In recent months the College has received more than $1.5 million in new commitments for the renovation and expansion of Schaffer Library, raising the total for the project to nearly $7 million.
The new commitments include:
- $500,000 from Norton H. Reamer '58 and his wife, Sue;
- $500,000 from Raymond V. Gilmartin '63;
- $250,000 from Robert F. Cummings, Jr. '71;
- an anonymous gift of $250,000;
- $50,000 from Henry B. duPont IV '90;
- $10,580 from Dr. Robert J. Pletman '50.
The gifts qualify for matching funds through a $575,000 challenge grant made by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
As the new gifts came in, project planning continued with four principal objectives in mind:
- The general collection will continue to grow although at a diminished rate as electronic sources of knowledge assume a larger role;
- The special collections, home to such treasures as the College's collection of Aubudon prints, must be given a higher standard of preservation, must become more accessible, and must have room to expand;
- the infrastructure of the current building must be replaced to accommodate technologically-sophisticated new media;
- the College must take advantage of the project to assemble in one place its language laboratory and technological instruction center, together with video distribution systems, computer workstations with access to document delivery services and an expanded CD-ROM collection, and links with libraries and archives of the world through the Internet.
The cost of the expansion and renovation, together with a maintenance and operation endowment, is $14,650,300.