Feds grant $495K to the Santa Ana Library’s Memories of Migration program

City of Santa Ana

Community Alert: SANTA ANA PUBLIC LIBRARY AWARDED $495,000 FEDERAL GRANT FOR INNOVATIVE “MEMORIES OF MIGRATION” PROGRAM

The National Institute for Museum and Library Services awarded the Santa Ana Public Library a $495,000 grant for its Memories of Migration program. The grant was awarded as part of the Institute’s National Leadership – Demonstration Grant program, which supports projects that address challenges faced by libraries across the United States, and have the potential to create programs and practices that improve library services nationwide.

Lead by the Santa Ana Public Library and the Webby-award winning non-profit Historypin project, Memories of Migration is a three-year community memory program that builds on the Library’s unique Teen Historian program to jump start the development of cultural heritage collections around the shared stories of human migration in America. Techniques developed by the library will be tested in model programs operated by four libraries and agencies that serve new immigrant communities in four different states, including New York, New Mexico, Connecticut and California.

Queens Library (Queens, NY), West Hartford Public Library, (West Hartford, CT), the State of New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs and New Mexico Highlands University (Las Vegas, NM) will join the Santa Ana Public Library in offering their immigrant communities a voice in the growth of their shared stories of new lives lived in a new country. Their teen sons and daughters will be trained to collect oral histories and other information that will provide the bridge that brings these stories to life in a digital world through Historypin. The noted international web presence will provide a home for the stories and the digital infrastructure that make them available to all. An additional partner in the progam, Project GADO, will provide teens training in the use of scanning robots that will facilitate the digitization of the histories, while another, Orange County Reforma, will organize a local conference on Latino history to kick off the information collection process.

Over the next three years, the Santa Ana Public Library, its six library and organization partners, Historypin, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services look forward to bringing the experiences of our immigrant communities to life, and helping other communities to do the same.

THE SANTA ANA PUBLIC LIBRARY IS LOCATED AT:
26 CIVIC CENTER PLAZA (corner of Civic Center and Ross)

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Art Pedroza Editor

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

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