ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Grants and Acquisitions

Ann-Christe Galloway

The Newberry Library has received nearly$65,000 in a “Dream Again” grant from the Illinois State Library to develop a comprehensive plan for the retrospective conversion of the Newberry’s century-old card catalog. Currently, only 20 percent of the Newberry’s collection is represented in the online catalog. Martha Conway, who oversaw more than a dozen retrospective conversion efforts at the Yale University Libraries, will work with the Newberry Library staff to design a multiyear project that will result in the conversion of approximately 800,000 records, including those for rare books, maps, manuscripts, and music. They will establish data standards and procedures for securing catalog records from vendors, lay the groundwork for funding, and develop a strategy for managing the project on an ongoing basis. The planning grant is part of a $3-million project to modernize collection access for users of the Newberry Library.

Alan Leopold, director of collection services at the Newberry Library, and Martha Conway, project consultant, in front of the Newberry's century-old card catalog.

The University of California-Davis hasbeen awarded $86,765 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the California State librarian, to process the papers of California poet Gary Snyder and to make the collection accessible through a finding aid mounted on the Online Archive of California Web site. Snyder has published more than 18 books of poetry and prose. No Nature, a volume of selected poems, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1992. His book Turtle islandwon the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1975. The Snyder Papers consist of over 180 linear feet of his published and unpublished works, manuscripts, personal and business correspondence, and photographs.

The Columbia University OralHistory Research Office (OHRO) has received a grant of $48,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation to support the second year of work on the “September 11, 2001, Oral History Narrative and Memory Project.” The funds will be used to hire a project coordinator. Through a grant of $ 132,894 in October 2001 from the Rockefeller Foundation, OHRO conducted 120 interviews with American and immigrant Muslims, Latinos, and Afghans, as well as artists whose work and lives were affected by the aftermath of the events.

Ohio State University has been awarded$58,000 from the Save America’s Treasures program of the National Endowment for the Arts/National Parks Service to preserve the James Thurber Collection. The inherently acidic nature of the papers used by Thurber for his literary manuscripts and correspondence requires treatment to stabilize their chemistry. The collection is the primary resource for the manuscripts, letters, drawings, published works, scrapbooks, and other supporting materials of the American humorist.

Northeastern University has beenawarded $19,979 by the Library Services and Technology Act through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for projects relating to serving individuals with disabilities and to preserving library materials. The Serving People with Disabilities award will improve access to library information resources; remove barriers that impede access; increase awareness about library services for people with disabilities; and expand training to staff and to patrons with disabilities at the Boston and Burlington campuses. A second project, a preservation survey grant of $1,500, will provide about half of the funding to hire a consultant to survey the Archives and Special Collections Department’s collections and facility.

Cornell University has received a $170,000grant from the Ford Foundation to investigate the feasibility of using hermetic sealing to preserve master copies of library microforms in developing countries. Hermetic sealing is a process that involves sealing packaged microfilm in a pouch purged of oxygen in a system similar to the sealing of dried food. Cornell’s study will be the first to determine whether hermetic sealing can be designed to preserve and protect microfilm for long periods without a cold storage vault. Preservation librarians at Cornell will collaborate with staff at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Image Permanence Institute to review hermetic sealing systems currently in use by institutions in Indonesia. The study will provide a definitive scientific review of the technology and produce practical instructions and specifications on its use and application.

Acquisitions

The papers of John DePol, accomplishedbook artist and illustrator, have been acquired by the University of Delaware. Regarded as one of the preeminent wood engravers of his time ‚ DePol is an accomplished artist in a variety of media and techniques, including etching, lithography, watercolor, and oil painting. The University of Delaware Library acquired the papers, which span 100 linear feet in their unprocessed state, by a combination of gift and purchase directly from DePol. During the course of his long career, DePol worked with some of the best-known fine-press printers and did commercial work and produced keepsakes, invitations, booklets, and illustrations for magazines, corporations, publishers, foundations, and academic institutions.

Acollection from Richard B. (Dick) Yale,a third-generation printer and founder of the

Butterfield Express: Historical Newspaper of the Great Southwest,has been acquired by San Diego State University. The collection includes books, manuscripts, photographs, and ephemera relating to the history of printing, California, and the American West. Yale’s decades of collecting led to an accumulation of rare books on the printing process and the life histories of its artisans. Included in the donation are handmade, limited editions, such as The Life Work of Dard Hunter, by Dard Hunter II, which highlights the experiences of the 20th-century printer who worked for the Roycrofters Studio. There are also several Washington hand-printing presses, drawers of wood-type specimens, and vintage cameras used by Yale during his lengthy journalism and printing career.

Speaker Tom Murphy, former Speaker ofthe Georgia House of Representatives for 27 years, has donated the political papers and memorabilia housed in his office to the State University of West Georgia. A recreation of his office will be built on campus, complete with the actual contents including furnishings, framed photographs, plaques, and certificates to make the papers accessible to the citizens of Georgia.

The correspondence of Irish actress andactivist Maud Gonne and Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats has been acquired by Emory University. Some 370 letters from Gonne to Yeats, and 30 of his to her, comprise the collection. When Yeats met Gonne in 1889, she stirred him to strong feelings of Irish nationalism. Two years after their meeting, Gonne refused Yeats’ proposal for marriage. That refusal may have impelled Yeats to even greater work. Not many of Yeats’ letters to Gonne survive, due to her frequent moves, her fear of implicating him as an Irish Nationalist by keeping his letters, and the damage caused when her Dublin house was raided by the Free State Police in 1922.

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