Emily Cranford announced that Senator Burr's office will host a federal grant workshop for North Carolina's Museums and Libraries on Thursday, November 30, 2006, in Hickory, North Carolina. The workshop will focus on competitive grant opportunities available to museums and libraries and will include speakers from federal government departments. You may register to attend at the website, or contact Emily if you need further information, by email or (202) 224-3154.

The North Carolina Preservation Consortium (NCPC) is accepting applications for preservation grants to assist N.C. libraries, archives, museums, historic sites, and other heritage organizations preserve their collections. These collections may include books, manuscripts, documents, journals, photographs, film, sound recordings, maps, architectural drawings, art, and artifacts. Maximum award is $2,000.00; application deadline is January 15, 2007. Details and application are available on the NCPC Web site.

2006 NCPC Preservation Grant recipients include:

• The Forest History Society in Durham was awarded $1,500 for re-housing and stabilization of records in the American Forestry Association Collection. Now called American Forests, the association is the nation's oldest nonprofit environmental conservation organization.

• The North Carolina State Archives Non-Textual Materials Unit, located in Raleigh, was awarded $1,300 to fund a preservation needs assessment of audiovisual holdings including recordings on discs, audio tape, digital files, motion picture film, and video tape.

• The Carol Grontes Belk Library at Appalachian State University in Boone was awarded $1,600.00 to support the reformatting of reel-to-reel videotapes in the Howard Dorgan Papers and Helen Lewis Papers in the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection. Dorgan and Lewis are two of the founders of the Appalachian Studies movement.

• The Corriher Linn Black Library at Catawba College in Salisbury was awarded $500 to purchase archival boxes for at risk collections in the College Archives. Material in the Archives includes organizational records of Catawba College and collections from Reformed and Evangelical Churches in North Carolina.

• The Historic Hope Foundation in Windsor was awarded $1,100.00 to hire a consultant to perform a preservation needs assessment and provide guidelines for developing a disaster plan for collections at Hope Plantation. The consultant will also be asked to identify strategies for cooperative disaster response with other institutions in the region.

On Monday, November 20, the N.C. Museum of Natural Science will host sociobiologist Bert Hoelldobler, showing the film Ants: Nature's Secret Power at 7 p.m., followed by a question and answer session.

The High Point Museum will show the art of cooking over an open hearth throughout the day on Saturday, Nov. 18th (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) in the Hoggatt House. Costumed interpreters will cook an entire fall harvest meal during this free event.

Old Salem, Winston-Salem, is getting ready for its busy holiday season schedule. The details of day-to-day activities are available at their website.

The Health Adventure, Asheville will host a special day on December 9. Visitors can obtain a half-price admission that day by bringing a can of food to the museum -- which will be donated to MANNA Food Bank to help minimize hunger during the holiday season.

The Orange County Historical Museum, Hillsborough, is currently hosting an exhibit --Weaving and Rug Making in the Oaxaca Valley: An Intergenerational Family Tradition, by Eric Chavez Santiago – through December 10. The museum will also host a Holiday Wreaths exhibit from December 2-24. Information at their website, or call 919-732-2201.