ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Grants and Acquisitions

Ann-Christe Young

The City University of New York (CUNY)has received a $650,000 grant from the Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program of the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The model project brings together Brooklyn College, four area high schools, CUNY, and the College Board to connect each of the schools to the Internet and to develop “Learning Cafes”—Internet-centered college-preparatory programs in each of the schools.

The Atlanta History Center Library/Archives has received a $33,000 grant from the NHPRC to catalog several photograph collections, including its cased images, the Long-Rucker-Aiken family collection of African American photographs, and the photos of photojournalist, Marion Johnston.

The University of California, Berkeley(UCB) has received a $3.5 million gift from 1964 alumnus, former library employee, and cofounder of Innovative Interfaces (a library automation company) Stephen M. Silberstein to supplement state appropriations for the university library’s collections, digitize the Free Speech Movement archives, and build a library cafe honoring Mario Savio, who started the Free Speech Movement of 1964. Thirty-three years ago, Savio mounted the roof of a police car to defend free speech at UCB. To restrict speech may seem puzzling to anyone who was not on a college campus prior to 1964, UCB Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl said. Before the Free Speech Movement, UCB and many other universities placed restrictions on advocating political causes on campus. The university will establish an endowment for the library’s collection, which has been the focal point of concern by faculty and students.

The University of Oregon's KnightLibrary has received a gift from a NIKE international trading partner, the Nissho Iwai American Corporation. The gift, which comes in response to NIKE CEO Phil Knight’s 1996 gift of $25 million to the university, will help endow the management initiatives of the Knight Library. This is the second gift Nissho Iwai American Corporation has made to the library. The first in 1990 helped finance the library’s $27.4 million expansion and renovation project. Yutaka Kase, general manager of the company’s Portland office, says the company made the gift for two reasons. “First, we want to underscore our long-term commitment to the people of Portland … by building on our original investment in the University of Oregon’s Knight Library. The second reason is to honor Mr. Knight’s great commitment to supporting the University of Oregon.” The annual income from the endowment will support the library’s current efforts to nurture information-sharing relationships with other research libraries in the United States and abroad.

The University Library System at theUniversity of Pittsburgh has received a one- year grant of $32,000 from the Buhl Foundation for its project “Pittsburgh Politics and Government: 20th Century Transitions.” The grant will support the conducting of oral history interviews with political, government, and civic leaders from Pittsburgh and Allegheny County to record changes that have taken place in local government over the past 40 years or more.

The University of North Carolina (UNC)at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science (SILS) received part of a $2.4 million award given to the university by the Intel Corporation. On the UNC campus, the Department of Computer Science will coordinate projects with nine other departments, including SILS, under the three- year award. Funded with more than $375,000 in equipment, the Laboratory for Networking and Internet Technologies will provide a high- performance computing infrastructure to enhance several technology-oriented courses at SILS. In addition to the distributed lab project, the Intel award to UNC will provide computing equipment for a number of research projects across campus that blend applied and basic research to solve real-world problems. The university was one of 25 schools nationwide to receive funding last fall as part of Intel’s highly competitive “Technology for Education 2000” program.

Ed. note: Send your news to: Grants & Acquisitions, C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795; e-mail: ayoung@ala.org.

Acquisitions

Horse artist Wesley Dennis's illustrations have been acquired by the University of Virginia. Some 170 original Dennis illustrations created for the children’s book Misty of Chincoteague (published in 1947) and for author Marguerite Henry’s other classic books about the wild ponies of the Virginia coastal island were given to the special collections department. The illustrations, chiefly black- and-white pencil drawings, were given to the library by the Misty of Chincoteague Foundation Inc. According to Michael Plunkett, the library’s director of special collections, Henry and Dennis contributed significantly to the popularity of horse books.

A col lection of historic brewery recordsfrom the Blatz Brewing Company in Wisconsin has been acquired by the Golda Meir Library at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. The records include more than 400 journals and ledgers with extensive information concerning customers, finances, and production. The Blatz collection dates from 1860 and documents the company’s growth in the late 19th century, the sale of the business in 1890, and the impact of the Prohibition Era during the 1920s. The cash books, journals, and ledgers tell the nature of the brewing industry and the relationship of Blatz to the business concerns that made the bottles, printed the labels, and provided the malt and other ingredients that were necessary to the beer-making process.

The Rosario Mazzeo Collection of Clarinet Music has been donated to the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Donated by Mazzeo’s widow, Katie Clare Mazzeo, the collection of over 1,700 items of clarinet music will constitute one of the major resources for clarinet studies in the United States. Rosario Mazzeo (1911-1997) was a clarinetist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1933 to 1966. He authored numerous articles, including a definitive clarinet text, and was an innovator in the field of clarinet mechanism design, creating a widely used Mazzeo system clarinet. He also actively taught clarinet and coached chamber music for more than 60 years. At his request, the bulk of his collection, which emphasizes twentieth-century composers, has been donated to the university library.

The archive of Anthony Burgess (1917-1993), British author, has been acquired by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The collection includes the bulk of his manuscripts, papers, first editions, and correspondence. Burgess became an unusually prolific and versatile author of novels, literary criticism, and composer of music who may be best known for his novel A Clockwork Orange (1962). Written in a hybrid fusion of Russian and English, the novel is memorable for its haunting vision of a violent society. ■