ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Grants and Acquisitions

Hugh Thompson

The Art Institute of Chicago has been awarded a grant of $200,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grants Program. With the required $800,000 in matching dollars, the grant represents a total of $1 million for an endowment fund to support the Ryerson Library and Burnham Library of Architecture. Income from the endowment fund will be used for increased acquisitions of materials to augment the libraries’ holdings of 340,000 volumes on the fine arts and architecture plus manuscript and archival collections.

The Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (CIHM) has been awarded a grant of $500,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a digital project that will allow access on the Internet to early works of Canadian literature, native studies, and women’s history. The project will digitize 5,000 works from CIHM’s microfiche collection of Canadian works for Internet access, develop a model for comparing the costs of storing and accessing works in both traditional media and digital format, and evaluate the use and acceptability of various digital versions compared with printed and microform versions of texts.

The Claremont Colleges Libraries have received a $1 million grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation to support innovative methods for librarians to work with users to enhance teaching and learning. A W. M. Keck Learning Room will be established where students and faculty will receive hands-on instruction in the use of information technology. A “virtual reserve room” will also be developed on the library’s Web site.

Georgetown University's Joseph Mark Lauinger Memorial Library has been awarded a $1 million endowment to support and provide access to the Leon Robbin Collection of Music Manuscripts and Letters of Composers. The Robbin Collection includes scores by the 16th-century liturgical composer Palestrina and composers Rossini and Donizetti, as well as manuscripts and letters from such composers as Schubert, Beethoven,Mendelsohn, Wagner, and others.

The North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries has received a $15,000 grant from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation of New York to found the Lucius N. Littauer Judaica Book Fund. The endowment will produce income for the acquisition of Judaica and Hebraica materials in all formats for the NCSU Libraries’ Lawrence S.

Rudner Holocaust Memorial Collection. It will also support an English course on “Literature of the Holocaust,” first taught at the university by Rudner.

The University of Minnesota Libraries has been awarded a $350,000 three-year grant by the Bush Foundation of St. Paul, Minnesota, to develop and implement a comprehensive program of library and information services to distance learners. The libraries will develop a suite of services for remote users that includes networked instruction on the use of information resources, access to electronic reference and full-text materials, document delivery, reference service, and technical assistance.

Wayne State University's Shiffman Medical Library has been awarded a grant of $7,500 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ Center for Molecular and Cellular Toxicology with Human Applications. The award will be used to launch a pilot training program for clinicians in the use of toxicology databases accessible through Grateful Med, an information system produced by the National Library of Medicine.

Acquisitions

The Nudie's Rodeo Tailors and Western

Equipment Collection has been acquired by the Research Center of the Autry Museum of Western Heritage. Nudie Cohn (1902-1984) created a business in western tailoring, and his unique designs influenced western wear and the country and western image. His designs, which featured fine tailoring, bright colors, and elaborate decorations, were worn by scores of Hollywood cowboys, popular country singers, and wellknown celebrities. Included in the collection are customer clothing files dating from 1955 to 1970, boot patterns, photographs, correspondence, and financial records.

The reading room of the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago

The first installment of a multiyear gift of comic books, graphic novels, and other materials related to comic art in popular culture has been acquired by the Brown University Library. The collection was amassed by Michael J. Ciaraldi, an independent computer consultant and comic art enthusiast. The entire collection is estimated to contain 60,000 items. Included are extensive runs of major “superhero” comics; nearly 300 graphic novels, including an edition of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat-, the first issue of Action Comics (June 1938), in which the character of Superman was introduced; and compilations of newspaper strips such as Prince Valiant and Terry and the Pirates.

A manuscript by William Styron of his most recent book, A Tidewater Morning: Three Tales from Youth, has been donated to Duke University’s Special Collections Library by theauthor. In addition to the manuscript, Styron donated more than 5,000 pieces of correspondence, including letters from fans, agents, editors, publishers, family members, and fellow literary figures, among them John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Lillian Heilman, Arthur Miller, and Eudora Welty. Dates of the letters range from the 1940s to the present. Also included are audioand videotaped interviews with Styron, as well as awards and photographs.

A Samuel Beckett manuscript notebookdating from the early 1950s has been acquired by the Ohio State University Libraries’ Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts. The notebook contains Beckett’s manuscript draft for Fin de Partie, differing markedly from the published text; a complete early draft of From an Abandoned Work, an early draft of an untitled short story in French; an aborted attempt by Beckett to translate his Molloy from French into English; and a brief unpublished fragment from En Attendant Godot. The notebook will be added to the libraries’ Beckett manuscript collection, one of the world’s major repositories of original Beckett materials. ■

Ed. note: Send your news to: Grants & Acquisitions, C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; e-mail: tmorris@ala.org