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GRANTS AND ACQUISITIONS
C&RL News, July/August 2007
Vol. 68, No. 7
by Ann-Christe Galloway
The University of California-San Diego (UCSD) received a $1 million gift from longtime university friend and supporter Audrey S. Geisel, to establish the Audrey Geisel University Librarianship, the inaugural holder of which will be UCSD’s chief librarian, Brian E. C. Schottlaender. The librarianship is the first of its kind in San Diego County, and one of only a few such university positions on the West Coast. The gift will provide valuable discretionary funding to enhance and expand the resources and services of UCSD Libraries to accommodate the growing information and educational needs of students, faculty, campus departments, and the greater San Diego community and region. The donation will create an endowment to be used to fund the greatest needs of the ten individual campus libraries in perpetuity. Geisel, widow of author Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, has donated more than 8,000 of her late husband’s original drawings, sketches, books, and other memorabilia to the university libraries. In 1995, UCSD’s Central Library was renamed Geisel Library. With more than 25 years experience, Schottlaender has served as UCSD’s university librarian since 1999. Previously, he held positions at the California Digital Library, UCLA, University of Arizona, Indiana University, and in the European book trade. Schottlaender was recently awarded the 2007 Ross Atkinson Lifetime Achievement Award by the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS). He is past-president of the Association of Research Libraries and ALCTS, in addition to serving on the boards of directors of the Center for Research Libraries and the Coalition for Networked Information. Schottlaender has served as the ALA representative to the international Joint Steering Committee for Revision of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, as well as chairing the Program for Cooperative Cataloging at the Library of Congress. Schottlaender has served as chair of the Pacific Rim Digital Alliance, and has chaired the San Diego Library Circuit consortium since 1999.
Acquisitions
The papers of David Mamet—playwright, writer and film director, author of more than 50 plays and 25 screenplays that have earned him a Pulitzer Prize, Oscar nominations, and a Tony Award—have been acquired by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas-Austin (UT). The more than 100 boxes of material cover Mamet’s entire career and contain manuscripts, journals, office and production files, correspondence and multiple drafts of each of Mamet’s works, including the acclaimed plays “American Buffalo” (1975) and “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992), and screenplays “The Untouchables” (1988), “The Spanish Prisoner” (1997), and “Wag the Dog” (1997). In support of the archive, Mamet has agreed to contribute to the intellectual life of the UT by joining the university community in a series of short residencies for four years. The 175 journals (which are dated from 1966 to 2001), most ranging from 150 to 200 pages each, record the seeds of Mamet’s work, his daily reflections and his notes, ideas, and experimental writings. They not only provide insight into Mamet’s craft, but also offer a full picture of the process of playwriting in detail. While the journals and manuscripts illustrate how Mamet’s ideas become completed works, the office and production files document how the text becomes a production and what occurs on the set or in the theater. These files include weekly schedules, occasional unused dialogue, song lyrics, editorial material regarding various books, and business agreements. Another component of the papers is the correspondence, which relates both to Mamet’s professional work and to his personal life. Extensive correspondence from actor Joe Mantegna and performer Ricky Jay are included, as well as numerous letters from theater director Gregory Mosher; actors Patti LuPone, Steve Martin, and Jude Law; British playwright Harold Pinter; and film director Mike Nichols.
The Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs, a major archive of materials accumulated over decades by two pioneers in the long-term campaign for gay and lesbian civil rights, has been acquired by the New York Public Library. The materials were donated by Gittings—an activist, editor, and writer who died in February—and by her life partner, photojournalist and author Lahusen. Gittings’ papers document her activism on behalf of lesbian and gay rights from her founding in 1958 of the east coast chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (first national lesbian organization, established 1955) and the editorship of its publication, The Ladder, until shortly before her death. Gittings’ writings, protests, and other efforts influenced the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) removal of homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses and the inclusion of books by and for gays in library collections. She received awards from both the APA and the ALA for her lifetime achievements. Lahusen’s extensive photographic collection documents gay activism—from images of early pickets, portraits of lesbian women for covers of The Ladder, and photos chronicling gay activists and activities including protests, parades, and political campaigns through 2005. Included also are her files and oral histories used in the preparation of her book The Gay Crusaders (1972). In addition to their personal papers and photographs is their extensive research collection of gay and lesbian newspapers, magazines, newsletters, flyers, t-shirts, buttons, press clippings, and sound and video recordings from across the country and around the world.
The entire European Union (EU) depository collection from the Delegation of the European Commission to the United States has been received by the University of Pittsburgh. The delegation decided to divest itself of this library and issued a Request for Proposals, and the University of Pittsburgh submitted the winning bid. The Delegation library was founded soon after the formation of the European Coal and Steel and Community (1951), which was the founding institution of what is now known as EU. The library includes the most extensive collection of public European Community/EU documents and publications in North America, including many items not received by the 56 other North American depository libraries (of which the University of Pittsburgh is one). The Delegation library contains a complete collection of the publications of the EU institutions and agencies, as well as partial collections of relevant private commercial publishers, international organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Council of Europe, and European trade associations. Nearly all documents in the collection published since 1973 are in English; earlier documents are mostly in French.
Ed. note: Send your news to: Grants & Acquisitions, C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795; e-mail: agalloway@ala.org.
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