Feds invest $350,000 in Andover center

It's modern money, but it helps preserve the past. The Northeast Document Conservation Center, located at Brickstone Square in Andover, has received a grant for its preservation work.

The non-profit center has been awarded a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The endowment's grants are used to provide preservation training, assessments, consultations, free web resources and disaster assistance to cultural institutions nationwide, said company marketing manager Julie Martin.

She said the Andover center’s preservation services department helps hundreds of cultural organizations and local government agencies each year learn to care for their valued paper and media-based collections such as bound volumes, maps, documents, photographs, AV recordings, digital collections and works of art on paper.

"A special project for the new grant is to develop a series of hands-on workshops on disaster planning and response to be presented in federally declared disaster areas along the Atlantic coast," Martin said.

The center’s mission is to improve the conservation and preservation efforts of museums, libraries, archives, historical societies, municipal clerks’ offices and other government agencies.