ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Grants & Acquisitions

Nearly $1.4 million hasbeen awarded to four lead- ing adult literacy organiza- tions in the United States: the Association for Commu- nity Based Education, Wash- ington, D.C. ($524,000); Bronx Educational Services, New York ($298,994); Lit- eracy South, Raleigh, N.C. ($430,000); and the National Center on Adult Literacy, Philadelphia ($150,000). The one-to-two-year grants were made by the Lila Wallace-

Reader’s Digest Fund to improve the quality of instruction and to make it more available to greater numbers of people. The funds will en- able the grantees, all regarded as leaders in the field of adult literacy, to concentrate their work in four states noted for their national leader- ship in improving the overall effectiveness of their adult literacy systems.

The Folger Shakespeare Library inWashington, D.C., has been awarded a U.S. Department of Education Title IIC grant of $90,000 to catalog, conserve, and microfilm the library’s incunabula collection. Approximately 250 items will receive treatment during the first year of the grant, which will include in-depth cataloging for bibliographic access through RLIN, restoration and repair of damaged volumes, and microfilming for purposes of preservation, security, and broader access through reproduction from master negatives.

The Huntington Library in San Marino,California, has received $150,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the conservation and cataloging of approximately 6,000 l6th-, 17th-‚ and 18th-century English pamphlets bound into 587 volumes. The volumes will be conserved and provided with protective enclosures with the aim of preserving all physical evidence of pro- duction, distribution, and ownership, while copy-spe- cific and local information will be given for each pam- phlet. The records produced by this project will form part of the Huntington’s online catalog and will eventually be distributed through RLIN and OCLC.

The Rosenbach Museum

in Philadelphia has received $26,310 in grants from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation, and the Barra Foundation to catalog the Rush-Williams-Biddle Family Papers, an archive documenting the lives and careers of members of those prominent Philadelphia families. Comprising some 10,000 letters, business records, and other documents, the collection sheds light on the political, scientific, and social concerns of Americans from ca. 1770 through 1919- The collection includes papers of Dr. Benjamin Rush, the most famous physician of his day and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Richard Rush, a secretary of state and minister to France. The archive was donated to the museum in 1976 by Julia Rush Biddle Henry.

Syracuse University’s George Arents

Research Library has received a $225,000 grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation in New York City to begin a three-year project that will preserve on microfilm and complete the electronic cataloging of two valuable collections on European history: the materials in the libraries of 19th-century German historian Leopold von Ranke and 20th-century Czechoslovakian economist Jan Maria Novotny. Among the collections’ treasures is a first edition of Table Talk, a collection of mealtime conversations between Martin Luther and his students and friends published in 1566.

The University of Washington (UW) Health

Sciences Center (HSC) in Seattle has been awarded a five-year $2.75 million grant from the National Library of Medicine to implement UW’s long-range Integrated Advanced Information Management System (IAIMS) plan for health sciences. The plan, developed in the last five years, calls for linkages of key clinical, educational, and research databases and systems; a state-of-the-art high-speed network connecting all areas of the HSC; and creation of a number of sophisticated tools in support of easy desktop access for users.

Ed. note: Entries in this column are taken from library newsletters, press releases, and other sources. To ensure that your grant and acquisition news is considered for publication, write to: Grants & Acquisitions,C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795. Photos related to your news will be considered for publication.

A rare copy of a first American printing of Melville’s Moby Dick presented to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Washington University’s Chemistry

Library has been awarded a $15,000 grant by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of expanding chemical databases through the Washington University online system. The purpose of the study is to establish the costs for a distributive access model of the electronic library in two phases: 1) for broad dissemination of online bibliographic resources, and 2) for online acquisition of the primary literature, including full text and graphics of journal articles.

Acquisitions

The Thomas McGuane Papers, documenting the literary career of Thomas McGuane, have been acquired by the Michigan State University CMSU) Libraries. In the 23 years since the publication of his first book, The Sporting Club, McGuane has published ten volumes of essays, short stones, and novels, as well as seven produced screenplays. In the collection are drafts and working papers associated with the novels The Bushwhacked Piano, Nobody’s

Angel,and others; a book of short stories called To Skin a Cat; and a collection of essays called Outside Chance. Also represented are his writing and directing efforts for the movies Missouri Breaks, Rancho Deluxe, and Cold Feet, and letters to writer Jim Harrison which span 24 years. A winner of many awards for his writing, McGuane is a 1962 graduate of MSU.

The personal papers of James E. Allen,former assistant secretaiy for education and U.S. commissioner of education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, have been acquired by the New York State Library’s Division of Manuscripts and Special Collections. Before working for the U.S. government, Allen served as commissioner of the State Education Department of New York (1955-1969. His papers include manuscripts of articles and speeches, correspondence, and other materials.

Forty-three original illustrations by children’s author Lois Lenski (1893-1974) have been donated to the Walter Clinton Jackson Library, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, by her son; Steven Covey of Broomfield, Colorado. Among the works are 16 original pencil illustrations for Grandmother Tippytoe (1931), and six pen-and-ink drawings for Susie Mariar (1939). From 1958 to 1968 Lenski donated dozens of her manuscripts, photographs, correspondence files, and field notes to Jackson Libraiy. In 1946 she received the Newbery Medal for her book Strawberry Girl.

A gift of 300 volumes from the personallibrary of Herman Melville scholar Merton M. Sealts Jr. has been donated to the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison’s Memorial Library by Sealts and Ruth Mackenzie Sealts. The gift includes first and rare editions of works by Melville, Thoreau, Emerson, Henry James, and Margaret Fuller, as well as critical editions and secondary sources on Melville. Sealts, an emeritus professor of English at UW-Madison, also donated an extensive collection of offprints of scholarly articles and reviews dealing with Melville, which offers an exceptional record of Melville scholarship in the second half of the 20th century. The collection has been further strengthened by the donation of a family copy of the rare first American printing of jMoby Dick (1851), given by Jean F. Melvill (spelled without the final “e”), a collateral descendant of Herman Melville’s.