ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Grants and Acquisitions

Ann-Christe Young

Rutgers University was awarded $73,126by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s “Save America’s Heritage” grant program to preserve the Roebling Collection. The collection consists of papers of father and son bridge engineers John A. and Washington Roebling; designs and other documentation for 24 bridges and other structures, including the Brooklyn Bridge; papers of several generations of family members, including Washington’s wife Emily Warren Roebling (who directly supervised the building of the Brooklyn Bridge when Washington became ill) and his brother Ferdinand Roebling, who directed a wire rope business; records of the John A. Roebling’s Sons Company; Washington Roebling’s Civil War journal and his hand-drawn wartime maps.

The Special Collections Department of theUniversity of Nevada, Reno (UNR) Libraries has received a gift of $10,000 from the Moran Family Trust Fund to establish an endowment for the preservation and maintenance of rare documents and collections. Professor Bruce Moran has been a member of the UNR faculty for 25 years and Barbara Moran has been a teacher for the Washoe County School District since 1976. Earnings from the endowment may also be used to purchase preservation equipment, support the efforts of the Black Rock Press, and underwrite staff/stu- dent travel to attend appropriate conferences.

The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA)Libraries has received a $20,000 grant from the Texas State Library and Archives’ TexTreasures program. The grant will partially fund a project called Tejano Voices, which will provide improved access to 77 oral history interviews conducted during the 1990s by UTA political science professor, Jose Angel Gutierrez. The project will run from September 1, 2001, through August 31, 2002. The interviews emphasize the personal stories and struggles of Tejano leaders, many of whom are the first individuals of Mexican descent in their communities elected or appointed to government office. Tejano Voices will feature a Web site, which will provide access to streamed audio of the interviews and to the interview transcripts.

The University of Nebraska Lincoln Libraries have received a gift of $3.3 million from the estate of Mildred Othmer Peterson (1902-2001). Peterson attended the University of Nebraska from 1921 to 1923, where she worked as a student assistant in the library. She later became a noted world traveler, writer, lecturer, librarian, and civic leader. She was a writer and special assistant for ALA from 1935 to 1959 and wrote for the Chicago Tribune from 1941 to 1959- Peterson was active in many community, national and international organizations, and she co-founded the Pan American Council in 1939 and the Pan American Board of Education in 1956.

Acquisitions

The Thomas and Kathleen Clarke Collection has been acquired by Boston College. Clarke was the revolutionary leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the first signer of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which was read aloud on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, during what became known as the Easter Rising. The uprising was the first of a series of events that culminated in the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1921. For his part in the Easter Rising, Clarke was executed with the first group of leaders at Kilmainham Jail in May 1916. In the aftermath of the Easter Rising, Kathleen Clarke entered politics and in 1939 became the first woman mayor of Dublin. The collection, preserved by their son Emmet, is rich in books, letters, photographs, newspapers, manuscripts, pamphlets, and ephemera drawn from the original collection commenced by Clarke and his wife. ■

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