ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Grants and Acquisitions

Ann-Christe Galloway

The General Libraries of the Universityof Texas-Austin has been awarded $192,268 by the T exas T elecommunications Infrastructure Fund (a state program to foster an advanced telecommunications infrastructure) to further the development of the Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) program. TARO is designed to assist scholars and citizens across Texas in locating important archival materials relating to the history, culture, social, and economic conditions of the state. See http:// taro.lib.utexas.edu/ for more information.

SOLINET has been awarded two grantsfrom the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for preservation programs. A $580,000 grant will go toward continued support of preservation field services and a $700,000 grant will support a cooperative preservation microfilming project. SOLINET is a nonprofit organization serving more than 2,300 libraries in 10 Southeastern states and the Caribbean.

The Information Institute of Syracuseat Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies has been awarded a $5 million, five-year contract from the U.S. Department of Education to operate the department’s Education Digital Library Initiative. The contract combines the work of the institute’s Gateway to Educational Materials and Virtual Reference Desk projects.

Acquisitions

American novelist James Ellroy hasdonated a major group of research materials for his literary archives at the University of South Carolina’s (USC) Thomas Cooper Library. Ellroy, author of 15 books, including The Black Dahlia (1987), LA. Confidential(1990), and the memoir My Dark Places (1996), selected USC as the home for his literary papers in 1999. Since then, Ellroy has added a second group of papers and Richard Layman, a USC alumnus, has donated the autograph manuscripts for LA. Confidential and Ellroy’s novel White jazz(1992). This summer, Ellroy made a third major donation: the manuscript and multiple typescripts for his latest novel The Cold Six Thousand (2001); file copies of his magazine contributions; more than 300 different editions, reprintings, and translations of his books; and a large collection of framed posters, photographs, and other visual materials.

Author and music historian Frank Driggshas donated his collection of oral histories to the Miller Nichols Library at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The oral histories, conducted from 1956 to 1986, capture the truths of the development of jazz as related by a host of musicians and band leaders who defined the tradition. The collection includes oral histories by Andy Kirk, Buster Smith, Gene Ramey, Thamon Hayes, Jesse Stone, and Ed Lewis; many of them survive as the only known record of a musician’s experiences and voice. The 375 oral histories, housed in the Marr Sound Archives, have been inventoried (http:// www.umkc.edu/lib/spec-col/driggs_inv.htm) and are in the process of being preserved and made available for research and scholarship.

The University at Albany has beennamed the official repository of the WAMC Radio station’s programs, newsletters, photographs, and other archival materials. WAMC produces more nationally syndicated programs than any National Public Radio syndicate outside the home station. The WAMC collection consists of more than 1,000 open reel and cassette tapes of original radio programming going back to 1977. The collection includes many programs produced in Albany but heard nationally and internationally, including “The Best of Our Knowledge,” “The Book Show,” “The Capitol Connection,” and “The Environment Show.” Additional recordings include special events, folk festivals, and coverage for local and state political events. ■

Ed. note: Send your news to: Grants & Acquisitions,C&RL News, SO E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795; e- mail: agalioway@ala.org.