jan14_b.indd


C&RL News January 2014 50

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

The Historically Black Colleges and Universi-
ties (HBCU) Library Alliance has received a 
grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 
to support the assessment and strengthening 
of library services for faculty research at his-
torically black colleges and universities. The 
project will foster improved library services 
on individual HBCU campuses and develop 
collaborative approaches to expand HBCU 
community-wide library support for faculty 
research. The project will begin by assess-
ing librarians at HBCUs to better understand 
current capacity and identify library needs 
related to research support. In partnership 
with the HBCU Faculty Development Net-
work, additional assessment will be done 
with HBCU faculty to better understand the 
support they need for research, especially in 
regard to services that are or could be pro-
vided by librarians. Assessment results will 
be shared with individual campuses and 
used to identify needs and issues that could 
be addressed collectively through the HBCU 
Library Alliance. Following the assessments, 
the HBCU Library Alliance will develop 
model programs for library-based research 
support services through sub-grants to eight 
HBCU libraries. The sub-grants will allow 
participating libraries to implement innova-
tive programs and increase engagement with 
faculty in provision of support for research. 

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natu-
ral History received a $1 million grant from the 
Arcadia Fund to launch the first two years 
of a long-term project to digitize endangered 
language materials currently housed in the 
museum’s National Anthropological Archives. 
The materials found in this archive preserve 
a collection of primary sources for investi-
gating endangered cultures and languages, 
indigenous environmental knowledge, and 

the connections between these subjects. 
Through its Recovering Voices Initiative, the 
museum plans to digitize its entire collection 
of ethnographic sound recordings, estimated 
at 3,000 hours and 35,000 pages of manu-
script materials, using techniques that will 
make these electronic sources readily avail-
able to the public through the Smithsonian’s 
online and openly accessible catalog system. 
Experts estimate that more than 50 percent of 
the world’s living languages will cease to be 
spoken by the end of this century, and with 
them, the ability to confront worldwide envi-
ronmental challenges will be diminished. The 
digitization project funded by Arcadia aims to 
conserve this knowledge, which is currently 
recorded on materials that are at high risk of 
degrading. 

A c q u i s i t i o n s

Film critic Judith Crist’s papers have been 
acquired by Columbia University Libraries/
Information Services’ Rare Book and Manu-
script Library. Throughout her career, she 
wrote reviews for The New York Herald Tri-
bune, New York Magazine, TV Guide, Sat-
urday Review, Gourmet, and Ladies’ Home 
Journal. In 1963, she became the first regu-
lar movie critic for the “Today Show.” Her 
reviews were often known to be caustic; 
film director Otto Preminger referred to her 
as “Judas Crist.” In addition to her work as 
a film critic and reporter, she taught journal-
ism courses at Columbia and was a long-
time member of the Executive Committee 
of the Columbia University Graduate School 
of Journalism Alumni Association. She also 
served three terms as president of the Alum-
ni Association during the 1960s. The papers 
constitute 135 linear feet of material, cover-
ing her entire career as a writer, critic, ex-
hibitor, and teacher. The collection is the gift 
of her son, Steven Crist. 

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