Applications for the Libraries’ 2025 endowment fund are now open
Libraries is now accepting applications for its 1804 Special Library Endowment Fund and the Arts and Humanities Junior Faculty Endowment Fund through Monday, March 17, 2025.
In 1979, the Library Endowment was created to help with curating distinctive collections for the Libraries. It’s open to all students, faculty and staff. The Junior Faculty Endowment is to attract outstanding faculty candidates to OHIO and support the success of faculty in their early careers with specialized library resources for their research and teaching.
Eligible applicants for the 1804 Special Library Endowment Fund and the Arts and Humanities Junior Faculty Endowment Fund are encouraged to apply. The deadline for applications is Monday, March 17, 2025, and the awards will be announced Tuesday, July 1, 2025.
The funds provided from the endowment are not only intended for building collections but also to enhance teaching, learning and research needs for students, faculty and staff. The endowment can also be used for valuable and rare materials and items that may not typically be purchased with the Libraries’ annual acquisition funds.
2024 Awardees
The 2024 recipients of the 1804 Special Library Endowment were Nicole Reynolds, associate professor of English and women’s, gender & sexuality studies, Sabrina Curran and Nancy Tatarek, both associate professors of anthropology, Sherri Saines, former subject librarian for the social sciences, Cali Weber, a now OHIO alum, Melissa Haviland, professor of art and printmaking and Miriam Shadis, associate professor of history.
Reynolds requested three rare books owned and annotated by Siegfried Sassoon, an English war poet, writer and soldier. She wrote in her proposal that Alden Library already had some books from the personal collection of Edmund Blunden, another celebrated WWI poet, memoirist and avid book collector. Blunden specifically had books from Sassoon, which show the instantiate relationships between other writers and bibliophiles.
“Books gifted to Blunden from fellow war poet and memoirist Siegfried Sassoon are especially rich examples of such book-historical phenomena as association copies, marginalia and extra-illustration,” Reynolds wrote.
Curran, Tatarek and Saines all worked together to create a proposal for a standing skeleton with full articulation of a Neanderthal. Saines had suggested to Curran to apply for the endowment after they had previously been connected to each other after trying to get a sizable collection of replica specimens. The skeleton is a relatively unique object to have at a library and uncommon to have as an option for students to study with.
“We had hoped it would be able to be displayed somewhere in the library to draw students in and make them aware of the hominin replica collection,” Curran wrote in an email. “I also direct my Human Evolution (Anthropology 4730) students to the collection to study.”
Weber was a senior English major when she applied for the endowment as a part of her with the Libraries. She requested three works by British author and essayist, Virginia Woolf, who is also the first non-male Author Collection within OHIO’s Rare Books. Joseph McLaughlin, associate professor in English, and Miriam Intrator, interim head for the Mahn Center and Digital Initiatives and Special Collections librarian, helped Weber throughout the process.
In Weber’s words from the collection’s webpage, “These titles showcase Woolf as an author, publisher, and printer. They demonstrate how Woolf’s literary interest extended to the making of the book, and to collaborating with her sister on illustrations and designs for her own books. They provide insight into who she was in addition to a brilliant author.”
Haviland also had some help with her proposal for the 1804 grant from Miriam Intrator, interim head for the Mahn Center and Digital Initiatives and Special Collections librarian. This was the second Library endowment awarded that the two had collaborated on, and this time, they worked together to get “MANUALI TIPOGRAFICI,” a six-volume book set dedicated to aesthetics and typography, and “Archive of Styles: Masterpieces of 20th-century type design.”
“The items from ‘Archives of Styles’ are unique and will be excellent education tools for the School of Art + Design students, specifically those studying printmaking and graphic design,” Haviland wrote in an email.
Similar to Haviland, Shadis was awarded the endowment multiple times with help from Intrator. Shadis purchased three facsimiles of medieval manuscript books, including “The Art of Hunting with Birds” by Emperor Frederick II, “The Hitda Codex” and the Erlangen manuscript of Christine de Pizan’s, “Letter of Othea to Hector.” She requested the books for her medieval history courses and to share with those across the history and English departments.
“The facsimile collection we’ve been building for some time now is really special – potentially unique – for its breadth and richness. We have materials originating in precise copy from across Europe and from the 9th century to the 16th, including 14th century Haggadahs and a 16th century Koran,” Shadis wrote. “We are really fortunate!”
In previous years, recipients of both endowments have purchased items like facsimiles of medieval books, collections to contribute to DEI and materials on law and colonialism.
For more information about the endowments, contact the Libraries.