The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is pleased to offer fellowships generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for dissertation research in the humanities in original sources. The purposes of this fellowship program are to:
- help junior scholars in the humanities and related social-science fields gain skill and creativity in developing knowledge from original sources
- enable dissertation writers to do research wherever relevant sources may be, rather than just where financial support is available
- encourage more extensive and innovative uses of original sources in libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and related repositories in the U.S. and abroad, and
- provide insight from the viewpoint of doctoral candidates into how scholarly resources can be developed for access most helpfully in the future.
The program offers about fifteen competitively awarded fellowships a year. Each provides a stipend of $2,000 per month for periods ranging from 9-12 months. Each fellow will receive an additional $1,000 upon participating in a symposium on research in original sources and submitting a report acceptable to CLIR on the research experience. Thus the maximum award will be $25,000.
Original source material means primary sources such as the following:
- records, documents, manuscripts, and other written material
- photographs, films, sound recordings, oral histories, and other audiovisual material
- maps, blueprints, drawings, and other graphic material
- library special collections, including books used as primary, not secondary, sources
- original artwork, artifacts, and museum objects
- born-digital sources such as websites, wikis, and blogs