>> Kevin Butterfield: 
Hi, everyone.

My name is Kevin
Butterfield.

I'm the Director of the John W.
Kluge Center

at the Library of Congress.

We wanted to create a
video to walk through some of

the frequently asked questions
and opportunities for

fellowships here in-residence
at the Library of Congress,

including, later on in this
presentation, a step-by-step

walk through of the application
process

through the application
portal that we use.

The Kluge Center is based in
the Jefferson Building at the

dome of which you see here of
the Library of Congress, which

is one of the three buildings
on the main campus and also one

of the most beautiful buildings
in Washington, D.C.

the Library of Congress, as I
hope everyone here knows, is the

world's largest library and one
of the most remarkable

collections ever assembled.
We think of this

as an unparalleled collection 
with great

research potential for
just about any applicant working

in the humanities and social
sciences.

The description that you see
here of the scope and size of

the collections is useful, but
also something that we will

expect every candidate who is
preparing materials to apply to

think through specifically what
they might use here, not simply

to put together a proposal
based on the massive volume of

collections at the library, but
to think through and to

articulate quite clearly, as
we'll describe later in this

presentation, some of the ways
that their work applies and

would be supported by the
collections

of the Library of Congress.
Within what you see here,

one of the things that is
quite remarkable and will digest

this a bit further in the
presentation,

our individual collections
within both the General

and International Collections
Directorate

and the Special Collections. 
For instance,

I'll mention Geography 
and Map Division.

You see here the
roughly 6 million maps in the

collection. That is the largest
cartographic collection in the

world. And the breadth of those
materials are able to support

a vast number of research
projects, one of which there is

a fellowship that we'll
describe here that specifically

devoted to the Geography and
Map Division collections.

But we could imagine compelling
applications coming from

any of the fellowships that
that we describe here that

might draw on that collection
or any other specific

collection. Only one of the
four fellowships that has a

September 15th deadline will
be focused on one specific

collection. But we also do
imagine that each candidate will

have specific collections in
mind

as they're preparing a
research project proposal.

The Kluge Center is, as I
mentioned, based on the

Jefferson Building. 
This is one of two

large expanses in 
the library dedicated

to Kluge Center
scholars and residents.

There's both a lower level,
which includes

both staff and 
chair offices.

The chairs positions, I
can briefly describe

as being senior position, 
senior research positions

that are come in by invitation 
of the Librarian of Congress.

The fellow positions
typically come in by

application. That's what we're
here to describe today.

There are cubicles and offices
set aside throughout

both this room and one other
adjacent to it, both of which

are adjacent to the main
reading room,

which you saw just 
a moment ago,

one of the great reading rooms
in the world. The Kluge Center

was founded in October of 2000
with the most generous financial

gift of the library had yet
received to create a center

for research, both residential
research but also scholarly

programs and symposia
within the library, and to

support wide-ranging work in
the humanities and what I tend

to think of as humanistic
social sciences, and find

ways to connect that work both
to the scholarly communities

from which it's coming, 
and we certainly work hard

to create symposia 
and programs

that are dedicated to the
academic dissemination of

the ideas that are being
developed here

at the Kluge Center,
but also to work

with those immediately 
across the street

in the US Congress, both
the members and the staff, and

find ways to make their work
relevant, to make work

accessible and useful in policy
making ways.

And that's one of the founding
 mission of the Kluge Center,

and one of the ongoing
efforts that we do here.

One of the things that I can
underscore, because sometimes I

think it needs underscoring, is
that the Kluge Center, though

it has this policy-oriented 
mission,

we very much, and we are very
proud of our support of work

that is not necessarily
patently relevant

to policy making questions 
of the day.

We find ourselves supporting
medievalists as well as those

working in 21st century
political science,

just to give one example.

So we're hopeful that you, as a
potential applicant for a

fellowship here, will think
through the ways in which your

project can be supported by the
collection of the library and

think through ways in which you
can make the case for that, and

not simply go out of
your way to self-select and

decide that your work
isn't of the sort that

best fits the sort of
policy-making public scholarship

because our panels, our
selection panels will do that

for you. They'll work and think
through the ways in which your

work is appropriate for
the Kluge Centre.

And I can't emphasize enough
that your work, great

scholarship will be supported.

It has potential to benefit
from the

collections of the 
Library of Congress.

So while there is this sort of
underlying mission, we're

hopeful that we will also
support what I think of as pure

research and and cutting-edge
scholarship of all sorts.

We have approximately 100
scholars in residence residents

across a given year that
includes both early career

scholars. Some of the
fellowships that we'll be

describing are limited to those
within a certain number of years

after their terminal degree,
typically a PhD,

as well as
those very senior positions,

the chairs that come in by
invitation, as well as another

category that's described as
distinguished visiting scholar

that, again, the Library of
Congress makes specific

invitations for. So, roughly 100
scholars in residence across an

entire year, some of them
funded directly out of the Kluge

funds and other
endowments that we have here at

the Library of Congress.

And some of them coming in
through international

partnerships. So you actually
will find a good number

of non-US scholars in residents
that are funded by home

institutions or by programs
in their home country.

One of the great things about
the Kluge Fellowship

is that it's open to scholars
from around the world who can

apply directly to tap into 
Kluge funds

for their time in residence.

The number of discrete
collections and reading rooms

throughout the library is
large and will take

a little bit of time
for you as a prospective scholar

to work through and think about
where you would want to be

connecting your work, in which
collections and do some

advance work, both in the
finding aids and the catalogs

and the other online materials
that can help you understand

what's in these collections, as
well as potentially reaching out

to librarians and curators in
the individual collections.

For some of you, it's quite
obvious which collections and

which reading rooms you'll be
wanting to connect with.

For others, it may be less so.

So I encourage you to use the
loc.gov website and explore some

of the various reading rooms
that you see described here,

which are spread out across the
three buildings of the

D.C. campus of the Library of
Congress.

The majority of them are in
the Madison Building, but quite

a number of them are right here
in Jefferson, including some

of the area studies reading
rooms such as African

and Middle East and Hispanic 
reading room, Asian as well.

One of the most important
things that you can do at this

stage, as you're preparing an
application in the 2024 cycle,

is to think through exactly
which collections to explore,

how you might be able to, with
specificity, describe your use

of those collections 
as well as,

and I will admit that this is
something that is a part of

most applications, successful
and unsuccessful,

because it's always
 the case.

A description of the
breadth of the collections and

the ways in which the
sheer breadth of the general

collection of the circulating
library collection

can be useful to support 
your work.

But most compelling
proposals find some way to

connect to materials unique to
the Library of Congress or

uniquely collected at the
Library of Congress.

So there might be individual
libraries that have various

things, but no one library has
all of the things that can be a

useful point of connection,
and particularly those who can

make a case that your project
needs to draw materials

that are unique to the
library and particular use for

your collection that you can
describe in specificity.

To go into more detail about
some of the individual

fellowships, let me
hand things over

to my colleague, 
Sophia Zahner.

>> Sophia Zahner: Hello. 
So I will be discussing

the fellowships covered in the
application portal.

There will be four fellowships
that you can apply for

through our application portal.

And the deadline for all four
of those fellowships will be

September 15th. 
These fellowship programs

include the Kluge Fellowship,

which is our flagship
fellowship.

The Fellowship in Digital
Studies,

the David B. Larson Fellowship
in Health and Spirituality,

and the Philip Lee Phillips
 Society Fellowship.

So I'll be talking in more
detail about each of these.

However, you can find more
information about all four of

these fellowships on our
website.

So, the Kluge fellowships
 at the library

are our flagship fellowships.

There's 12 of them, and they've
been in existence

since the start of 
the Kluge Center.

The Kluge Center encourages
humanistic and social science

research that makes use of the
library's large and varied

collections. Interdisciplinary
and cross-cultural research is

particularly welcome in the
Kluge Fellowship program.

Scholars who have received a
terminal advance degree within

the past seven years in the
humanities, social sciences, or

in a professional field such as
architecture or law

are eligible for these
fellowships.

These applicants can be U.S.
Citizens or foreign nationals,

as Kevin mentioned before.

The stipend for the fellowship
programs are $5,000 a month for

periods of 4 to 11 months, as
are the stipends for the Digital

Studies and Larson Fellowships,
which will be mentioning in the

next slides. So the Digital
Studies Fellowship at the

library asks for proposals
from scholars worldwide that

will generate deep, empirically
grounded understanding of the

consequences of the digital --
people think, how society

functions and how international
relations shift.

Proposals may also explore and
analyze emerging trends and new

phenomena that may generate
consequential changes in the

future. All proposals must
state the importance of the

research to fundamental
thinking about the human

condition. There are two
Digital Studies fellowships, and

these fellowships have been in
existence since 2014.

Eligibility for the Digital
Studies fellowships is pretty

broad. It's open to scholars
and practitioners worldwide.

And as I mentioned before, the
stipend

for the Digital Studies 
Fellowship is $5,000

a month for a period
of up to 11 months.

So the Kluge Center offers one
David B. Larson Fellowship in

Health and Spirituality each
year.

The Kluge Center invites
qualified scholars to apply for

a postdoctoral fellowship in
the field of health and

spirituality as part of this
fellowship program.

The eligibility for the Larson
Fellowship is U.S.

citizens or permanent residents
with a doctoral degree.

And like the Digital Studies
and Kluge fellowships, the

stipend is $5,000 per month for
periods of 6 to 12 months.

Finally, the Philip Lee
Phillips Society Fellowship is

the fellowship that Kevin
mentioned earlier as being

related to the Geography and
Maps collection, specifically

the Kluge Center and the Philip
Lee Phillips Society at the

Library of Congress invite
qualified scholars to conduct

research at the Kluge Center
using the

Geography and Map Division's 
collections

and resources for 
a period of two

months. Eligibility for this
fellowship,

has no degree requirements.

Applicants must have a history
of successful accomplishment in

the field of geography,
cartography, or history and have

a record of publication
commensurate with a senior

fellowship of this kind.
Applicants may be U.S.

citizens or foreign nationals.

The stipend for the Philip Lee
Phillips Society Fellowship is

$5,750 per month for a period
of two months, and there are two

Philip Lee Phillips Society
Fellowships available each year.

Now, I'm going to turn it back
to Kevin

to discuss the review
process.

>> Kevin Butterfield: 
The criteria  by which

these fellowship applications 
will be

reviewed are similar, in fact,
nearly identical across the

four fellowships being
described here.

Although as you may note,
there will be specific

expectations for each one.
Digital studies, for instance,

will certainly -- a successful 
applicant

will have focused on
digital scholarship in ways that

aren't necessarily going to be
the case in others,

same with Philip Lee Phillips
in the

Geography and Map 
Division's collections.

But I do want to walk through
these so that we can think

through some of the ways in
which applicants can be made

stronger and potentially
successful.

For each of the four
fellowships, panels will be

established that will review
the application materials that

will have strict guidelines
that I'll describe in a moment,

in terms of length and details
that need to be included.

They'll be considering the
application

in relation to numerous 
other proposals.

So there is a comparative
aspect to these.

And for each of these
fellowships, these criteria will

be laid out in front of the
panelists

who will be working 
to make the selections.

The significance of the
project's contribution to

knowledge in the field.

This is an important thing 
for scholars based at

academic institutions in
particular to think through,

which is you need to make
the case that this is important

work within your field of
study.

You don't need to focus on the
ways in which it's

obviously relevant to all
general readers or to

members of Congress, even.
Emphasize the ways in which your

work is important and makes a
real contribution

to knowledge in your
 field of study.

And the panels will be
assembled, including

specialists from a wide
range of fields and disciplines.

But they will be
evaluating, based on this

criterion of how
persuasively the author or the

applicant makes the case for
the significance of the

project's contribution to
knowledge in your discipline and

field of study. Second, the
quality of the conception,

definition, organization and
description of the project goes

without saying that
persuasive, clear writing in the

proposal is a good indicator of
persuasive

and clear writing in
the finished project.

And this is, of course,
something that

the panelists will be taking
 into account.

The next two are the ones that
are, I think, potentially the

most important to 
do advance work.

The first two, one imagines
that any applicant has already

thought through ways in which
they can make the case for this

for a variety of possible
funders or even hiring

institutions. But the next two,
I want to underscore the

likelihood that the applicant
will complete

the project in the 
proposed timeline.

This is not an emphasis that
one will complete a book

manuscript. It's actually
something more clearly that

the applicant will complete the
work that they lay out in the

proposal. So if one lays out
that they will be working on

chapters three through five and
goes into detail about what

these chapters are, that is the
criterion by which the panelists

will be evaluating the
applicant.

Is the applicant biting
off more

than he or she can
chew, essentially?

And so, thinking through with
precision what the proposal

describes will be the outcome
of four to 11 months

in residency, 
in the case of the

Kluge Fellowship
and describing it and making the

case, hopefully a
persuasive case, that the

applicant will be able to
complete and meet

those goals in 
the proposed timeline.

I hope this is clear, and it's
one of the things that I think

often separates a successful
from a near successful

applicant. Fourth, and
certainly the most important

in terms of being specific
to this institution, is

describing the appropriateness
of the research

project for the 
Library of Congress.

Now, this has been read, I
think, in misleading ways by

some unsuccessful applicants in
the past.

Not a large number, but a small
number of applicants that have

emphasized the value of their
research for improving the

functioning of the Library of
Congress, or for strengthening

the cataloging of the Library
of Congress, or some quite

specific thing where I think
the applicant

somewhat misread 
criterion on the appropriateness

of the research for the 
Library of Congress

to mean the value of
the research to do something of

value for the Library of
Congress, which is very

rarely, if not never the
the expectation. The fourth

criterion that's being
described here is the

appropriateness of the
collections of the Library of

Congress to further the
research, right? The

appropriateness of the research
to be done here based on

collections that are either
unique here

or certainly part of
the collections here.

And to make out the case that
the the proposed research and

the collection of the Library
of Congress are a good fit.

Some of the most successful
applications are ones that

itemize and specific by name,
particular manuscript

collections or particular rare
books collections, or some such

thing, often by name, often
describing the scope and scale

of a specific collection. 
It's not necessary

that everyone has
 that same level of

specificity, because it's
certainly more appropriate for

some projects than others. But 
please do the advanced work.

Look through
the different collections

and reading rooms. Use the, 
I think well-described ways,

reading room by reading room to
reach out to specific

librarians, often through a
general inquiry line, a

particular email address that
goes to the reading room.

And sometimes you can
actually get to have a back and

forth with a curator or
librarian in a specific

collection. This will be a
great value for adding detail

and specificity to the
application.

A few key points to remember.
Do, as I've been saying,

include specific LOC collections
you need in order to complete

the research objectives.
Be specific where possible.

A second thing that often
trips people up is the

eligibility requirements to use
the Kluge Fellowship

in specific, which says that 
this is available to people

who have earned their terminal
degree

within the last seven years.
So please do,

in your application materials,
include your year and month of

the terminal degree that you've
received.

There are a number of
immediately disqualified

applications each year.
Often someone who is

at a PhD for a longer 
time than seven years.

We certainly
don't want to have too many

applications that are set aside
immediately.

So please take the time to be
sure that you are eligible

before completing your
application.

A couple of don'ts that I'll
emphasize.

Exceeding page limits that
are laid out in the application

proposals. As Sophia mentioned,
each of the four fellowships

have their own page on the
website, so you can go into

great detail and highlight and
read closely

the page limits and
expectations. Don't exceed the

page limits. If something is
too long, the additional

pages simply won't be
consulted.

So follow those page
limits and condense when

necessary. And last, one
note that we can mention, the

applications all require two
letters of recommendation.

But don't stress if your
references aren't in by the due

date of September 15th, because
there is an additional two

weeks for letters of reference
to come in.

They are due by September 30th.

And so plenty of time between --
in the 2024 cycle,

plenty of time for collecting
those two letters of

recommendation. And even after
the due date, there's an

opportunity to nudge and
get letters of recommendation

submitted to the Kluge Center.

To go through the 
application process,

in particular, the step-by-step
use of the application portal,

let me hand things over to my
colleague, Michael Stratmoen.

 >> Michael Stratmoen:
Now that we've talked about the

fellowships in general 
and some of the criteria

and specific, I am the manager
 of our application portal.

I'm going to run through how
to actually file one of these

applications. Let me share my
screen.

So starting from the main page
of the Kluge Center, simply

scroll over to 'Chairs &
fellowships' and click. From

there. On the left hand side,
click 'Fellowships.'

There are several fellowships
on the left hand side, all four

of the ones that are included
in our application portal.

Kluge, Digital, Larson 
and Phillip Lee Phillips

are on this side,
this left hand side.

You can click on either, any of
the four of them

to get on to
the application portal.

But to be quick, we're just
going to click here on

the 'Kluge fellowships.'
If you scroll

all the way to the bottom 
on the right,

you'll see access our
online application portal here.

Simply click on there and it
will take you to the portal.

Now when you first arrive, if
you are already someone

that's been using our
portal in the past,

on the left side, 
you can just simply log in.

If you've never created an
account, on the right side, you

have all the information you
need here

to create an account.
So I will log in.

[Inaudible] makes you do
this twice.

Now, once you are in, 
you have the option

to either
create a new submission

or to review any
past submissions.

Simply click here to create a
new submission

and it will take 
you to the folder.

Now what I'm going to do is go
to the incomplete here, because

I have filled out much of
the information

on one of these already.
So there are several windows

that you need to go through
to finish the application.

The first one is right here,
fellowship to apply to, and it

shows right here as you can
continue along to the end.

Now when you first begin, you
have to give consent to use this

system as the library requires
consent for

conditions of usage for
anything that they run

themselves or use outside.
Afterwards,

you can choose which fellowship
you would like to apply to.

All four of them are here.
You can apply to multiple

fellowships if you want.
However, in order to do so,

you have to file an individual
application each time.

So if you wanted to do the
Kluge Fellowship followed by a

Larson Fellowship, you would
fill out an entire application

for Kluge, and then you would
go back and start a new

application for the Larson
Fellowship.

Afterwards, you can
choose race, ethnicity,

and a sex and gender
 if you would like.

We do want to stress that these
demographic information

they're not used to make a
selection decision in any way.

But we do report the
numbers based off race,

ethnicity, sex and gender for
these applications each year.

Hit 'Save' and 'Next.'
And this will take you to

a single paragraph abstract
describing your

proposed research.
This is a maximum of 500 words.

And this is a great place to
summarize what exactly it is

that you are trying to
accomplish at the Library of

Congress. I've already filled
in some text from the web page

at the Kluge Center, just so
that you can see what it sort of

looks like when you're done
typing in the information.

Hit 'Save' and 'Next' to go 
to the next section.

And this is explaining how the
Library of Congress and its

collections will benefit your
work.

Now, as described a few times
in this webinar already, we

do, one, recommend you reach
out to curatorial and

reference staff here at the
library in order to identify

collections that you will use
in your research.

And it is the responsibility of
applicants to make clear which

Library of Congress resources
they will use.

And the use of collections is
one of our primary criteria

we use to evaluate
proposals.

And this is the space right
here to put exactly which

Library of Congress collections
you would like to use if you

were selected. Afterwards, hit
'Save' and 'Next' again,

and this will bring you
to the place

that probably will take you
the most

amount of time, which is
the general proposal.

We'll talk about how you heard
from this fellowship, title of

the proposal, your name, last,
first and middle, your home

address, followed by a phone
number where we can reach you

at. And then two options for an
email address.

We have a regular one, which
generally is for your home

institution. But we also do ask
that you give us a long-term

email address, that's a
personal email address, if you

can, because we do have several
scholars each year that might

leave their home institution
between when we receive their

application and when we are
evaluating it.

And we wouldn't want to be able
to not to reach out to someone

if we have questions or
want to accept their

application. We also ask for
country of citizenship

and permanent residence,
your current position,

title or rank, the discipline,
your department

and your home
institution, as well as the

address of this institution.
If you do not have

a home institution 
at the time of your

application, we ask that you
please write

independent scholar
in that field right there.

We also have you
provide the country of your home

institution. And as was stated
earlier, we do ask for the month

and year your PhD or terminal
degree was awarded.

This is especially
necessary if you are applying to

the flagship Kluge Fellowship

because of the fact that we
need -- we can only accept

applications for those who have
received a PhD or other

terminal degree in the last
seven years.

After this, we ask for your
language abilities.

We ask everyone for their
abilities in English.

Afterwards, we ask for up
to two languages for their

speciality. The first one
is required and the second one

is not. Finally, at the end, we
ask for how many months of

residency that you are
asking for in this fellowship

program. Applicants can choose
between four and 11 months

for the Kluge Fellowship.
Four and 11 months

for the Kluge Fellowship 
in Digital Studies.

Six to 12 for Larson and
only two months

for the Phillips Fellowship.
You can also indicate

if you'll accept less than
your desired number of months.

And finally, you'll type your
name in lieu of a signature. Hit

'Save' and 'Next' to bring you to
the next section

which is supporting
 documentation.

The first one is a copy of your
curriculum vitae.

We limit this to up to
two pages, single-spaced.

For the project proposal, 
which is a much more

detailed proposal 
than what was

provided in the single 
paragraph abstract,

we limit that to three pages,
single-spaced. And

finally, the bibliography of
works cited is also limited

to three pages,
single-spaced.

Any extra pages for all three
of these documents will not be

considered. You'll hit 'Save'
and 'Next.'

And this brings you to the
reference letter, which is the

last section. As Kevin stated,
we are only accepting two

reference letters for the
application for all four

of these fellowship 
programs.

What you will do is down here
for each of them, you will put

full name and an email address
of your reference.

The system will generate an
email directly to this

individual, and they will ask
in a statement of not more than

following information.

There are eight pieces of
information that are asked for,

and we do ask that they
are kept to 1200 words or less.

As Kevin said, if these
reference letters are not

submitted and received by
September 15th, that is okay.

You have a two-week grace
period for them to come in,

which is September 30th.
If they have any issues

whatsoever, they can email
scholarly@loc.gov.

And someone can help them to
get those letters in.

And that email will be
shown at the end of this

presentation as well. Finally,
hit 'Save and finalize.'

You hit 'Okay' to submit the
application.

And please note you're not
allowed to make changes after

submitting. So if you're not
ready, you can hit 'Cancel'

and go back to 'Save'
 and it will be saved

for you that you can come 
back later.

But here, just to
show you what it looks like, I

want to hit 'Save and finalize.'

And just like that, we have
received your information.

You have a confirmation of
that.

And that is how you will submit
an application for one of these

four fellowships this year at
the Kluge Center.

And with that, I will return
this back to Kevin.

>> Kevin Butterfield: Thank you,
Mike, and thank you, Sophia.

We've gone through the four
applications that are a part of

the application portal, open in

Kluge Digital Studies, the
Larson Fellowship, and the

Philip Lee Phillips Society
Fellowship.

If you have questions about any
of these,

it's a single line
to follow up.

The  scholarly@loc.gov 
is a place that you can

reach out to us and ask
questions about anything,

whether substantive or
technical, and we will be happy

to respond as promptly 
as we can.

The only other thing that I
could think to say is good luck,

and we're excited about your
application coming into

the Kluge Center. 
Take care everyone. Thanks.