ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Grants and Acquisitions

Ann-Christe Young

The University of Kentucky (UK) Libraries’ book endowment is at $62 million and growing. As part of a university-wide capital campaign, the UK Libraries fundraising committee—under the leadership of Lexington businessman, William T. Young—has raised contributions from private donors totalling nearly $40 million with an additional $20 million pledged from the state of Kentucky’s “Bucks for Brains” program. Young, whose initial $5-million contribution kicked off an earlier $58-million campaign for construction of the state-of-the-art library at UK that bears his name, was not content to stop once the roof was raised on the new library in 1998. Young hopes that the total will reach $120 million before the campaign ends. The libraty will use the money to expand its collections, especially in the areas of research materials and databases on science, technology, and medicine.

Indiana University Bloomington (IUB)has received a $1 million award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to purchase equipment for the library’s new preservation laboratory and to establish an endowment to support preservation staff positions. An initial gift of $300,000 will assist in equipping the planned laboratory, and a matching grant of $700,000 (contingent upon the IUB Libraries raising double that amount in private funds) will endow additional positions in the Preservation Department. A new $1.7 million state-of-the- art preservation laboratory will be a component of the Auxiliary Library Facility, an off-site shelving facility that will hold approximately 2.7 million lesser-used volumes from Bloomington campus libraries, including the Lilly Library.

Amigos Library Services has receiveda $50,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop plans for strengthening the programs and long-term financial structure of its Imaging and Preservation Services. The planning process should be completed by May 1, 2002.

Johns Hopkins University's SheridanLibraries have been awarded $200,000 by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation to enhance traditional classroom-based humanities courses by creating complementary online resources. Drawing on the expertise of the humanities faculty and the university’s Center for Educational Resources, up to five undergraduate courses will be supplemented with the application of a range of digital technologies. Launched in the Eisenhower Library last fall, the center supports faculty in the application of new media and technology in teaching. Newly designed humanities courses will feature searchable image databases and readings, digital versions of primary course materials linked to other Web resources, online writing workshops, digital audio capability for language instruction, and virtual discussions.

Acquisitions

The Society of American Archivists(SAA) archives have been acquired by the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. The records amount to more than 350 cubic feet and date from the founding of the SAA in 1936 to the 1990s. Particularly notable series include records of the annual meetings from 1937; correspondence relating to the American Archivist, also dating from 1937; records from the late 1940s of the International Council of Archives, whose mission was to support exchanges between United States and foreign archives; records of the first SAA Professional Affinity Groups (now SAA sections) from the 1980s; Problems in Archives Kits or PAKs, as they were more commonly known; and records relating to public archives holdings, some of which formed the basis of Ernst Posner’s 1964 study, American State Archives.

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

Yale University alumnus Walter L.Pforzheimer has donated his private collection of more than 15,000 books and 46 linear feet of manuscript material to Yale’s Beinecke Library. Pforzheimer inherited two collections from his father (an almost complete collection of the French playwright Molière and a collection of French armorial bindings, which included one of the bindings from the library of 16th-century bibliophile Jean Grolier). As a student, Pforzheimer began gathering materials of the Philadelphia-born novelist, short- story writer, and humorist Frank Stockton (1834-1902). Pforzheimer, a Yale Law School graduate, began working for the CIA and immediately began to form a collection on the intelligence agency. The materials include not only manuscripts, official documents, and historical materials, but also fiction and biography relating to intelligence and espionage, ranging chronologically from the American Revolution to the Cold War.

The papers of Américo Paredes (1915-99), scholar and humanist, are now part of the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. The papers (65.5 feet) include manuscripts of his published and unpublished work, correspondence, note cards, class notes, audio- and videotapes, sheet music and songbooks, and files of his editorial work for major folklore journals. In 1956, Paredes received his doctorate in English from UT, where he spent his scholarly life teaching and developing programs and centers on folklore of the Southwest and Mexico, and for the study of Mexican American culture. His best-known work With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero (1958) was the basis for the 1982 film The Ballad ofGregoria Cortez.

The NASA/Johnson Space Center's archives have been acquired by the University of Houston, Clear Lake’s (UHCL) Neumann Library. Representatives from the two organizations signed a memorandum of understanding for the transfer, which contains copies of correspondence, reports, and more than 1,000 oral history interview tapes and transcripts documenting the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. Johnson Space Center’s collection documents the history and role played by the center in NASA’s human space flight program. Renovation at the Neumann Library are underway to meet National Archives and Records Administration standards, which call for a secure, environmentally controlled facility. UHCL also plans to hire an archivist to oversee the collection. The agreement allows for the documents to be housed at UHCL for 10 years with the option for a possible extension.

The archives of the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest (JHSUM) will be housed by the University of Minnesota Libraries, Twin Cities Campus. The agreement calls for JHSUM to place 500 linear shelf feet of archives on long-term loan with the University Libraries. The libraries will catalog the archives and provide access for research by students, scholars, and members of the public. The archives contain institutional and organizational records, family histories and genealogies, photos, oral histories, videos, and maps. The items focus on the Jewish community in Minnesota, and North and South Dakota, with additional materials from northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The University of Michigan's Special Collections Library has completed cataloging its Shakespeare Pamphlet Collection, also known as the Crosby Shakespeare Collectanea. More than 270 records describe the holdings of the purchase from the late Joseph Crosby of Zanesville, Ohio, a prominent Shakespearian scholar of the 19th century. The collection features scholarly works by noted Shakespearian authorities; theatrical memorabilia; and ivy and other foliage from the church walls that covered Shakespeare’s grave. Particularly well represented are materials relating to the publication of John Payne Collier’s “discovery” of a copy of the 1632 Second Folio, and its eventual exposure as a forgery.