State Museum receives 250k IMLS Museums for America grant to digitize its Natural History collection

The grant will support staffing to digitize nearly 5,000 fossils

The South Carolina State Museum has been awarded a fourth Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Museums for America grant to continue digitizing its collection of more than 1.1 million specimens, objects, and artwork. The $250,000 grant will support staffing to photograph important pieces in the museum’s Natural History collection.

“This funding is vital in helping the State Museum achieve the goals of our Reimagine the Experience (RTE) campaign,” says State Museum Executive Director, Amy Bartow-Melia. “This not only expands our ability to increase accessibility to the museum’s collection through our online collections search database that launched last fall, but it will also help us to better prepare engaging exhibitions and on-site experiences for our guests.”

The newly awarded fourth IMLS grant will fund the digitization of 5,000 fossils in the museum’s Natural History Collection. The Natural History Collection includes the includes the remains of plants and animals that document roughly 520 million years of life in South Carolina. This new project will also be the first time the museum’s Collections Digitization team will utilize 3-D scanning technology in the digitization process.

“The vast majority of our Natural History Collection currently remains in storage,” says South Carolina State Museum Curator of Natural History, Dr. Dave Cicimurri. “This funding creates an exciting opportunity for us to make these important pieces of our state’s ancient past accessible online for researchers, students and people across the world to explore.”

Since 2018, the museum’s Collections Digitization team has worked to create an extensive digital database for the museum’s collection. The first IMLS grant supported the digitization of the museum’s Art collection, which included over 4,400 works of art, pottery, basketry, and quilts. The second grant focused on objects in the military and housewares collection. Additionally, the third grant included inventorying over 3,500 objects within the museum’s Science and Technology collection and photographing nearly 2,000 objects currently on view in the museum’s exhibition galleries.

Thanks to support from the IMLS Museums for America program, the South Carolina State Museum continues to enhance its digital capabilities, ensuring broader access to the museum’s extensive collections. To date, the museum’s Collections Digitization team has inventoried over 20,000 items and has taken over 35,00 images. More than 52,000 users have visited the museum’s online collections search, which is now available at scmuseum.org.

About the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services 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. IMLS envisions a nation where individuals and communities have access to museums and libraries to learn from and be inspired by the trusted information, ideas, and stories they contain about our diverse natural and cultural heritage. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the South Carolina State Museum

Since opening in 1988, the South Carolina State Museum has been committed to collecting, preserving and showcasing the rich culture, art, natural history, technology and innovation of the Palmetto State. Through a comprehensive collection of over 1.1 million objects and four floors of stimulating exhibitions and displays housed within the historic Columbia Mills Building, the State Museum provides educational environments that entertain, inspire and enrich the lives of millions of visitors and students from across South Carolina. For more information about the museum, visit scmuseum.org.