ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Grants and Acquisitions

Ann-Christe Galloway

Six academic libraries have been awarded$500,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to collaborate on a major project that will include broad-based, issues-oriented programming to familiarize large numbers of undergraduate students with the challenges facing the library profession, draw their attention to the potential of librarianship as a career, and alert them to the more selective internship opportunities of the project. The initiative is also designed to help broaden the racial and ethnic composition of the library profession so that it can better serve increasingly diverse populations. The libraries of Atlanta University Center (serving Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse, and Spelman Colleges), and of Mount Holyoke, Oberlin, Occidental, Swarthmore, and Wellesley Colleges will participate in the project.

Wayne State University was awarded a$249,433 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for the project “Digital Dress.” This project, to be completed in partnership with the Detroit Historical Museums, the Henry Ford Museum and Meadow Brook Hall, will create a Web portal with 5,000 digital images of men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing and accessories representing 200 years of fashion. Wayne State’s fashion merchandising faculty will assist in the development of this resource that they say will be a “unique resource, representing collections comparable to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre.”

William R. Moran, a noted discographer,author, and collector, has donated $1.7 million to the university libraries at the University of California-Santa Barbara for the completion of the Victor Project, a multivolume encyclopedia cataloging all of the recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company (which later became RCA Victor) from 1900 to 1950. The “Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Records” represents the only systematic published account of these historic recording sessions, since few trade catalogs exist for the period. (Discography is the study and cataloging of phonograph records.) The Victor Talking Machine Co., with headquarters in Camden, New Jersey, was the most successful recognized international recording company of the first quarter of the 20th century. Its trademark of a little fox terrier listening to the horn of a Gramophone (called “His Master’s Voice”) became perhaps the world’s best-known symbol of its time. Eldridge Reeves Johnson, founder of Victor, wanted to make his company the “Steinway of Talking Machines,” and in many respects he succeeded. Victor was held in such high esteem that the greatest performers and entertainers of the time would only record for the company.

East Carolina University (ECU), in collaboration with the Outer Banks History Center, has won the first Content Start Search competition, sponsored and underwritten by Apex. ECU has been awarded a $10,000 grant to add materials from Dare County to the North Carolina History and Fiction Digital Library. This collaborative initiative is expected to serve as a model for more partnerships between ECU and libraries throughout the state.

The Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies (US)was awarded a $276,289 grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities to preserve the Jazz Oral History Project collection of 120 sound recordings and make them accessible to the public. Encompassing the reflections of 120 noted pre-Swing-Era and Swing-Era jazz luminaries, such as Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, Count Basie, Mary Lou Williams, and Milt Hinton, the Jazz Oral History Project is unique in the range of artists interviewed and in the length of observations recorded. The taped interviews run from five to thirty hours each and touch on the artists’ thoughts about their own careers as well as the careers of such peer musi- cians as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. The grant will allow IJS to hire audio ex- perts, who will begin rerecording the Oral History Project tapes and creating back-ups in CD and digital linear tape formats. The grant also supports IJS’s work to create records for the recordings in the libraries’ online catalog and information system.

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

Acquisitions

The Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection hasbeen acquired by California State University- Sacramento. The collection consists of nearly 70,0 volumes, including reference and media mate- rials, approximately 1,500 rare titles, and 120 linear feet of archival materials. With its focus on the Hellenic world, the collection in- cludes early through con- temporary materials in reli- gion, philosophy, the arts, literature, history, political science, and international relations relating to Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, and the Middle East. There is a broad representation of languages in the collection, including English; ancient, medieval, and modern Greek; Turkish; Bulgarian; Arabic; Persian; Russian; German; French; and Italian, among others.

A collection of 600,000photographs by Kenn Duncan has been acquired by the New York Public Library for the Per- forming Arts. An animated shot of Gregory Hines at the height of his fame on Broad- way, Anita Morris in her skintight costume from the musical Nine, and pictures of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev during the time of their popularity are among the many iconic images the collection will make available to researchers. The library has acquired Duncan’s entire archive. The photographer captured the distinctive style of his subjects, and his studio became a magnet for such famous performers as Peter Allen, Carol Channing, Eartha Kitt, Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Tommy Tune, and Twiggy. His commercial fashion pho- tography, posters, and silk screens comprise other major segments of the collection.

Acollection of rare Chinese artifacts, valuedat up to $38 million, has been pledged to California State University (CSU›Northridge, for public display and academic study by entrepreneur Roland Tseng. This is the largest donation ever for the university and the entire CSU system. Tseng has made a four-year pledge to the university and has already conveyed the first year’s items, valued at $9.5 million. With the gift, CSU-Northridge plans to launch the first in a series of public exhibits in April 2004 in the Oviatt Libraiy, displaying the gifted items and others loaned from Tseng, totaling about 100 pieces. The highlight of the initial gift is an ornate, 3,000 year-old gold and bronze ritual vessel valued at $5.5 million that is believed to be unique in the world.

This vessel, believed to have been used by Chinese royalty in ancient ceremonies, was one of the rare artifacts donated to California State University- Northridge.

A collection of artists'books created by Brighton Press has been donated to the Special Collections De- partment of San Diego State University (SDSU) Li- brary and Information Ac- cess. SDSU alumni Jeremiah and Stephanie Robins began collecting Brighton Press books ten years ago, shortly after the San Diego-based Brighton Press was founded by artist/printer Bill Kelly. Among the rare, limited-edition books do- nated by the Robins are Sternberg: A Life in Woodcuts by Harry Sternberg and Poem Made of Water by Nancy Willard. The Brighton Press staff of artists, poets, and craftspeople specializes in intaglio, relief, and letterpress printing.