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November 4, 2009

Anthracite Museum receives bookshelf

Treasured objects and artifacts held by the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum will be preserved for future generations with help from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Connecting to Collections Bookshelf, a core set of conservation books and online resources donated by the IMLS, which has now awarded almost 3,000 free sets of the IMLS Bookshelf, in cooperation with the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH).

Chester Kulesa, historic site administrator of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum and Scranton Iron Furnaces, was delighted with the award. “These resources are of great assistance in helping the museum to fulfill its mission statement of preserving, documenting and interpreting the evolving heritage of the people who lived and worked during the 19th and 20th centuries in Pennsylvania’s hard coal region,” he said.

“When IMLS launched this initiative to improve the dire state of our nation’s collections, we understood that the materials gathered for the Bookshelf would serve as important tools for museums, libraries, and archives nationwide,” said Anne-Imelda Radice, director of IMLS. “We were both pleased and encouraged by the overwhelming interest of institutions prepared to answer the call to action, and we know that with their dedication, artifacts from our shared history will be preserved for future generations.”

The Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum received this essential set of resources based on an application by curator John Fielding describing the needs and plans for the care of museum collections. The IMLS Bookshelf focuses on collections typically found in art or history museums and in libraries’ special collections, with an added selection of texts for zoos, aquaria, public gardens and nature centers.To learn more about the Institute, visit www.anthracitemuseum.org.

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