Grants and Acquisitions

David Free

The Institute of Museum and Library Services recently announced 64 awards totaling $20,363,297 to support libraries and archives across the country. The FY 2023 awards were made through National Leadership Grants for Libraries and the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. Complete information on IMLS grants, including an awarded grants search with project details, is available at https://www.imls.gov/grants.

The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) has awarded $20,000 in grant funds to three of its supported institutions in recognition of their innovative ideas for enhancing student learning and success. Butler University, the University of Indianapolis, and Wabash College are the 2023 recipients of the PALNI Library Innovation Grant, an award that funds programs, projects, and initiatives that align with PALNI strategic priorities and support deep collaboration throughout the consortium. These grants will fund the libraries’ proposed initiatives in areas that meet students’ evolving needs, including artificial intelligence (AI) literacy and digital literacy. Learn more at https://palni.org/innovation-grant.

The San Diego State University (SDSU) Center for Comics Studies has been awarded a $175,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop a two-week institute for secondary school educators using comics and graphic novels in their teaching. Using Comics to Teach Social Justice is the latest in a series of grants awarded to the new center, founded jointly by the SDSU College of Arts and Letters and the University Library, promoting collection-centered learning, scholarship, and engagement around comics and graphic novels. Information on other SDSU Center for Comics Studies grants is available at https://comics.sdsu.edu/.

Acquisitions

The San Diego State University Library has acquired the IDW Founders Collection, a collection of more than 20,000 items, including comics, graphic novels, promotional items, archival materials, and games, donated by IDW founders Ted Adams and Robbie Robbins. Currently the fifth-largest comic book publisher in the US, IDW’s Top Shelf Productions imprint is renowned for publishing works of literary significance including the trilogy March by the late US Rep. John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, as well as George Takei’s graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy. The IDW Founders Collection enhances the SDSU Comic Arts Collection, which has grown over the past decade to encompass almost 150,000 titles in its circulating and special collections and is an essential resource in the growth of the interdisciplinary Center for Comics Studies. Learn more at https://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news_story.aspx?sid=79243.

The Library of Congress has acquired the music manuscripts and papers of contemporary American composer, conductor, and writer John Adams. Adams is known for works including the opera “Nixon in China” and concert pieces such as “Shaker Loops,” “Harmonielehre,” “Road Movies,” “Chamber Symphony,” and “Short Ride in a Fast Machine.” Adams was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1947. His career has taken place at the forefront of contemporary music, with Adams’ works among the most played of new classical music pieces beginning in the 1970s. The archive acquired includes a variety of materials that tell the story of Adams’ creative life: handwritten music manuscripts and annotated music scores, business and personal correspondence, photographs, date books and diaries, journals, publishing and performing contracts, artwork, and files of news clippings and concert programs.

The personal archive of the late renowned composer James Horner has been donated to UCLA Library by his wife, Sara Nelson Horner. The collection, valued at more than $2.2 million, features thousands of personal notes, scores, and orchestrations. It spans from 1979, the year of Horner’s first credit as a composer for feature films, to 2015, when he died at the age of 61. The archive includes Horner’s early scores for films by American Film Institute students and for noted B-movie director Roger Corman, as well as full orchestrations from his compositions for blockbusters such as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Aliens (1986), Apollo 13 (1995), Jumanji (1995), Braveheart (1995), Titanic (1997), A Beautiful Mind (2001), and Avatar (2009).