Launched in 2004, the University Libraries Treasures Acquisition Fund (TAP) provides a way for the University’s friends to support the purchase of significant materials that enhance the Library's Rare Books and Special Collections holdings. The Fund enables donors to contribute funds for timely support when purchase opportunities arise, with the full amount donated being made available for such acquisitions.
Contributors to the Fund may, if they wish, designate a gift to cover a purchase in a particular collecting area, and they may also choose whether or not to be recognized in the library catalogue note as the donor of the item(s) that are purchased with their gifts.
TAP purchases in the first five years of the fund have ranged from medieval manuscript leaves and seventeenth-century first editions, to early science books, significant early editions by African-American writers, the writings of the Victorian woman poet Christina Rossetti, World War I pamphlets, fine printing, Norman Rockwell posters, and examples of modern “artist’s books.” A series of gifts over several years has been designated by the donor to support acquisition of historic books about Mexico and meso-american archaeology.
Some examples of the purchases that gifts to the TAP fund have supported include:
- H. G. Ward, Mexico in 1827 (London, 1828), purchased with funds donated by Don Rosick to the TAP Fund, 2008.
- Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (Boston, 1845), purchased with a donation by Fred and Betsy Miller to the TAP Fund, 2005.
- Christina Georgina Rossetti, Verses (London: privately printed for G. Polidori, 1847), and a large group of other Rossetti first editions, purchased with anonymous donations to the TAP Fund, 2009.
- Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms posters, in large format (Washington, DC: Office of War Information, 1943), purchased with TAP funds, 2005..
- Robert Boyle’s New Experiments Physico-Mechanical Touching the Air (London, 1682), purchased with contributions from Dr. Scott Goode’s Chemistry 101 class, and other gifts to the TAP fund, 2007. (portions pictured below)
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Title page of Boyle's Experiments book |
Illustrations in Boyle's Experiments book |
For further information regarding the Treasures Acquisition Program, please contact Rare Books & Special Collections.
To donate to this or any other fund, please contact us.
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