Buffalo Bill Center of the West to receive federal grant for processing archival photographs

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) recently announced nearly $30,000,000 in grants to museums across the nation. The Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, will receive one of the 244 awards through the Museums for America grant program. The Center will receive $149,958 to process more than 6,000 photographic images relating to William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody.

IMLS Director Susan Hildreth presents a workshop and ceremony on Capitol Hill on September 18 to recognize the 2013 museum winners and to highlight successful applicants and awards. The event will showcase the many ways museums support learning experiences, serve as community anchors, and are stewards of cultural and scientific heritage through the preservation of their collections.

“IMLS recognizes three valuable roles museums have in their communities: putting the learner at the center, serving as community anchors, and serving as stewards of cultural and scientific collections,” said Hildreth. “It is exciting to see the many ways our newly announced grants further these important museum roles. I congratulate the slate of 2013 museum grant recipients for planning projects that advance innovation in museum practice, lifelong learning, and community engagement.”

The focus of the Center’s project, Picturing Buffalo Bill, is to digitize and catalog more than 6,000 photographic images in archival collections at the Center’s McCracken Research Library. The William F. Cody photographs are the most requested images in the library’s archives. They document the life of William F. Cody (1846 – 1917) and his remarkable career as Buffalo Bill, a career that took him from the western frontier, to the stage, and to show arenas in the United States and Europe as he brought Buffalo Bill’s Wild West to the world. The collection is of great interest to diverse fields of inquiry.

“The Center of the West is pleased to accept this grant from IMLS and continue the important work our research library began several years ago,” says the Center’s Executive Director and CEO Bruce Eldredge. “Digitizing and cataloging our remarkable photograph collections allows us to make them more widely accessible to researchers, scholars, and the general public.”

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. Its mission is to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement. Its grant making, policy development, and research help libraries and museums deliver valuable services that make it possible for communities and individuals to thrive. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow IMLS on Facebook and Twitter.

Since 1917, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West has been committed to the greatness and growth of the American West, keeping western experiences alive. The Center, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, weaves the varied threads of the western experience—history and myth, art and Native culture, firearms, and the nature and science of Yellowstone—into the rich panorama that is the American West.

For additional information, visit centerofthewest.org or the Center’s page on Facebook.