NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 27 number 2 - Winter 2007

Library Development: An Accomplished Group of Faculty Friends

By Anna Dahlstein, External Relations and Friends of the Library

The Friends of the Library is a devoted group of library advocates from the university and the community. In this third profile of Friends, the Libraries explores the many ways university faculty and staff have set up collection endowments to ensure that scholars and students will enjoy access to the latest research materials at a level beyond that provided by state funding. Others have contributed generously to annual drives such as the Association of Retired Faculty campaigns.

Through the generosity of faculty donations, two endowments have been set up at the NCSU Libraries, the NCSU Faculty Endowment for the Libraries’ Collections and the Retired Faculty and Staff Library Endowment. In the mid-1990s NC State faculty voted to forgo salary increases in favor of the library and student financial aid. “That generous gift, made with enthusiasm by the entire university faculty, was the catalyst that allowed the transformation of our library,” said Michael K. Stoskopf, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Faculty also gather specialized literature, slides, and all manner of primary materials to support their teaching and research and generate a prolific intellectual output of their own, which they can donate to the Libraries as in-kind gifts, enriching the general and special collections. By donating their professional papers to the Special Collections Research Center’s manuscript collections, these scholars significantly deepen the pool of research materials available in their areas of inquiry.

A few collections reflect the avocational interests of donors. Sanford R. and Ellen B. Winston cultivated a passionate interest in music, particularly opera, symphonic, and chamber music. Each of them served a term as president of the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild, and they were devoted patrons of Raleigh’s Friends of the College concert series. S. R. Winston joined NC State in 1926 and chaired the Department of Sociology from 1933 until his retirement in 1963. Upon his death, his wife gave the library not only his papers related to rural sociology and African American issues, but also their extensive collection of classical recordings, scores, librettos, and books of music criticism and history.

The latter materials formed the basis of the Sanford Richard Winston Music Collection, which continues to grow thanks to a generous endowment created by Ellen Winston. The Ellen Winston Endowment allows the Libraries to purchase multimedia resources supporting interdisciplinary coursework and research across the humanities and social studies and even in the physics of music.

Another core group of allies is drawn from the ranks of the library profession. Harlan Brown and Helen Abel met at the University of Michigan in 1934 when they were master’s students in library science. Not long after getting married, both secured positions in Raleigh--she as head librarian at St. Mary’s College and he as circulation librarian and later director at NC State. In 1936 the D. H. Hill Library, then located in Brooks Hall, employed only four full-time staff members and held a scant 33,000 volumes. Under Brown’s leadership, the library moved into a new building, now the East Wing of the D. H. Hill Library, and the collection grew to nearly half a million volumes.

Both of the Browns retired in 1971, but they remained active members of the Friends of the Library. After Harlan Brown died, his wife established an Incubator Endowment in his memory. She contributed to it faithfully over the course of more than two decades. At the age of 103, Helen Brown died on July 13, 2005, leaving a bequest to add to her endowment, which provides income to enhance the collections in all subjects and formats. Her admirable example inspired friends and colleagues to make additional gifts to the Harlan C. and Helen A. Brown Endowment.

When current Vice Provost and Director of Libraries Susan K. Nutter lived in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, the local public library played an important role for her family. A relative founded the library. Her father led the board of trustees and held library card No. 1. An avid reader and borrower herself, Nutter secured a job in the children’s department before she was a teenager. By the time she enrolled in college, however, she was determined not to become a librarian, let alone marry one.

Fate would have it otherwise. An inspiring experience at Harvard University’s Widener Library persuaded her to obtain a master’s in library and information science, followed by various positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An internship in library management brought her to UNC-Chapel Hill, where she met her future husband, Joe A. Hewitt, then the associate university librarian for technical services at the Wilson Library.

They married in 1982, and after five years of commuting up and down the East Coast, Nutter left MIT to join the NCSU Libraries as director. Hewitt served as university librarian at UNC-Chapel Hill from 1993 until his retirement in 2004. Among numerous gifts, the couple established the Edmund Winslow and Dorothy Hilmer Nutter Endowment in honor of her parents. For the Achieve! Campaign, Nutter also made a generous donation toward the ongoing East Wing renovation in honor of her sister, Deborah Winslow Nutter, whose name will be permanently associated with the light sculpture in the new Conservatory.

Neighborliness, Wolfpack pride, and a commitment to scholarship, librarianship, and family--all are well represented among the motivations that compel the Friends of the Library to sustain their traditions of giving.