Signature Collections
Brown’s John Hay Library houses renowned special collections that support campus-based teaching as well as national and international scholarship. These materials include the world’s largest collection of American poetry and plays, an internationally recognized collection on military history, and one of the country’s largest and finest Abraham Lincoln collections.
Additional collections of this type include Brown’s extensive holdings in both Portuguese and Brazilian literature, a strong collection in the history of science and mathematics, outstanding multimedia resources in the area of ethnomusicology, and one of the John Hay Library’s newer signature collections on alcohol and temperance. A gift to endow a signature collection will underwrite additions to the collection in any format, the organization and management of the collection’s resources, and the preservation of the collection’s items.
Examples:
• U.S. History, with emphasis on 19th century. $500,000
• American Literature, with emphasis on maintaining strengths in poetry and plays and in adding resources in selected areas of contemporary prose fiction. $300,000
• American Popular Culture, with an emphasis on literary genres outside the established canon where Brown already has strength, such as sheet music, fantasy and science fiction literature, magic and the occult, graphic humor and pulp fiction. $200,000
• History of Science and Mathematics, with emphasis on enhancing existing strengths in mathematics, astronomy, and medicine—including alcohol and addiction $400,000
• Ethnomusicology, with an emphasis on Africa, Appalachia, South Asia. $200,000
• Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Italy, with an emphasis on Greco-Roman art and architecture, early printed books to complement the Annmary Brown Collection of Incunabula, and the literature of the Italian Renaissance. $400,000.
Amount: $200,000 - $500,000