dec10b.indd


C&RL News December 2010  656

Ed. note: Send your news to: Grants & Acquisitions, 
C&RL News, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795; 
e-mail: agalloway@ala.org.

T h e  N o r t h  C a r o l i n a  S t a t e  U n i v e r s i t y 
(NCSU) Libraries have received a $313,000 
grant to develop a roadmap for how 21st-
century libraries can best give a competi-
tive edge to faculty, researchers, graduate 
students, and a new generation of always-
connected, technology-savvy, and highly 
engaged undergraduates. Enabled by the 
support of a National Leadership Grant 
from the Institute of Museum and Library 
Services (IMLS), the NCSU Libraries will 
lead a collaborative project to prototype, 
develop, and disseminate plans for how 
mobile technologies, gesture-based com-
puting, large-scale visualization, enhanced 
reality, and other emerging technologies 
can help academic libraries create the next 
generation of technology-rich collaborative 
learning spaces.   

The Columbia University Libraries have 
received a gift of $4 million to establish the 
Norman E. Alexander Library for Jewish 
Studies, which will include three new en-
dowments: a Jewish Studies librarian, the 
General Jewish Studies Collection, and the 
Special Collections in Judaica. Alexander 
graduated from Columbia University in 
1934 and Columbia Law School in 1936, 
after which he set off on a business career 
that spanned seven decades. When he 
died in 2006, he was executive chairman 
of Sequa Corporation, a $2 billion con-
glomerate that he led for nearly 50 years. 
A lifelong supporter of academic, Jewish, 
and other philanthropic causes, Alexander 
was a member of the Board of Visitors of 
Columbia Law School and of the Board of 
Columbia/Barnard Hillel, where he estab-
lished the Alexander Program Center for 
Jewish Life. The new Norman E. Alexander 

Librarian for Jewish Studies is Michelle 
Chesner. She joined the Columbia Libraries 
in May 2010, coming from the University 
of Pennsylvania where she served as an 
archivist and as the Judaica public services 
librarian at the Katz Center for Advanced 
Judaic Studies. The new Norman E. Alex-
ander Library for Jewish Studies in special 
collections builds on a strong tradition of 
rare book and archival resources, includ-
ing 29 Hebrew incunabula, more than 300 
sixteenth-century printed books, and nearly 
1,500 Hebrew manuscripts, plus extensive 
archival collections related to Jewish life 
and culture, and Jewish individuals in 
all fields of study and work. The Jewish 
Studies research collections at Columbia 
exceed 100,000 monograph volumes and 
1,000 current and historical periodical titles. 
The collection comprises about 60,000 He-
brew and Yiddish titles in addition to its 
large holdings of Jewish scholarly works 
in Western and Slavic languages. 

Acquisitions

The Junior League of Los Angeles, one 
of the oldest women’s philanthropic or-
ganizations in the city, has donated its 
archives to California State University-
Northridge (CSUN). The collection, which 
will be housed in CSUN’s Oviatt Library’s 
Urban Archives Center, offers insight into 
the history of women and philanthropy in 
Los Angeles since the organization’s in-
ception in 1925. The collection includes 
photographs, correspondence, minutes of 
meetings, scrapbooks, film, videos, and 
other memorabilia that chronicle the 85 
years the Junior League and its members 
have tried to make a difference in the 
lives of women and children living in Los 
Angeles. 

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