This year the 2023–2024 ATBL Transatlantic Fellowship Program will help connect innovative researchers with the collections both of the British Library and of their American Partners the Houghton Library at Harvard University; the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan; the Virginia Fox Stern Center at Johns Hopkins University; the Newberry Library; and the New York Public Library.

The American Trust for the British Library (ATBL) Transatlantic Fellowship Program is conceived as an integral part of the ATBL’s mission to promote and support the work of the British Library, one of the world’s greatest research libraries. The ATBL seeks to promote transatlantic understanding through related events, lectures, and discussion in the United States and within the United Kingdom, as well as providing incremental financial and in-kind gift support for the British Library’s collection, preservation, and outreach activities.

The ATBL’s Transatlantic Fellowship Program supports research projects that make use of collections in any department in the British Library as well as those housed with a partner institution in the United States. The term “transatlantic” refers not to the subject matter of a Fellow’s proposed project (though projects with transatlantic subjects are always welcomed), but instead to the transatlantic collaboration between the ATBL, on behalf of the collections of the British Library, and the holdings of an American partner organization.

The Program especially targets graduate students, recent PhDs, early career scholars, adjunct faculty, independent scholars, librarians, or curatorial staff who otherwise do not have access to departmental research funds.

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The 2023–2024 ATBL Transatlantic Fellowships are designed to support at least four weeks of research between both the British Library and the American Partner Organization, with at least one week of research time at each institution. A projected schedule of study will be outlined as part of the Fellowship application. The successful applicant, hailing from any academic discipline, will propose a research project that makes equal use of primary source material found in any collection of the British Library as well as in the American Partner Organization.

The amount of the Fellowship will be $5,000 USD, and the Fellow will join the ATBL as a complimentary one-year Library Fellow for the calendar year following completion of the Fellowship Program. 

The Fellow will have the opportunity to present on the research completed on a designated ATBL panel at the Modern Language Association’s (MLA’s) annual conference and at the ATBL’s Annual General Meeting, as well as other opportunities at the discretion of the American Partner Organization.

Details about the $5,000 Fellowship award, deadlines, and how to apply can be found here.