ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Grants and Acquisitions

Hugh Thompson

Columbia University has received a $65,000 grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to sup- port the cataloging and pro- cessing of the Joseph Urban archives. The 17,000 items in the collection, which include watercolor sketches, archi- tectural renderings, photo- graphs, correspondence, and three-dimensional stage models, have provided mod- em designers, experts in his- toric preservation, historians, and students of the theater with invaluable in- formation and artifacts.

Cornell University's Mann Library will coordinate and manage an $850,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to nine land-grant libraries across the U.S. The funds will be used to identify and preserve historical literature about agricultural development and rural life covering 1820 to 1945. Historical literature in each of the nine states where the libraries are located will be identified and then ranked by panels of scholars. Volumes will be preserved as additional funds become available. The literature traces agriculture as it evolved from a home and family way of life to the business enterprises of today. The eight other institutions are Auburn, Penn State, and Texas A&M Universities, and the universities of California- Berkeley, Connecticut, Florida, Nebraska-Lincoln, and Wisconsin-Madison.

The Council on Library Resources has awarded three grants under its Economics of Information Small Grants Program funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The awards are $25,000 to the University of California, Berkeley, Library to develop a set of qualitative and quantitative measures for evaluating the performance and costs of research library collections; $11,800 to the Association of Research Libraries to examine data on expenditures for electronic resources in research libraries; and $7,920 to the Milton Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University to develop an access system to print materials stored in off-site locations using a combination of new technologies.

Goldey-Beacom College in Wilmington, Delaware, has been awarded a grant of $15,500 from J. P. Morgan (Delaware) Inc. The funds will be used for the purchase of a complete multimedia workstation to support the bibliographic instruction program and the acquisition of an additional financial database.

The Research Libraries Group (RLG) has received a $100,000 grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to improve researchers’ access to primary source materials in its members’ col- lections. The grant will support RLG’s project to train its members in applying SGML coding to their archival finding aids, which are guides that describe in detail the content of archival collections, and are a valuable link between brief, collection4evel records now in the RLIN database and the materials themselves.

Rutgers University's Special Collections and University Archives has received a $7,000 grant from the New Jersey Department of Education/State Library for the preservation of manuscript volumes. During a one-year period, protective enclosures will be created for 550 manuscript volumes documenting the lives of state residents from approximately 1750 to 1920.

The University of Florida's Education Library, Gainesville, will receive funds from a $12,000 Haskell Hess Education Library Endowment to allow the library to purchase materials, computer equipment and software, and hire temporary staff for special projects.

The University of Kansas Libraries have received a pledge of $250,000 to establish the Walter M. and Johanna Kollmorgen Library Fund at the Kansas University Endowment Association. The gift was made by Walter Kollmorgen, a retired chairman of the University of Kansas Geography Department, and his sister, Johanna, now deceased. The proceeds of the endowment will provide cash awards for library staff, financial support for staff travel and training, and funds for library acquisitions.

The University of Michigan School of Information has received a four-year $5 million grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The grant will allow the school to build an educational model for practical learning and service that will benefit nonprofit community organizations and agencies. Among the programs are a visiting professorship, a program to bring midcareer community organization personnel to the school for follow-up training, a minority undergraduate internship program, and a summer training institute for faculty and doctoral students from other institutions.

Acquisitions

The literary papers of contemporary Irish poet Paul Muldoon have been acquired by the Robert W. Woodruff Library at Emory University. Muldoon, widely regarded as one of Ireland’s finest contemporary poets, has received many awards and honors, among them the Eric Gregory Award and the T. S. Eliot Prize. The extensive archive includes many drafts of poems from each of Muldoon’s published collections, as well as early poems. Also included are correspondence relating to Muldoon’s many literary activities, collected printed material documenting his life and work, and photographs and diaries.

A collection of books and scores devoted to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has been acquired by the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard University. Known as the Biblioteca Mozartiana Eric Offenbacher, the collection was given by Dr. Eric Offenbacher of Seattle, who assembled it over nearly four decades. It includes two autograph manuscripts of Mozart’s, an autograph letter of his son Karl, and nearly 100 first and early editions of the composer’s works, the vast majority printed before 1800. The collection contains many rare early biographic works and an extensive repertory of other writings about Mozart and his family. Valuable facsimile publications, microfilms, and photocopies of Mozart autographs in libraries throughout the world are also included.

A collection of first or early editions of poetry in English by women, published in the British Isles between 1770 and 1839, has been acquired by the Special Collections Department of the University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. The collection includes such works as Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s Eighteen Hundred and Eleven (1812), Charlotte Dacre’s Hours of Solitude (1805), Isabella Lickbarrow’s Poetical Effusions (1814), Mary Robinson’s Lyrical Tales (1800), and Charlotte Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets (1784). Romantic women poets, prolific and often popular and influential in their day, have been under-recognized for a long time and have been revived by scholars of Romanticism only in the past ten years.

The papers of former Kentucky governor Bert T. Combs have been added to the University of Kentucky’s Modern Political Archives. Governor Combs, a Kentucky alumnus who was governor from 1959 to 1963, championed a merit system for state employees, upgraded personnel and facilities of the state’s mental health facilities, launched a statewide beautification program, established the state parks system, and significantly improved the state’s education system. The collection includes official correspondence, speeches, executive orders, news clippings, campaign memorabilia, photographs, and audio and videotapes.

The papers of John W. Carpenter, a prominent Dallas businessman, industrialist, and civic leader who was a major force behind Texas’ economic progress and growth in the mid-20th century, have been donated to the Special Collections Division of the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. Carpenter began his career in 1900 as a laborer for Corsicana Gas and Electric Company. By 1907 he was president and general manager of the company; ten years later he was vice-president and general manager of Dallas Power and Light Company, and eventually was recognized as the dean of the Southwest electric power industry while president of Texas Power and Light Company from 1927 to 1949. The papers include 218 linear feet of materials in 205 boxes and consist of a variety of materials dating from 1891 to 1980 that document Carpenter’s business career and community service in Texas. ■

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