ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the field

ACQUISITIONS

• Cornell University Libraries have received the papers of Harry W. Frantz, a journalist for the United Press from 1920 to 1965. The collection covers such diverse subjects as diplomatic history, Latin America, aviation, political history, World Wars I and II, photography, and journalism.

•Frostrurg State College, Maryland, has received an extensive collection of books on military and diplomatic history from the estate of the late John W. Davis, Jr., a member of the college’s history faculty for 13 years prior to his death in 1981. The more than 3,100 volumes cover the two world wars and recent European military history.

•The Maryland Historical Society Library, Baltimore, has received the personal and professional archive of Eubie Blake (1883-1983), Baltimore-born pianist, composer and songwriter. Songs and instrumental pieces in manuscript, including Charleston Rag (1899), form the heart of the collection together with extensive documentation of Blake’s collaboration with singer and lyricist Noble Sissle (1889-1975), Flournoy Miller, Milton Reddie, and others. The musical comedy Shuffle Along, presented on Broadway in 1921, is represented in correspondence, box office records, programs, scores and parts, photographs, and printed sheet music. Blake’s involvement in other productions is similarly documented. Photographs, news clippings, and printed ephemera support the collection’s primary materials.

•Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, has opened the Avery O. Craven Collection. Craven (1885-1980) was a well-known American historian who specialized in mid-19th century American history, particularly the Antebellum South. The collection includes his personal library of over 2,000 volumes, notes, manuscripts, correspondence with historians Charles Beard, Frederick Jackson Turner, and others, and memorabilia. Formal dedication of the collection will take place on October 6.

•The University of Houston’s M.D. Anderson Library has received a collection of the papers and correspondence of Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836). The Austin Collection, presented to the library by a Houston businessman in honor of Texas Independence Day, includes the first census taken in Texas; some of the earliest documents relating to Austin’s first Texas colony; speeches and letters written during Austin’s tour of the United States to secure loans for the Republic of Texas; and a miniature broadside announcing Austin's death at the home of Judge McKinstry.

•The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Southern Historical Collection has received the papers of noted alumnus Allard K. Lowenstein. This comprehensive collection covers Lowenstein’s life from youth to his death in 1980 and includes personal material, records of his political and civil rights activities in the 1960s and 1970s, his congressional service, his humanitarian efforts, and his United Nations appointment. The library staff expects to open the papers for research by July 1985.

GRANTS

•The State University of New York at Albany’s School of Library and Information Science has received a $24,000 Title II-B grant from the U.S. Department of Education for fellowships to support qualified students who wish to pursue the MLS degree with a specialization in records management. The focus will prepare students for positions in government, industry, and other organizations engaged in the process of applying modern technology to solve their information problems. The 36-credit program will begin in September 1983 and continue through the summer of 1984 with an internship.

•Tufts University Libraries, Medford, Massachusetts, have received a $750,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grant is to be matched on a three for one basis over the next three years, resulting in an endowment of $3 million. The monies will be used to develop and maintain humanities collections and services, as well as a “tools for tomorrow” program in which Tufts librarians will develop expertise in new areas of knowledge relating to research and teaching in the humanities.

•The University of Pittsburgh’s School of Library and Information Science has been awarded $38,000 by the Pennsylvania Department of Education for their Innovative Technology Project for Western Pennsylvania Schools. The project will train school librarians and teachers for microcomputer technology transfer in classrooms and will be a collaboration among the university, public and private schools, the public library system, and microcomputer company representatives.

•UTLAS, Inc., Toronto, has received financial support of $2 million from the Province of Ontario, through the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development and the Ontario Development Corporation. The funding will assist UTLAS in upgrading its library automation systems to current computer technology and in pursuing its corporate development plans.

•Washington State Library, Olympia, has received $6,750 from several public and private organizations to establish a collection of technical, semi-technical, and popular materials on the eruption of Mt. St. Helens and its aftermath. All forms of media will be collected, including newspaper clippings, photographs, pamphlets, research papers, technical reports, and films. All cataloged items will appear in the Washington Library Network and will be available for interlibrary loan. The proposed collection is an outgrowth of the work of the Governor’s Mt. St. Helens Research Task Group. ■■