HEW Gives Harvard $300,000 to Save Old Books

The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) this week gave Harvard $300,000 as part of a $6 million program to strengthen 25 major research libraries throughout the nation.

The grant, which HEW's Office of Education stipulates must go to photocopy crumbling books, essentially continues a $380,000 award received last year for the same purposes.

Harvard officials said yesterday the money, allocated by Congress two years ago, represents a trend away from helping small, struggling libraries and towards strengthening major libraries. These libraries, in turn, are expected to lend their books to the smaller libraries.

The Meek Shall Inherit...?

"For the first time our strength and relative wealth was an advantage rather than a disadvantage in applying," Edwin E. Williams, associate University Librarian, said yesterday.

HEW spokesmen said yesterday the program should add more than 40,000 volumes to major research libraries and preserve more than 20,000 volumes. The program should also make 3 million previously unavailable books available to smaller libraries.

"There's a need for a great deal of expenditure of this kind because so much of the material that we have is getting old and is getting into bad condition," Laurence J. Kipp, acting librarian for the College, said yesterday.

"These are big grants so far as we're concerned," Kipp said. "Other grants come in bit and pieces, and go to various parts of the University library or the College library," he added.

Harvard received one of the largest of the 20 grants HEW awarded. The funding comes from a 1977 amendment to the Higher Education Act of 1965. The Association for Research Libraries lobbied the House and Senate appropriations committees for passage of the amendment, Williams said.

Williams, who has control over how the $300,000 will be used, said he will invite each of the dozens of Harvard libraries to submit requests for portions of the grant.

Fragility

"Essentially, we will try to copy material that is either too rare or too fragile to lend to other universities," Williams said.

Williams said a large portion of the grant will go to photocopying old German periodicals, Judaic and Far Eastern texts. He added that he will be able to accomodate most requests for photocopying from the various libraries.