ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Grants and Acquisitions

Ann-Christe Young

Santa Clara University (SCU) has receiveda gift of $15 million from Lorry Lokey, a member of the SCU board of trustees and founder and president of Business Wire. The gift will be used to “transform the 150-year old institution’s library into a technology-infused learning center.” The learning center will combine the physical resources and professional support of a traditional university library with wide access to new technologies.

The University of Minnesota has receiveda gift of $25,000 from Harry and Sandy Lerner to support the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest Archives. The first installment was given in honor of Rabbi Bernard and Leah Raskas. Harry Lerner has also agreed to deposit one copy of each book ever printed by Lemer Publishing in the Anderson Library.

The University of North Florida (UNF) hasreceived a gift of $200,000 from members of the late philanthropist J. P. Hall’s family as payment on a deferred gift in support of the Lifelong Learning Initiative, the building enhancement fund for the University Center. Hall and his sister Dena Mae Lemen made a financial commitment to support the University Center in January 1999. At that time they made a $50,000 gift.

The University of South Carolina (USC)has received a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Libraries Services (IMLS) to fund the Preservation Training Initiative for Small Libraries and Museums in South Carolina. Conservators from across South Carolina will demonstrate proper preservation and collection care techniques. The initiative, set to begin this year, is a joint effort of USC’s Thomas Cooper Library and Mckissick Museum with the assistance of Distance Education and Instructional Support and the College of Library and Information Science.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) responded to the nation’s critical shortage of librarians by awarding nearly $2 million to universities and colleges to recruit and educate students in library and information science. The awards also provide advanced training, especially in digital technologies, to professional librarians. The following universities received awards: The University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science (SIRLS), $492,708; University of Denver, Penrose Library $233,204; Indiana University, Indianapolis, $73,005; University of Kentucky School of library and Information Science, $329,427; Mansfield University of Pennsylvania, $356,491; Texas Woman’s University School of Library and Information Studies (SOS), $77,520; North Harris Montgomery Community College District-Mont- gomery College, $268,491.

Acquisitions

The Fred W. Todd Tennessee Williams Collection has been acquired by the Historic New Orleans Collection. Williams lived in New Orleans from 1938 until the time of his death in 1983. The collection includes signed first editions and proof copies of Williams’s separate publications, books to which Williams made a contribution, translations of his work into numerous foreign languages, unpublished poetry, rewrites of screenplays, short stories, plays, a significant cache of Williams’ correspondence, and memorabilia surrounding the theatrical and film productions of Williams’s work.

Activist David Nichols donated 17,000items to the newly dedicated Williams-Nichols Library and Archive for Gay and Lesbian Studies at the University of Louisville. The dedication was held on June 28, 2001, the 35th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. The collection includes 3,000 monographs, periodicals, and ephemera from demonstrations and marches. Regional gay and lesbian organizations are donating their archives and partnering with the libraries to expand the collection.

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

C. J. Taylor, a Mohawk author and artist,has donated 14 color illustrations from the children’s book Firedancers to the National Library of Canada. Taylor draws her inspiration to paint and write children’s books from the legends of various Aboriginal nations. Firedancer tells the story of a little girl who accompanies her grandmother to an island to perform a sacred dance. In front of a fire, they renew their connection with the “Firedancers” of the past. Using acrylic on paper, Taylor paints colorful and captivating scenes depicting characters who live in harmony with nature.

The Jacobs Collection of Asian Studieshas been acquired by Dickinson College. The collection, donated by Norman Jacobs and his wife, Margaret Ayres Jacobs (Class of 1951), includes more than 20,000 books, maps, and other materials on all of Asia. The collection is strongest in the areas of Jacob’s personal expertise (institutional history and the social sciences), but also includes, among other topics, classical and modern Japanese literature in English translation. The collection also includes hundreds of maps and charts produced during World War II by Allied and Japanese military sources. Some of the maps and charts were originally classified and issued in about a dozen copies; there may be no other copies existing today.

A missing 13th-century stone corbel fromTroyes Cathedral in France has been returned to Cornell University Library after having disappeared for more than nine decades. A Cornell project engineer, Randy Nesbitt, was researching campus architecture when he learned about the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the corbel that Andrew Dickson White (the university’s first president) acquired in 1886. While looking at some 19th-century photos of the corbel that had been discovered while digitizing the A. D. White Architectural Photographs Collection, the engineer realized he’d seen the corbel in a colleague’s garden. Apparently it had been in another Cornell employee’s office for about 30 years, and when he retired in 1990, he gave it to his successor. The corbel was returned to the university and is now on display in Kroch Library in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections and will be transferred to the sculpture collection at Cornell’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.

The John A. Lindseth Collection of American Woman Suffrage has been acquired by the Cornell University Library. The collection, donated by alumni couple Jon A. and Virginia M. Lindseth, chronicles the history of women’s struggle for the right to vote, from the early 19th century through 1920, when the 19th amendment to the Constitution of the United States enfranchising American women was signed into law. The collection contains more than 500 items, including rare books, periodicals, pamphlets, letters, cartoons, photographs, banners, campaign buttons, and rare ephemeral broadsides and campaign leaflets used to spread support for the cause at political rallies and conventions.

The Coxe Family Mining Papers, originallyacquired by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1968, are now open to researchers. From 1865 to 1905, the Coxe family companies were recognized as one of the largest independent anthracite coal producing interests in the United States. The family owned 30,000 acres in Pennsylvania’s Carbon, Schuylkill, Luzerne Counties. The 500 linear feet of materials “chronicle all aspects of the family’s coal mining interests, documenting the changing immigrant labor force, and various strikes and labor organizing efforts at Coxe-owned collieries,” said David Moltke-Hansen, the Historical Society president. The processing of the papers was funded by a $77,873 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, Historical Society funds, and a $14,755 grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. ■