Library Completes Challenge to Create Preservation Endowment
A closing gift from the Ahmanson Foundation has enabled the UCLA Library to complete a three-year challenge launched by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish an endowment for preservation and conservation. The endowment will allow the Library to address one of its most pressing needs, which is to protect fragile and highly used resources that have been taken out of circulation because they have begun to show signs of wear, deterioration, or damage.
The Library has raised $750,000, which has been matched by the Mellon Foundation to create an endowment of $1.5 million. The Ahmanson Foundation also provided a generous lead gift, and significant contributions have been made by the Robert G. and Janet S. Dunlap Trust, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Steinmetz Foundation, and many individual donors, including UCLA faculty and alumni.
The Mellon Foundation gave an initial grant of $340,000 to the UCLA Library in early 2002 to hire a conservation specialist and to establish a conservation treatment laboratory. Collections conservator Kristen St. John was hired in 2002, and the conservation laboratory, located in the Southern Regional Library Facility, was completed in 2003.
