's Preservation Services Office Offers Remote Office Hours in April

Date: Every Thursday in April
Time: 1:00-3:00 PM (ET)
Contact: (484) 854-3420

Do you have questions about starting a preservation project while working at home or social distancing from your staff? Or a conservation concern during physical distance from your collections? If you have limited access at this time to email or the internet, or prefer a conversation with a CCAHA staff person, phone call-in office hours are available with CCAHA Education Program Manager & Preservation Consultant Stephenie Schwartz Bailey , who can answer questions, refer you to educational resources, and connect you to other CCAHA staff as necessary.
CCAHA Awarded in Latest Round of William Penn Foundation Grants

"In what is expected to be only its initial response to financial pressures during the coronavirus crisis, the William Penn Foundation has approved sweeping measures to reinforce the social safety net and help arts groups that are reeling from closures, adding or fast-tracking $11.6 million."

Last week, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the William Penn Foundation has awarded $6.6 million to local arts organizations, part of a funding package totaling $11.6 million. CCAHA is very grateful to be one of 17 area arts and culture groups awarded funding in this round, and we want to give special thanks to William Penn for fast-tracking these awards and enabling organizations to use the funding for general operating support at this challenging time.

Thanks to the Philadelphia Cultural Fund

In 2019, CCAHA was awarded a three-year Art & Culture grant from the Philadelphia Cultural Fund. Late last month, we received our second annual installment of this award. With operations impacted by COVID-19, this funding could not have come at a more crucial time, and we are grateful to the Philadelphia Cultural Fund for their continued support.
Funding Opportunity: National Endowment for the Humanities

The NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources (HCRR) program supports projects that provide an essential underpinning for scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities. Funding from this program strengthens efforts to extend the life of such materials and make their intellectual content widely accessible, often through the use of digital technology. Updated guidelines will be posted in advance of the next deadline. In the meantime, use the previous guidelines to get a sense of what is involved in assembling an application.

Applications available Friday, May 15, 2020
Applications due Wednesday, July 15, 2020


Thinking about applying for a project involving CCAHA? Email  Lee Price, Director of Development , to get started.
Upcoming Programs
WEBINAR
Community Conversations: Remote Alternatives for Collection Care
Date: Tuesday, April 7
Time: 2:00 PM (ET)

Join CCAHA for a community conversation on providing remote alternatives to collections care while the spread of COVID-19 is growing in the United States. We can’t guarantee we’ll have answers to all of your questions – but we would like to know what your concerns are, so that we can better focus our research efforts over the next few weeks. This open forum will be an opportunity for sharing and gathering ideas. Has your Institution adopted any innovative approaches to caring for your collections while working off-site? If your Organization is offering educational opportunities (e.g. virtual reality tours, live streams, enhanced online collections content, etc.) have you incorporated preservation into it? Take part in the conversation, learn from each other, and commiserate together. This week we will be focusing primarily on remote collections care and virtual public programming.
LIVE Q&A
Facebook Live: Ask a Photographer
Date: Wednesday, April 8
Time: 2:00 PM (ET)
Presenter: Andrew Pinkham , Photographer, CCAHA

Curious about photography and digitization at CCAHA? Post your questions in the comments, and CCAHA Photographer Andrew Pinkham will answer them live on Wednesday, April 8, at 2:00 PM. What kind of equipment do we use at CCAHA? When in the treatment process does Andrew photograph your objects? How do we scan something that is very large? Can we make your old photo look new again? What does Andrew like to photograph when he's not at work? Ask and Andrew will answer!
WEBINAR
Preservation Planning in Practice: Strategically Guiding Collections Care
Date: Thursday, April 9
Time: 2:00 PM (ET)
Presenter: Sara Hesdon Buehler, Senior Registrar, Brandywine River Museum of Art; Samantha Forsko , Preservation Specialist, CCAHA

In this webinar, presenters will begin by discussing the different types of assessments that cultural heritage institutions of all sizes can use to evaluate their collections care needs and jump start their preservation planning process. Presenters will then describe an onsite preservation needs assessment conducted in 2015 by CCAHA at the Brandywine River Museum of Art, and how that assessment was used to inform the Museum’s preservation plan. They will discuss the collaborative process that allowed the Brandywine River Museum of Art to seek funding for projects identified in the assessment as high priority, and will include the role assessments played in drafting strategic and operational planning documents and how to present these initiatives as priorities to internal and external stakeholders.

Putting Best Practices Into Practice: Scalable Preservation Solutions is a two-year program generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities . This series offers bimonthly webinars to enable individuals and organizations across the country to learn from experts providing recommendations as well as institutional case studies.
Documentary Heritage and Preservation Services for New York (DHPSNY) Program Updates

The New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education contracts with CCAHA to deliver statewide services supporting organizations that safeguard New York's historical documents and library research materials. 

I n light of COVID-19, DHSPNY and t he New York Council of Nonprofits ( NYCON) are working together to move the upcoming Conversations on Local History series online. The key change is that the Capital District , Western New York , and Northern New York Conversations will be conducted online via Zoom on the following dates:

  • Capital District: Tuesday, April 21, 2:00 PM
  • Western New York: Thursday, April 23, 10:00 AM
  • Northern New York: Friday, May, 9:30 AM

These virtual Conversations will remain focused on the regions of New York State in order to facilitate discussion, but individuals from other regions are welcome to attend any Conversation. Click here to learn more and view the full schedule of upcoming dates.

Because many DHPSNY events and services must be canceled, postponed, or moved online due to COVID-19, the DHPSNY team is working to develop additional programming opportunities and create an aggregate of professional development and work-from-home resources. We invite you to participate in a survey so we can learn how DHPSNY can better support your organization at this time. Click here to take the survey.

DHPSNY also has upcoming webinars in April, as well as an archive of past webinar recordings. On Thursday, April 2, CCAHA Senior Paper Conservator Heather Hendry presents Assessing Condition Issues in Paper Collections . On Thursday, April 16, Maria Holden, Preservation Officer at the New York State Office of Cultural Education, presents Space Planning: Getting Started . View past webinar recordings and register for upcoming webinars at dhpsny.org/webinars .
WORKSHOP
Fire Awareness for Historic Sites and Buildings
Date: Friday, May 1
Time: 9:00 AM-4:30 PM
Location: Haddon Fire Company No. 1 and Haddonfield Historical Society, Haddonfield, NJ

When was the last time you tested the smoke alarm batteries at the historic building where you volunteer, work, or live? Do you know your local fire professionals? What would you do if the historic building you care about experienced a fire emergency? In this workshop, participants will develop their awareness about emergency preparedness, response, and recovery as it relates to fire at historic sites and buildings. Learning from fire professionals, historians, museum and archives professionals, and others, participants will get the tools they need to become more fire aware about where they work and live throughout the Mid-Atlantic.Who should register: This workshop is ideal for participants who work or volunteer at small museums and historic sites; individuals who own historic homes; and others who care about historic preservation in their communities.

Presenters:

  • Nicole Belolan, Public Historian, Rutgers-Camden, Camden, NJ
  • Ernest F. Busch, Fire Official, Borough of Haddonfield, NJ
  • Charlene Creed, Driver and Past President, Haddon Fire Company #1
  • Dana Dorman, Archivist, Historical Society of Haddonfield
  • Dyani Feige, Director of Preservation Services, CCAHA
  • Linda Harrington, Emergency Management Coordinator, Borough of Haddonfield
  • Carol Wojtowicz Smith, Independent Curator and Archivist, Philadelphia Region
Founded in 1977, the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) is a one-stop shop for every conservation and preservation need. CCAHA specializes in the treatment of works on paper, photographs, and books, as well as state-of-the-art digital imaging services. CCAHA’s preservation services staff present education programs and conduct preservation assessments nationwide. CCAHA also offers conservation fellowships, fundraising support, disaster assistance, and more.
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