ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

News From the Field

Acquisitions

• Brown University’s John Hay Library, Providence, Rhode Island, has acquired an additional 80 linear feet of the archives of the Unicorn Press of Greensboro, N.C. Together with the 67 linear feet and archival copies of publications previously acquired, this collection now comprises the production files of Alan Brilliant and the editorial files of Teo Savory for the period 1966-1984. The collection is notable for having correspondence and literary manuscripts, not only of such American authors as Thomas Merton, Philip Levine, and Daniel Berrigan, but also the foreign authors Ernesto Cardenal, Jacques Prévert, Guillevic, Horst Bienek, and Vo-Dinh, among others.

• Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, New Hampshire, has received a collection of Jack London books and materials from Marvin A. and Sue Rauch, of Far Rockaway, New York. The gift contains first editions of London’s books, many first appearances of his books and short stories in magazines, critical and biographical books, and several signed letters and inscribed books. Especially noteworthy is a pencil portrait of London inscribed, “Yours for the Revolution, Jack London.”

• Tulane University Library, New Orleans, has received the papers of John Kennedy Toole, author of A Confederacy of Dunces. The gift was presented by Toole’s mother, Thelma Ducoing Toole, who was instrumental in getting his novel published posthumously. The papers include typescripts, printer’s copy and page proofs of the novel, as well as thirteen foreign language editions. Of special interest are the letters that Toole wrote to his parents while he was in the army and stationed in Puerto Rico, manuscripts of two unpublished short stories and a poem, and photographs of Toole as a child and young man.

• The University of California, Berkeley, Library has acquired 225 volumes of Spanish manuscripts known as the Fernán Núñez Collection, which dates from the 15th through the 18th centuries and represents the second largest collection of Spanish manuscripts in the United States. Highlights of the collection include: debates at the University of Salamanca on the humanity and treatment of the Indians of the Americas; chronicles of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella; a 15th century manuscript of Pedro del Corral’s Cronica Sarra- cina, a fictional history of the conquest of Spain by the Moors; and a 16th century manuscript of Galician-Portuguese lyric poetry.

• The University of Illinois at Chicago’s Health Sciences Library has received a gift of rare books and manuscripts from William C. Beck, president emeritus of the Donald Guthrie Foundation for Medical Research. A unique title in the gift is the Artzneybüech of Georg Muller, a bound manuscript on vellum dated Graz, 1577. The manuscript is a compilation of medical prescriptions for internal and external use. Other highlights include Do- doens’ herbal (1574); Venetian editions of Fabri- cius (1619), Albrecht von Haller (1768-1775), and Thomas Sydenham (1762); a 1652 Lyon edition of Ambroise Paré; the 1613 edition of the Pharmacopeia Augustana; Hippocrates’ Coacae praeno- tiones (Paris, 1588); and Paduan editions of Morgagni’s De sedibus (1765) and Spighelius’ De formato foetu (1626).

•The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received a collection of letters and manuscripts documenting the career of John Charles Frémont (1813-1890), U.S. Western explorer, Civil War general, politician, and popular hero. The papers were acquired during the editing of The Expeditions of John Charles Frémont, a three-volume work with map portfolio covering the explorer’s five western expeditions.

• The University of Minnesota’s Social Welfare History Archives has received the historical records of the national Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). The 120 file cabinets and approximately 600 cartons and boxes of material date back to the 1870s and contain the YMCA’s records on social and recreational programs, adult education programs for immigrants and industrial workers, programs for transients, the homeless, and minority group members, and missions and outreach programs overseas. The collection is five times the size of any individual archive collection at Minnesota.

Grants

• The Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, has received a grant of $150,000 from the Joseph N. Pew Jr., Charitable Trust for the renovation of the Center’s original building. The grant will allow for the completion of a large portion of repairs to the building, originally constructed in 1950, especially the elevators and the internal and external walls.

• Rutgers University Libraries, New Brunswick, New Jersey, have been awarded a grant of $26,130 by the New Jersey Committee for the Humanities in support of a project to create a New Jersey Humanities Resource Center. The Center will make available to the public films and videos created by NJCH, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other states’ humanities councils. Humanities films and video programming for a variety of New Jersey audiences will also be originated by the Center. The project, using a phased-in developmental approach, will result in a fully- realized Center over a 3-5 year period.

• Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, received the following grants in 1984: a National Endowment for the Humanities challenge grant which contains $400,000 to endow purchases of library materials in the humanities; $225,000 from Robert F. Weis, of Sunbury, toward the matching fund requirement; a $10,000 bequest from the estate of Blanche and Brian Teats, of Selinsgrove, to endow the purchase of library materials; and a gift of $8,000 from its own class of 1984 to endow journal subscriptions.

• The University of Rochester, New York, has received a $500,000 grant from the Pew Charitable Trust toward the development of a fully automated information system for the University’s libraries. The grant will support the installation of an online public catalog and automated circulation system, leading to systems for acquisitions, periodicals, and bookkeeping.

•T he University of Southern California Li- brary, Los Angeles, has received pledges of $5 million from the J. Paul Getty Trust and $1 million from the Times Mirror Foundation for a project to expand and improve the campus library system. Development plans, which will require another $49 million, include: the acquisition of $10 million worth of new books and journals over the next five years; renovation of the Doheny Memorial Library to provide climate control for the preservation of materials and to allow for greater space for students and faculty users; construction of an addition or adjacent facility; and acquisition of additional storage space.

Old library building, Museu Goeldi, Belém do Pará, Brazil.

^{Cr: Horst Schwassmann}

Amazon library expanding its database services

North Brazil’s Museu Goeldi, long the region’s leading research facility, recently began an ambitious expansion of library and information services. Located in the port city of Belém do Pará at the mouth of the Amazon River, the museum was founded in 1866 and recruits an international staff to its research programs in the physical and human sciences. The Goeldi’s library was designated the official depository of the Amazon Pact nations, following the signing of the Treaty for Amazonian Cooperation in 1978 by Brazil and its Basin neighbors, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and the Guianas.

Now the Goeldi is embarking on a program of automation with the creation of InformAm—a bibliographic system that will provide online access to the museum’s rapidly growing collection. The system is up and has some 10,000 entries already.

In 1984 the University of Florida’s Amazon Research and Training Program (ARTP) entered into an agreement with the Museu Goeldi for institutional cooperation and plans to place library and information services as a priority item in its work. ARTP is now compiling a bibliographic database of Amazon River Valley materials held by the University of Florida Libraries and may someday link this with the Goeldi’s InformAm system.

In the meantime, the Museu Goeldi has begun an extensive acquisitions effort to enhance its existing collections. Please contact the director of the ARTP, Marianne Schmink, at the University of Florida, Gainesville, for further details.—Bichard K. Phillips, University of Florida Libraries, Gainesville.

New library building.