ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Grants and Acquisitions

Hugh Thompson

The Libraries of TheClaremont Colleges have re- ceived a grant of $1 million from the Ahmanson Foun- dation to acquire new tech- nological capabilities and to upgrade existing technol- ogy. The grant will enable the libraries to make progress toward their goal of connecting various cam- puses, students, and faculty through electronic networks.

Columbia UniversityLibraries has received a grant of $25,000 from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to support two projects to increase scholarly access to archives at Columbia. The Rare Book and Manuscript Library will get $16,000 to aid in the completion of a project to catalog more than 300 valuable medieval and Renaissance manuscripts from the library’s collection. The remainder will assist the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library in cataloging drawings related to the archives of architect and builder Rafael Guastavino (1842–1908).

Harvard University's Fine Arts Library,along with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the National Gallery of Canada, has received $160,000 to convert card files of art-auction catalogs to electronic format. The three participating institutions will contribute the records of the catalogs—which provide financial and provenance information of works of art dating back to the 17th century—to SCIPIO, the Research Libraries Group’s database of auction catalogs.

The University of California-lrvine (UCI)Libraries has received two gifts: the 1996 Senior Class Gift and a special grant from the Friends of the Library. Graduating seniors are asked to make a pledge, the recipient of which is chosen by ballot. The Senior Class Gift for 1995 was more than $21,000. The Friends of the UCI Library have pledged $150,000 for the purchase of new furniture for the public areas in the renovated Main Library.

The University Libraries at Wayne StateUniversity have received a bequest from the Gerald J., Myrna F., and Stuart L. Bernath estate in the amount of $550,000. The gift will be used to support the establishment of the Stuart L. Bernath Seminar Room, to construct the Gerald J. and Myrna F. Bernath Auditorium, to establish the Bernath Family endowment for the purchase of library materials, and to fund the Bernath Lecture Series in the areas of American history, diplomacy, and foreign affairs.

Acquisitions

More than 250 Edwardian novels written between 1901 and 1915 have been acquired by the Fales Library of New York University. The acquisition will strengthen the library’s already extensive holdings of Edwardian popular novelists. Authors in the collection include Edith Barclay, Harold Bindloss, Baroness Orczy, Max Pemberton, and many others.

United Media has donated 716 volumesof Newspaper Enterprise Association proof books dating from 1903 to 1977 to Ohio State University’s Cartoon, Graphic, and Photographic Arts Research Library. The collection of syndicate proof books is unique as the only publicly available complete run of all of the news stories and features offered by a major American newspaper syndicate. The proof books include comic strips and panel cartoons, daily world news (from the Russo-Japanese War to the Carter presidency), editorial analysis (from noted columnists such as Heywood Broun, Drew Pearson, Ernie Pyle, and Eleanor Roosevelt), and feature materials (including child training, movies, etiquette, sports, and gardening).

A collection of art books, periodicals,and auction catalogs has been acquired by the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Library. The gift, donated by brothers Joseph, Francis, Nicholas, Henry, and Louis Fazzano (who served as RISD’s president in 1992-93), totals more than 8,200 items, in- cluding 1,600 books, mono- graphs of artists, exhibition catalogs, and fine press edi- tions. The brothers also do- nated research materials supporting a collection of 1920s and 1930s American prints that were given by the Fazzano family to RISD’s Museum of Art in 1984.

The papers of Joe Mad-ison, member of the Na- tional Board of the NAACP and host of the “Lunch with Joe” talk-radio program in Washington, D.C., have been acquired by Tulane University’s Amistad Research Center. Madison is former executive di- rector of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP and president of the Michigan Leadership Confer- ence. He was the national director for the NAACP Voter Education Department (1979–86). His popular radio talk show won the 1990 March of Dimes Achievement in Radio Award, and the JayCees named him one of America’s Note- worthy Community Leaders in 1976, 1977, and 1978. The collection includes tapes, clippings, photographs, and videos documenting a life spent in the front lines of civil rights.

A collection of materials by and aboutAmerican author Jesse Stuart have been acquired by the University of South Carolina. The gift from Lucille Jordan Palmer includes 15 printed titles, a substantial collection of original letters from Stuart to Palmer dated from the 1950s to the 1970s, and a group of inscribed cuttings and offprints of Stuart pieces which appeared in periodicals and learned magazines. The most important item is a rare first edition of Stuart’s first book, Harvest of Youth, published in 1930 and inscribed to Palmer.

The papers of Henry Washington Benham, a colonel in the Corps of Engineers whose career included service in the Mexican War and the Civil War, have been acquired by the University Libraries’ Special Collections Division at the University of Texas at Ar- lington. The papers include four manuscript maps pre- pared by Benham during the Mexican War which at- test to his talent as a mili- tary cartographer. In addi- tion, the collection includes a rare copy of his recollec- tions of his service entitled Recollections of Mexico and the Battle of Buena Vista, Mexico, Feb. 22nd and 23rd, 1847, published in Boston in 1871. From his Civil War service there are 20 maps either drawn or used by him, as well as letters and a handwritten ledger book with all the dispatches and orders reflecting his actions in western Virginia.

Joe Madison and friend. Madison’s papers are now at Tulane University.

The papers of British playwright JohnOsborne have been acquired by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Osborne, who died Christmas Eve 1994, gained international fame in 1956 when his play Look Back in Anger was presented at London’s Royal Court Theatre. The collection includes handwritten drafts of most of Osborne’s works, such as The Entertainer, Luther, Inadmissible Evidence, and A Patriot for Me, as well as clippings, photographs, posters, and correspondence representing Osborne’s dealings with many people in the theater business, and even fan letters. The handwritten drafts for Look Back in Anger were acquired by the Ransom Center in 1993.

The archive of noted photographer andauthor David Plowden of Winnetka, Illinois, has been acquired by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Since 1952, when he began to photograph steam locomotives, Plowden has studied, documented, and commented upon the transformation of America. Compiled over more than 40 years, the archive includes more than 10,000 negatives and contact prints, several thousand exhibition and reproduction prints, field notebooks, journals, correspondence, research notes, drafts of various publications, and copies of virtually all of Plowden’s published work. ■

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