ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

News From the Field

Acquisitions

• DePaul University Library, Chicago, has received a major addition to its University Archives. The Leon Stein collection documents the career of the dean emeritus of the School of Music, who was associated with DePaul for 47 years. Besides books, recordings, memorabilia, and original manuscripts of his musical and critical publications, the library also received 187 Stein compositions, including solo, ensemble, vocal and orchestral works.

• The University of Wyoming Libraries, Laramie, have acquired a major collection from Great Britain of printed books of the English Romantic poets and essayists. The collection contains notable early editions by Coleridge, DeQuincey, Byron, and Wordsworth. Minor figures in the Romantic movement are also well represented and include Trelawny, Beddoes, Campbell, Moore, Gilpin, and Knight. The collection totals over 350 volumes, some of which have signatures or inscriptions of importance to scholars.

• Washington University, St. Louis, has chosen the first English edition of St. Augustine’s City of God to celebrate the acquisition of its two millionth volume. The edition, published in London in 1610, is a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Whitney R. Harris and was presented in a ceremony on December 5. This particular copy is distinguished with marginal annotations in 17th-century French, English and Latin, and 19th-century English. The last are thought to be those of John Ruskin, the influential British poet.

Grants

• Syracuse University’s Audio Archives has been awarded a $132,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education for the financing of a multifaceted re-recording and information retrieval project involving their cylinder collection. Many of these recordings, dating from 1890 to 1920, are slowly disintegrating due to the effect of mold and heat. Some of the funds will be devoted to preserving the contents of 1,500 selected cylinders by recording them on tape. The grant also provides for the indexing and selective cataloging of the 7,000 cylinders in the collection.

• The University of Cincinnati Library has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Max Kade Foundation to produce an annotated catalog of its German-Americana Collection. Established in 1974, the collection is based largely on the private library of H.H. Fick, supervisor of the German bilingual program in the Cincinnati Public Schools before World War I. It consists of several thousand books, pamphlets, journals, and other materials. Completion of the annotated catalog is anticipated in 1986.

• The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, has been awarded a $1.5 million grant by the Pew Memorial Trust to support the technological transformation of its research libraries. The funds will be used to implement a comprehensive computer network, a principal goal of the library’s five-year plan. Called PennLIN, the network will provide an online catalog system linking 14 separate campus libraries into a coordinated network. A portion of the grant will be used to convert all serials titles to machine-readable form.

• WEBNET, Inc., a not-for-profit network of small academic libraries in Western Pennsylvania, has received a grant of $186,570 from the Buhl Foundation to enable its automated system to move into the fully operational mode. The college libraries participating in the system are Carlow, Chatham, Point Park, and Westminster. With the help of this grant the network will address two primary tasks: to make the most effective use of technological advances in achieving objectives defined and modified by experience; and to articulate and refine the organizational structure founded on shared ownership and shared decision making. WEBNET has contracted with the Pittsburgh Regional Library Center for administrative services during the next three years.

• The West Virginia University Library, Morgantown, has received a grant of $88,051 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the West Virginia Newspaper Project currently being undertaken by the library’s West Virginia and Regional History Collection. The purpose of the project is to locate, preserve, and establish bibliographic control over all newspapers published in the area both before and after the Civil War. Harold M. Forbes, associate curator of the collection, has begun a statewide inventory of the holdings of over 150 repositories. His staff will record full bibliographic data on MARC worksheets using AACR2, OCLC, and LC standards for each newspaper title and will coordinate a comprehensive microfilming and preservation program. Following the scheduled completion of data entry in 1986, a descriptive and historical guide to West Virginia newspapers will be published.

News notes

• Tufts University’s Bernstein Audiovisual Center, Medford, Massachusetts, a modern facility for the Wessell Library’s growing collection of films, videotapes, slides, and related materials, was dedicated November 8. The Center was made possible by a major gift from Boston residents David and Irene Bernstein. The complex includes two viewing rooms, each equipped for videotape, film, or slides; a multi-purpose projection room serving both viewing facilities; individual video or slide viewing areas; a smaller viewing room seating 10; and a storage area.

• Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts, has dedicated and named its library in honor of Madeleine Clark Wallace, Class of 1934, who provided the largest single endowment the College has ever received from an alumna. Her gift fulfilled the Ses- quicentennial Campaign goal of providing a collection development endowment for the library.