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C&RL News January 2022 44

G r a n t s  a n d  A c q u i s i t i o n sAnn-Christe Galloway

Ed. note: Send your grants and acquisitions to Ann-Christe Galloway, production editor, C&RL News, at email: agalloway@
ala.org.

The University of North Carolina (UNC)-Chapel Hill’s University Libraries has received 
a grant of $500,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to investigate new methods 
for preserving audio and video records of the American South. The grant, which focuses on 
sustainability, began October 1, 2021, and will end September 30, 2023. It brings the nine-
year funding total for Extending the Reach of Southern Audiovisual Sources to $3.4 million. 
Prior phases were devoted to research and development, implementation, and expansion.
UNC’s libraries have been working on audiovisual preservation since the 1980s, but those 
efforts tended to focus on individual items. The series of Mellon Foundation grants have 
allowed staff to consider how best to tackle collections that include thousands—or tens of 
thousands—of recordings, such as the holdings of the Southern Folklife Collection and the 
Southern Historical Collection, both part of the Wilson Special Collections Library.

Acquisitions

The University Libraries at the University of 
North Carolina (UNC)-Chapel Hill has acquired 
a document regarding the life of Omar ibn Said, a 
19th-century enslaved Islamic scholar. Said, kid-
napped from West Africa and enslaved in North 
Carolina, was renowned for his Arabic writings. 
The manuscript, created in 1856, is a document 
addressed by Said to his enslaver, James Owen. It 
contains an Islamic blessing and two biblical texts: 
the Psalm 51 and The Lord’s Prayer. Eighteen 
examples of similar documents written by Said 
are currently known. According to John Blythe, 
assistant curator of the North Carolina Collec-
tion, the item is the first to come to light in many 
years. The library has digitized the manuscript, 
now part of the North Carolina Collection at the 
Wilson Special Collections Library, and shared 
it online. The document includes notations by 
other people who have handled it. According to 
Carl Ernst, William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished 

Professor of religious studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, one of them appears to be General George 
McClellan, who later became famous as a Union general during the Civil War. McClellan may 
have been given the document at a hot springs resort that the Owen family visited.  

Ambrotype photograph of Omar ibn Said, from 
the Ambrotype Collection in the North Carolina 
Collection’s Photographic Archives.

mailto:agalloway@ala.org
mailto:agalloway@ala.org