Recent Notable Purchases
 

ROLAND BAUGHMAN

Editor's Note: Since it happens that most of the gift and endowed
fimds for the purchase of rare materials are adininistered by either
Special Collections or Avery, the acquisitions described heloiv
mainly pertain to those units. This does not mean that other divi-
sio7is of the Libraries are without such materials, but only that
their budgeted funds are needed to meet current requirements
for instruction and research. Special Collections, not being re¬
stricted as to subject area, tries to take tip some of the slack which
this exigency creates.
 

E
 

EGINNING with the very first issue of Columbia Library
Columns we have made a point of recording the many
fine gifts of books and manuscripts that come to the
Libraries from members of the Friends and from other donors.
Only occasionally during that period lias mention been made of
the unusual materials tliat have been acquired by purchase. And
yet by far the majority of the purchases of valuable collections
and individual rarities are made from endowed or capital funds
M'bich have been established by past benefactors. Because such
acquisitions are selected by library personnel, the fact is some¬
times o\'erlooked that, in a very real sense, these too are gifts.

Gift and endowment funds form a most important part of the
support of our book-buying program. Some of these funds are
used for normal, bread-and-butter materials needed directly for
course instruction and research; they help to nurture the bone
and muscle of Columbia's library strength, as their donors
intended. But certain funds have been established expressly to
provide unusual strength in specified areas. The Bancroft Foun¬
dation is the most spectacular of these at Columbia; four-fifths of
the earnings of this $1,900,000 fund are used to develop deep
library resources for the study of American history and culture,

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