COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES NEWS

News from the Field

ACQUISITIONS

• Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina, has acquired the public papers and memorabilia of U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), a historic collection spanning 50 years of state and national political life. Thurmond, a 1923 Clemson alumnus, is chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and president pro tempore of the Senate. The 1,000 cubic feet of public papers will take the library’s staff nearly three years to organize. By then the university plans to have completed the collection’s permanent home in the Strom Thurmond Center for Excellence in Government and Public Service, a complex of new facilities and programs located near the main library.

• Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, has acquired the Marguerite Oswald collection of material relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The collection was received from the estate of the late Mrs. Oswald, mother of accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, upon her death in 1980. Keystone of the gift is the full Warren Commission report on which Marguerite Oswald inscribed her own comments, such as “Lee never said this.” Many of the 200 hardback books in the Oswald collection are signed by the authors and others are dedicated to Mrs. Oswald. Also included are extensive holdings of newspapers and magazines relating directly or indirectly to the assassination.

GRANTS

• The Association of Research Libraries, Washington, has been awarded $53,000 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in support of a program to improve bibliographic access to microform collections in North American libraries. The Mellon award, together with a $20,000 grant from the Council on Library Resources, assures the funding needed to complete the two-year project.

• Case Western Reserve University Library, Cleveland, has received a grant of $118,000 from the Pew Memorial Trust for a library computerization program that will monitor users’ needs over a period of time. Results of the study will become the basis for establishing better priorities for purchase, storage, and disposal of items in the collection. By 1990 the university will have installed a campus-wide information system which will be linked with the libraries’ online system.

• The Johns Hopkins University’s Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Baltimore, has received a $185,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to strengthen the library’s preservation program. With this added support, the library’s current preservation resources (a restoration bindery and related offices) will be enlarged through the addition of a qualified paper conservator, and the program of education and technical training will be expanded. The training program will enable the Eisenhower Library to conduct workshops and sponsor consultancies and internships which will be offered to other libraries in the mid-Atlantic region and to members of the Research Libraries Group. The preservation workshops and consultant program will begin in the spring of 1982, and the preservation internships will be available in the fall of 1982.

• Kentucky Wesleyan College, Owensboro, has received $10,000 from an Owensboro teacher to establish the Margaret Julia White Library Learning Center Endowment Fund. White was a member of the Settle Memorial United Methodist Church and the gift was made in recognition of the college’s affiliation with the Methodist Church and its devotion to education. The funds will be used to buy books, periodicals, or equipment for the Library Learning Center.

• The Library of Congress has received a grant of $500,000 from the IBM Corporation to acquire, process, and interpret the papers and working materials of Charles Eames (1907-1978), an American architect and designer. The grant will also enable the library to sponsor a series of events in upcoming years which will evaluate the significance of Eames’ work and its impact on the living and working environment of America. Included in the collection are the original negatives and prints of each of the 106 educational films Eames created, business correspondence from 1944 to 1978, approximately 400,000 color slides, 31,000 black-and-white photographs, production materials for exhibits, and drawings for all his major furniture designs. ■■