Ask us anything: Philanthropic gifts

Shelly asks:

How do philanthropic gifts benefit the Preservation Department?

Philanthropic gifts can have a big and long-lasting impact on the Preservation Department and the work we do to help preserve the University’s collections. Without these generous gifts, the Preservation Lab wouldn’t be what it is today. Because of these gifts we are able to have a fully-equipped 3000 square-foot preservation lab, where we can treat everything from miniature books to large drawings that are many feet long.

We’ve also been able to provide Lennox Foundation Internships, thanks to a generous endowment that was established to fund graduate-level internships in library and archives preservation administration and conservation. The endowment also supports the educational outreach activities of the Iowa State University preservation staff. We’ve offered twelve-week internships to provide graduate students with practical experience and exposure to preservation in an academic library environment (search the “Lennox interns” tag on this blog to read more).

While past donations have contributed to the construction and outfitting of our current space, with recent gifts we were able to acquire a large format scanner to aid in the digitization of large blueprints and drawings as well as newspapers and delicate books. Donations like this help us preserve the library collections as well as giving us the ability to make them widely available.

The Scanmaster large format scanner was purchased with help from a generous donor. It allows us to scan large format items like maps, blueprints, and newspapers in-house. We can also use it to scan books.

We’re very grateful to donors who allow us to do what we do even better. If you’re interested in giving to the Library, find out how here: https://www.lib.iastate.edu/about-library/contact/giving