ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Grants and Acquisitions

Ann-Christe Young

Cornell University has received a $297,000grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to preserve and digitize a unique collection of ephemera, published materials, and artifacts from U.S. national political campaigns (1800-1976) and make the information available and searchable on the Web. The goal of the project is to make more widely known and accessible the Susan H. Douglas Collection of Political Americana in Cornell’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. There are approximately 5,500 objects of political memorabilia dating from 1789 to I960. The finished collection will be represented by more than 35,000 online images, searchable by year, candidate, and format.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has received a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to build a program to protect and preserve endangered library materials. Under the terms of the award, UIUC will receive $700,000 in endowment funds on a two-to-one matching basis, contingent upon its ability to raise $1.4 million during the next five years. The funds will provide permanent support for library preservation efforts. UIUC will receive an outright gift of $300,000 to design and equip a conservation laboratory by spring 2003Nassau Community College has received an $85,000 Perkins III grant from the New York State Department of Education to establish a new e-commerce lab.

The University of Mississippi's Center forthe Study of Southern Culture has received a $50,000 planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to compose the Mississippi Encyclopedia. Featuring listings from Adams County and Alcorn State University to author Stark Young and the town of Zion Hill, the one- volume hardback edition will include 2,5000 entries contained within 800 pages and is set to be published in late 2005 or 2006.

North Carolina State University (NCSU)has been awarded a $48,100 grant for a joint project with the Biltmore Estate Company and the Forest History Society to create a Web-based resource for research on the forestry history of North Carolina. The award is a North Carolina ECHO (Exploring Cultural Heritage Online) EZ-Library Services and Technology Act digitization demonstration grant. The Carl Alwin Schenck Collection, housed in the Special Collections Department of the NCSU Libraries, forms the foundation of forestry history resources among the three institutions. The NCSU Libraries plans to digitize more than 1,000 photographs (from 1889 to 1951) that detail life at the first school of forestry in the United States, the Biltmore Forest School (founded by Schenck), forest- study tours in Europe and America, and forestry training programs. Text-based documents set for digitization include Schenck’s diaries, journals, and letters dating from 1890 to 1954.

Acquisitions

Angelo State University's West TexasCollection (WTC) has received six major collections to its holdings: 1) The Rob Junell papers include the official records and correspondence of the retiring chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee. The papers date from 1988, his first year in office, and cover his political career. 2) The Houston Harte papers cover the career of the San Angelo Standard-Times publisher from 1942 until his death in 1972. Harte was a friend and confidant of Lyndon Baines Johnson. The materials include personal and business correspondence, photographs, and 23 scrapbooks. 3) Papers from the Ulmer Bird collection cover the donor’s experience as a chaplain in World War II and his subsequent West Texas career when he served as postmaster of Sanco in Coke County and was the owner of several West Texas newspapers. 4) A collection of Elmer Kelton’s writing career includes 250 books and more than 75 pulp magazines and other ephemera. 5) Mike Cox donated materials he collected while doing the biography Fred Gipson: Texas Storyteller, published in 1980. The materials include manuscripts, correspondence, and movie-related materials from Old Yeller and other movies produced from Gipson’s books. 6) Retired West Texas newspaperman Bill Hinnant gave WTC the research he completed over several years on Texas cattle claims to the federal government for losses sustained during the Mexican Revolution.

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

The papers of Canadian fiction publisherPrairie Fire have been donated to the University of Manitoba Libraries. The papers include materials relating to the workings of this small press, including correspondence, reviews, material relating to the press’ annual writing competitions, and manuscripts.

Drawings of Texas architect O'Neil Ford(1905-82) have been donated to the Alexander Architectural Archive at the University of Texas at Austin by his widow, Wanda Graham Ford. The gift includes 5,540 original architectural drawings, 5,484 prints, 40 presentation drawings, 39 presentation sketches, and 63 sheets of photographic materials. The donation covers Ford’s work through 1966 and complements an earlier gift to the Alexander Architectural Archive of Ford’s office files, personal papers, and books. Ford’s most notable projects include the restoration of La Villita and designs for the new campus for Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and Skidmore College in New York. ■