ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


September 1 9 9 3 / 4 7 5

Ewing Halsell Foundation w as matched by an 
additional $25,000 from the Houston Endow­
m ent, Inc. The W illiam Curry an d  Frances 
H olden Endowm ent w as established in 1986 
to provide research fellowships in Texas and 
Southwestern history and related studies and 
to purchase research materials in the areas of 
Southwestern history and culture, Native Ameri­
can and Mexican ethnohistory, anthropology, 
archeology, Southwestern arts and architecture, 
arid lands, water, and w om en’s history. Texas 
Tech University also received a $1,515 grant 
from the Southwestern Bell Foundation to pur­
chase the Library o f Congress’s Subject Headings.

A c q u is itio n s
The library of noted feminist scholar
Bettina Aptheker has been acquired by the U ni­
versity o f  California, Santa Cruz. Aptheker, 
a professor o f w om en’s studies at UCSC and a 
leading scholar in the field, served as chair of 
the Board of Studies in W om en’s Studies, was 
a prom inent student activist in the 1960s, and 
was an organizer o f the Free Speech Move­
ment. She is the author of several books, in­
clu d in g  Tapestries o f  Life: W o m e n ’s Work, 
W o m en ’s Consciousness a n d  the M eaning o f
D aily Experience (Amherst: University o f Mas­
sachusetts Press, 1989). Appraised at more than 
$30,000, the Aptheker collection includes more 
than 2,000 books, periodicals, and pamphlets. 
The gift establishes the W om en’s Studies Li­
brary, a noncirculating special collection of 
books and journals that is available to scholars, 
faculty, staff, students, and the public, at UCSC’s 
Kresge College.

The papers of Harold E. Edgerton have
been acquired by M assachusetts Institute o f  
T ech n ology. Best know n for his w ork photo­
graphing extremely rapid events— his photos 
w ere published in, am ong other places, Life 
Magazine—Edgerton cam e to MIT as a gradu­
ate student, and subsequently served as pro­
fessor o f electrical engineering, head of the 
Strobe Lab, Institute Professor, and Institute 
Professor Emeritus until his death in 1990. The 
45-cubic-foot manuscript collection includes un­
published autobiographical fragments, corre­
spondence, blueprints, writings, and speeches, 
as well as Edgerton’s laboratory notebooks from

 

1930 to 1990, w hich docum ent in detail inno­
vations in stroboscopic photography.

The papers of British poet and novelist
L aw rence D urrell hav e b e e n  a c q u ire d  by 
McMaster U n iversity library. Best know n as 
the author o f the A lexandria Quartet, consist­
in g  o f fo u r  n o v e ls , J u s tin e , B a lth a z a r , 
Mountolive, and Clea, Durrell spent most of 
his writing life in the Mediterranean and In­
dian outposts of the already fading British Em­
pire. Included in the acquisition are 15 letters 
and postcards dated from 1944 to 1976, m anu­
scripts o f some 50 poems, the carbon of a let­
ter from Durrell to Henry Miller (1942), and 
inscribed copies of tw o of Durrell’s books, Cit­
ies; Plants a n d  People and On Seeming to Presume.

The collections of tw o legendary band­
masters, Merle Evans and Lynn L. Sams, have 
been acquired by the U n iversity o f  Maryland 
at C ollege Park’s Music Library.

Merle Evans w as bandm aster for “The Great­
est Show on Earth,” the Ringling Bros, and 
Barnum and Bailey circus for 50 years, from 
1919 to his retirement in 1969. In this capacity, 
Evans cued the entire circus performance, de­
ciding w hat music w ould accom pany each act. 
The Merle Evans Collection, which is a gift from 
Merle’s sister, Juanita Evans, contains letters, 
awards, programs, photographs, band music, 
posters, an d  m em orabilia relating to  Evans’ 
career w ith the circus.

Lynn L. Sams was a bandm aster of a very 
different kind. The inspiration for Meredith 
Wilson’s The Music Man, Sams began his ca­
reer selling horns and drums to high schools 
and later devoted full-time to organizing high 
school bands. The Lynn Sams Collection con­
sists of 30 boxes of manuscripts, publications, 
recordings, and memorabilia.

Over 9 0 0  rare books and periodicals
dating from the 17th century w ere acquired by 
the N ation al Library o f  Canada from Mont­
real scholar-bibliographer, Lawrence M. Lande. 
Included are 635 French official publications 
dating from 1607 to 1809, focusing on com ­
merce and finance, the fur trade, cod and whale 
fisheries, and the colonization of the French 
Empire in North America. Also in the collec­
tion are 193 rare books dealing mainly with eco­
nomic policy and the practices o f the major 
European colonial pow ers in the 17th and 18th 
centuries, particularly those o f France. ■