GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM) announced Wednesday that it was awarded a $30,000 grants for its Magic Lantern Preservation and Access Project.
The grant was awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and ensure that 5,000 rare and significant historical images on glass slides are preserved and properly accessioned into the GRPM's collections. The museum said it would almost make the artifacts accessible for its online community.
“The Museum is honored to have been awarded this grant to continue using technology to make our Collections more accessible for the community,” said Alex Forist, the GRPM’s Chief Curator. “Our team has been working diligently to adapt to an increase in demand for digital cultural resources by families, students, educators, historians and more.”
The magic lantern slides are a significant part of GRPM’s institutional history; they represent the museum’s educational outreach program that operated between the 1920s and 1970s. Local teachers could check out projectors and magic lantern slide shows with scripts on various topics including Michigan views of the 1920s, Michigan mammals, General Motors, canoeing down the Muskegon River and lumbering in Michigan.
The GRPM’s online collections database is a free resource, available to anyone with web access. The GRPM preserves a collection of more than 250,000 artifacts and specimens, and is continuously adding new digital content for students, teachers and researchers around the world to explore online at any time at grpmcollections.org.
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