ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries May 1985 / 255 Tom Phelps, N E H program officer, advises a workshop team in Pleasant Hills, Ky. Blue grass and NEH grants: An A CRL/PLA workshop in Kentucky T he peaceful Shaker village of P leasant Hill, Kentucky, provided the setting for a recent NEH/ PLA/ACRL workshop, “Program m ing in the H u ­ m anities.” In the cool bu t sunny w eather, half an hour aw ay from Lexington, a total of 23 p artici­ pants worked from breakfast until well into the night to learn how to request funding from the N a­ tional E ndow m ent for the Hum anities. The w ork­ shop, itself funded by a grant from N EH , was de­ sig n e d to a id p u b lic lib r a r i a n s , a c a d e m ic librarians, and hum anists working in cooperation in the process of w riting a proposal for a grant from NEH. G roups cam e in team s of th ree (public, aca­ dem ic, and hum anist) from as near as Louisville and C olum bia, Kentucky, and as far aw ay as N ew ­ p o rt News, V irginia. E ach group was to come equipped w ith some ideas for a project already in the planning stages; however, once arrived, the team s w ere paired and required to design an “exer­ cise” p ro g ram . T he four resulting project p ro ­ posals, though incom plete, proved to be of great in­ terest to all participants and showed promise of success if they were to be subm itted. In order to set the participants on the correct h u ­ m anistic p ath , D r. Huel Perkins of Louisiana State University spoke on “W h at are the H um anities?” T he hum anities are not perform ance, they are not This fo rm er Shaker washing house now serves as lodging fo r visitors. 256 / C &R L News exhibition, he said, but “the hum anities are inter­ pretation. They are about things.” The description of w h at is included in the hum anities is found in the background literature of the National Endow m ent for the Hum anities: “By law , the term hum anities includes, bu t is not lim ited to, the study of history; philosophy; lan ­ guages; linguistics; literature; archaeology; juris­ prudence; the history, theory, and criticism of the arts; ethics; com parative religion; and those as­ pects of the social sciences th a t employ historical or philosophical approaches.” P e rh a p s th e b est d e s c rip tio n w as g iv en by Perkins as he explained: “Im agine a big picture, a p ain tin g , w ith a small inscription u n d ern eath . T h a t’s art. Im agine a small picture, w ith a large in­ scription underneath. T h a t’s the hum anities.” He ended his speech w ith praise for the creative en­ deavors of m ankind, and w ith hope for continuing inquiry into such works. The following day, w ith a clearer definition of the hum anities and a better idea of how their p u r­ suits did or did not fit into the discipline of the h u ­ manities, the participants listened to Tom Phelps explain, “W ho is N EH ?” Phelps, a program officer in the division of G eneral Program s for N EH , de­ scribed w h at types of program s the E ndow m ent will support, and w h at types it will not. It would not w a n t to provide funds for the m ere p erfo r­ m ance of a musical, for example, bu t it m ight find a series of musicals, followed by a series of interpre­ tative discussions, m ore fitting to the hum anities. (This is, in fact, w h at one group planned to do.) Julie Virgo, of The Carroll G roup in Chicago, also spoke on w h at the NEH looks for in the p ro ­ posals subm itted. Herself a m em ber of several re­ view panels for such proposals, she spoke on the cri­ teria for review: W hat is the value of the central idea behind the project? W ill it advance public u n ­ derstanding of hum anistic thought? Will it stim u­ late the use of the available hum anities resources? Have the objectives been clearly defined, the audi­ ence designated, the m anagem ent planned, and the budget carefully considered? Phelps’ and V ir­ go’s explanations aided the participants in channel­ ing the w ide variety of individual ideas into realiz­ able projects. Then the fun began w hen the groups, after hav­ ing shared their objectives w ith the entire group, were paired in the hopes th a t two team s’ respective proposals m ight be com patible enough to create a th ird “exercise” proposal. The variety of ideas proved to make the ensuing discussions lively, if not heated at times. The next day w hen the exercise projects, w ritten in the style and form at of an actual NEH proposal, were presented, the fruits of the evening’s discus­ sions becam e evident. Four program s were p re­ sented, and the results w ere quite successful: one group planned to present a program on the Scandi­ navian culture of a p articu lar neighborhood, w ith em phasis on th e history and folklore; a n o th e r planned a project of a series of American musicals linked w ith relevant discussions on their respective contexts; a third w anted to explore the issues sur­ rounding m odern m edicine and the value of life by a series of readings, films and lectures; and the fo u rth g ro u p , “ N e w p o rt B e n d ,” com posed of teams from N ew port News, Virginia, and South Bend, Indiana, planned an am bitious eleven-week program of museum exhibits, readings, lectures, and discussions of its various ethnic communities. Although the central themes of the program s dif­ fered, the form and practice of using the libraries as the focal point for research, lectures, and public gatherings for discussion were the same for each program . These project proposals, resulting from only one day of h ard work, were very good begin­ nings, Phelps suggested, th a t he hoped would be subm itted eventually to the NEH for funding. No group left w ith a com pleted program p ro ­ posal, but most left w ith a keener sense of the spe­ cifics of w hat they w anted to do, and w h at the N EH w ould support in general. Most striking, however, as the setting had promised from the very beginning, was the deepening of one’s understand­ ing of the hum anities. The history of one com m unity’s attem p t at cre­ ating a m ore spiritual w orld surrounded us. There a re n ow o n ly a few S h ak ers l e f t — n o n e in Shakertow n—yet their hopes for a better w orld continue in w h at they did create. The workshop answered m any questions about the hum anities— w h a t th ey w ere, w h a t th ey h a d to o ffe r— and about how , given th e cooperation of librarians w ith their knowledge of resources and academics w ith their grasp of subject disciplines, a good p ro ­ May 1985 / 257 gram could enrich a com m unity, even one as small as the group in Shakertown. For inform ation on upcom ing NEH workshops, contact Sandra Donnelly, ACRL, 50 E. H uron St., C h ic a g o , IL 60611; (312) 9 4 4 -6 7 8 0 .— D o n n a C am loh, C &R L News. ■ ■ ★ ★ ★ News from the field Acquisitions • D ePaul University L ibrary, Chicago, has re­ ceived a collection of m ore th an 200 books on the Napoleonic E ra. The books, collected by the late D r. Max Thorek, were donated by his son Phillip. The collection includes m aterials describing the le­ gal and political events of the early 19th century. • Duke University, D urham , N orth C arolina, has added four im portant first editions to its rare book collection. The earliest is the 1596 edition of E dm und Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, published in tw o quarto volumes by W illiam Ponsonbie. The other three are first editions of John Keats’s E n d y ­ mion (1818) and his first volume of poetry, called Poems (1817), and the first edition of A donais (1821) by Percy Bysshe Shelley. • The Toledo M useum of Art has received a col­ lection of over 1,100 m odern illustrated art books from Molly and W alter Bareiss. Highlights of the collection are more than 70 books illustrated by P a­ blo Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec’s Y vette G uilbert (1894) w ith sixteen lithographs of the P arisian singer accom panying the text by Gustave Geffroy, P ierre B o n n ard ’s illustrations for Parallelem ent (1900) by P au l V erlain e, W assily K andinsky’s K la n g e (1913) w h ic h c o n ta in s his p o e try an d woodcuts, and T ristan T z a ra ’s L A n tite te (1949) il­ lu s tra te d by S u rrealist artists Max E rn st, Joan Miro, and Yves Tanguy. An exhibition featuring these and other works from the collection m ay be seen at the Museum Septem ber 22 through D ecem ­ ber 29, 1985. • W illiams College’s C hapin L ibrary, W illiam ­ stown, Massachusetts, has received collections of Eugene O ’Neill and Robinson Jeffers assembled by D onald S. Klopfer, co-founder of Random House, who began publishing these authors in the early 1930s. The 20 O ’Neill items include one of 12 spe­ cial copies of A nna Christie w ith original artw ork by A lexander King laid in, galley sheets for an abandoned 1947 edition of A M oon fo r the Misbe­ gotten w hich was not published until 1952, and a typescript, early page proofs, and an inscribed first edition of Days w ith o u t E nd showing a progression of m ajor textual changes. Among the 23 Jeffers first editions are G rabhorn Press printings of Robinson Jeffers and the Sea, Solstice and O ther Poems, R e­ turn, and Poems of 1928 w ith a signed Ansel Adams p o rtra it of the poet. Grants • Georgia State University’s Southern L abor Ar­ chives, A tlanta, has been aw arded a $10,000 grant by the Georgia E ndow m ent for the H um anities and the National E ndow m ent for the H um anities to explore the history of textile workers in A tlanta’s C abbagetow n and the Celanese Textile C om m u­ nity in Rome, Georgia. The project will involve re­ search, oral history interviews, exhibits, and a se­ ries of p u b lic p ro g ra m s to be h e ld in e a c h com m unity. P hotographs, artifacts, and docu­ m ents p o rtra y in g housing, w orking conditions, child labor, and union activities will become p a rt of a traveling exhibit to be displayed in A tlanta and Rome. • Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute, Baltim ore, has received $27,619 in m atching funds from the National Historical Publications and Rec­ ords Commission for a tw o-year project to arrange and describe 760 linear feet of institute records d a t­ ing from 1857 to 1977. • The M oravian Music F oundation, W inston- Salem, N orth C arolina, has received a grant of $25,200 from the W inston-Salem Foundation to undertake corrective conservation measures in its archival collections of m anuscript music. The m u­ sic collections contain not only the sacred choral compositions of M oravian composers bu t also n u ­ merous works by E uropean composers of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The latter, hand-copied by M oravian m inister-m usicians, are by such com ­ posers as H aydn, Stam itz, D anzi, Beethoven, the sons of J.S. Bach, and Handel. Several sinfonias by Johann C hristian Friedrich Bach, flute duets by Kleinknecht, and string quartets by Stam itz are am ong the unique copies. The F oundation will u n ­ dertake a three-year project to preserve the m ate­ rial and has employed Tim othy D. P yatt as conser­ vator to im plem ent the program . • N orthw estern University’s Herskovits L ibrary