ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


J a n u a r y  1 9 9 3 / 3 3

The H a r r y  R a n s o m
Humanities Research Cen­
ter at t h e  U n iv e r s ity  o f  
T ex a s a t A u s tin  h as r e ­
ceived a $105,000 grant from 
the M ellon F o u n d atio n  to 
p ro v id e fu n d in g  fo r n in e 
short-term fellowships to be 
offered ea ch  y ear for the 
next three years. The one- 
to-three-m onth fellowships 
will be offered to scholars 
engaged in post-doctoral or 
equivalent research  b ased  
on the center’s collections, 
w ho will then present a lecture on their work.

The L illy  E n d o w m e n t  h a s  a w a r d e d
competitive grants o f u p  to $150,000 each to 
nine independent Midwestern colleges and uni­
versities to improve cam pus climates in a con­
certed effort to attract and graduate more mi­
nority students. Receiving aw ards in this second 
round of the grant com petition w ere: C ollege 
o f St. F rancis (Illinois); W abash C ollege (In­
diana); G rin n ell C ollege and Luther C ollege 
(Iowa); Park C o lleg e (Missouri); C levelan d  
Institute o f  Art (Ohio); and C ardinal Stritch 
C o lle g e , M a r q u e tte  U n i v e r s i t y ,  a n d  
N o rth la n d  C o lle g e  (W isconsin). In creased  
support of the curriculum through the purchase 
of additional library materials is a com ponent 
of many o f the recipients’ projects.

The M ilto n  S. E is e n h o w e r L ib r a r y  o f
J o h n s H o p k in s U n iv ersity  has b ee n  aw arded 
a $138,400 grant by the National E ndow m ent 
for the Humanities (NEH) for the project “Co­
lonial Encounters in the Chesapeake: The Natu­
ral World of Europeans, Africans, an d  Ameri­
can In d ian s.” F ocusing o n  th e C h esap eak e 
w atershed region, the program  explores the 
interaction betw een  inhabitants an d  the ecol­
ogy o f North America from the late 17th to the 
early 19th century. The program  will consist of 
public lectures, an exhibit, a book, a package 
of educational materials, and a noncredit course 
offered through the Odyssey program.

NEH also a w a rd e d  A ub urn  U n iv e r s ity  
$235,000 to support reading and discussion pro­
grams about the American experience in World 
War II. The program is entitled “World War II: A 
Time Remembered, Warfronts/Homefront.”

G r a n ts
a n d

Acquisitions

T w o  g r a n t s  t o t a l l i n g
nearly o n e m illion dollars 
have b ee n  received by p u b ­
licly su p p o rted  universities 
in Louisiana to su p p o rt li­
brary automation. The Loui­
s ia n a  B o a rd  o f R e g e n ts  
aw arded a Louisiana Educa­
tion Quality Support Fund 
grant of $824,812 to be used 
over a tw o-year perio d  by 
six publicly su pported insti­
tutions to create a statewide 
online catalog built o n  the 
NOTIS software licensed to 

Louisiana State University and A&M College. 
Participating universities are: L ouisiana T ech 
U niversity, L ouisiana State U n iv ersity  an d  
A&M C o lle g e , N ic h o lls  State U n iv e r s ity , 
N o rth ea st L ouisiana U niversity, U n iv ersity  
o f  N e w  O r le a n s , a n d  th e  U n iv e r s ity  o f  
S o u th w estern  Louisiana.

The se co n d  grant, a U.S. D epartm ent of 
E d u ca tio n  Title II-D te c h n o lo g y  g ran t for 
$162,469, will enable D elg a d o  C o m m u n ity  
C ollege, LSU at A lexandria, LSU at S hreve­
p ort, M cN eese State U niversity, and N orth ­
w e s te r n  State U n iv ersity  to link with LSU’s 
NOTIS system an d  access the statewide net­
w ork as it develops. These grants are the first 
steps in joining the universities in the state into 
a statew ide online catalog.

T he U n iv e rs ity  o f  M a n it o b a  L ib ra rie s
received $100,000 from professor Emeritus J. 
B. Rudnyckyj, founder and former h ead  o f the 
Slavic Studies D epartm ent, to establish a re­
search fund that will assist in the acquisition of 
materials for Slavic Studies.

Also, former professor Jack Allen donated 
$10,000 to establish a research fund to support 
the acquisition of materials in the fields of phys­
ics, architecture, hom e economics, art an d  d e­
sign, and W innipeg history.

T h e  U n i v e r s i t y  o f  M i n n e s o t a  w a s
aw arded a $133,058 U.S. D epartm ent o f Edu­
cation, Title II-D grant to establish a m odel Au­
to m a te d  C a rto g ra p h ic  In fo rm a tio n  C en ter 
(ACIC) w ithin the Jo h n  R. Borchert Map Library. 
The ACIC will be dedicated to developing in­
novative approaches to providing library users 
with direct access to locally ow ned and remotely



34/C & R LN ew s

accessed digital cartographic and spatial infor­
mation. Six workstations will be equipped with 
the latest in computer hardware and a range of 
mapping software and geographic information 
systems to provide access to, and manipula­
tion of, digital information.

The University of North Carolina a t Chapel
H ill will film 1,400 deteriorated pamphlets on 
African-Americans, transportation history, so­
cial conditions, and travel as part of a $2.4 mil­
lion program to film brittle books in 15 librar­
ies in the southeast. The program is funded by 
the National Endowment for the Humanities 
and administered by the Southeastern Library 
Network (SOLINET).

The Merrill Library a t Utah State Univer­
sity received a $10,000 grant from the National His­
torical Publications and Records Commission to fund 
a project to preserve and make accessible field­
work discs and reel-to-reel tapes made by Alta Fife 
and her late husband Austin Fife, both noted Utah 
folklorists. The project will preserve 199 fieldwoik 
acetate discs and 98 reel-to-reel tapes.

V ir g in ia  C o m m o n w e a lth  U n iv e r s ity
(VCU) received 200 shares of Apple Computer 
stock valued at $10,400 from VCU retired fac­
ulty member Carroll Hormachea. Hormachea, 
who chaired the Library Advisory Committee 
for many years and is a member of the VCU 
Friends of the Library Board, gave the stock to 
the libraries’ Endowment for the 21st Century 
in memory of his wife Marion.

Acquisitions
Three collections have been acquired by
the Atlanta Historical Society, Inc. First, the 
papers of the Central Atlanta Progress, an orga­
nization founded in 1940 for the purpose of 
improving the city’s central area, include over 
200 cubic feet of correspondence, publications, 
and slides. Second, the papers of the Woodrow 
Wilson College of Law, founded in 1933, in­
clude course materials, correspondence, stu- 
dent/alumni lists, and other documents. And 
third, the papers of the Woodruff Arts Center 
include those of the Atlanta Ballet, the High 
Museum of Art, the Atlanta Symphony, and the 
Alliance Theatre.

The papers o f H orton Foote, A c a d e m y
Award-winning Texas playwright, author, and 
filmmaker, have been acquired by the DeGolyer 
Library at Southern M ethodist University. 
Foote is best known for his screenplays for To 
Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies, and The 
Trip to Bountiful. The collection fills 110 boxes 
and ranges from family memorabilia, photos, 
diaries, and personal correspondence to hand­
written drafts of screenplays, typed manuscripts, 
and awards.

American playw right Adrienne Kennedy's
archives have been acquired by the Harry Ran­
som Humanities Research Center at the Uni­
versity o f  Texas at Austin. Among the ar­
chives contents are Kennedy’s earliest dramatic 
effort Pale Blue Flowers, her mystery novel 
Deadly Triplets, and her 1987 autobiography 
People Who Lead to My Plays.

The a rc h iv e s  o f M o r g a n  M e m o r ia l
Goodwill Industries, Inc., including publications 
and records from the Church of All Nations in 
Boston’s South End, have been given to the 
B oston U niversity S ch ool o f  T heology Li­
brary. The materials cover the period from 
Goodwill’s beginnings in 1895 through 1990.

A n c ie n t s c h o la rly  te x ts  on co m p u te r
including several English translations of the 
Bible, plus the original in Greek and Hebrew; 
the works of Goethe in German; several edi­
tions of the complete works of Shakespeare; 
and the Oxford English Dictionary have been 
acquired by the Indiana U niversity Librar­
ie s, Bloomington. The package, know n as 
LETRS, the Library Electronic Text Resource 
Service, includes special word processing soft­
ware capable of dealing with foreign languages.

Users must currently come to this site to 
access files, but campuswide network access is 
planned. Mark Day, LETRS coordinator, points 
out some of the new  information that is avail­
able because of the computerized format. “For 
example, the Oxford English Dictionary can be 
searched by language of origin. If you wanted 
to find all the English words that originated 
from Albanian or any one of over 500 languages, 
you could do so. This is something that would 
be nearly impossible with the printed edition.”

Text files include the complete body of clas­
sical Greek literature from Homer up to 500 
A.D., and well-known American writers such 
as Jefferson, Emerson, Twain, and Cather. ■