Section II:
Gifts to the Collections

·  The Main Library

"I can not over estimate the value of the Paolella collection. I would like to mention its quality and its depth. Edward Paolella has immeasurably enriched the libraries of CUNY." Susan Vaughn, Associate Librarian for Collection Development

Professor Yuri Arenberg (Economics)
15 economics textbooks

Professor Leonard Ashley (English)
A significant collection of circa 275 new titles with a purchase value of $10,800

Professor Alberto Blasi (Modern Languages and Literatures)
69 books and periodicals in the area of Spanish Literature

Mr. David Fleishman
234 books, including a number of new titles

Professor Jules Gelernt (English, retired)
167 books

Professor Gregori Lazarcik (Economics)
34 books

Professor Edward Paolella (English)
Edward Paolella, a well-respected bibliophile and instructor in the English Department, plans to donate his valuable and extensive personal book collection to the Library. This year, he gave over 2,000 books and 1,630 issues of various journals. Thus far, we have cataloged 2,194 titles from the Paolella Collection.

Professor Bernard Toscani (Modern Languages and Literatures)
147 books · The Music Library

Mark Berman
520 rare LPs

Leo Greenbaum (YIVO Institute)
36 opera libretti, an unusual repertoire in mint?condition

Dr. Nina Morris-Farber
17 music scores

Professor Jules Gelernt (English, retired)
150 LPs

Professor Bernard Goldberg
12 music scores

Professor Nancy Hager (Music)
49 compact discs

Mr. Dave Newman
Significant runs of music journals American String Teacher & Chamber Music

Professor Stephen Phillips (School of Education)
165 opera LPs

The Family of Iris Silvers
Ms. Silvers' family donated 476 music scores and 84 books in the late pianist's memory

·  Special Collections

William Alfred Collection (140 cubic feet of archival materials; 200 boxes of books)
In the winter 2000 Brooklyn College enjoyed an enormous coup as the Friends of William Alfred purchased his papers and library, donating them to the Archives. President Christoph M. Kimmich, although he had not officially begun his new assignment at Brooklyn College, played a significant role in helping the College to secure the Alfred Papers.

William Alfred was a beloved professor, poet, and playwright who taught at Harvard for over forty years until his death in May of 1999. He was the Abbott Lawrence Lowell Professor of the Humanities Emeritus and mentored some of America's most prominent actors, including Sam Shepherd, Tommy Lee Jones, Stockard Channing, John Lithgow, and Faye Dunaway. He counted among his friends writers such as Gertrude Stein, Archibald MacLeish, Robert Lowell, and Seamus Heany.

Born in Brooklyn in 1922, Alfred graduated from Brooklyn College, where, he told the Boston Globe in a 1970 piece, "All the commonplaces of my life were smashed, and thank God for that." He earned his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1954 and joined its faculty, retiring in 1991. Known to generations of Harvard students as "The Professor," Alfred chaired Harvard's Standing Committee on Dramatics for many years. He was also a playwright and a poet, a recipient of the New York Drama Desk Award who also served on the poetry panels of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award committees.

Alfred's collection consists of a wide range of manuscript materials, as well as several hundred bound volumes. Archivist Anthony Cucchiara, with the assistance of Alfred's friends Prudence Carlson and Gillian Walker, have formed an advisory committee for the Alfred Collection which met for the first time on February 26, 2001. Assistant Archivist Marianne LaBatto has assembled a team of support staff and interns to begin organizing this significant collection. This will be a challenging task because there is no order to the materials in the 200-plus boxes we have received. Compounding this problem, over thirty boxes contain water-damaged materials requiring conservation treatment before they can be processed. Following the collection's assessment by preservation expert Miriam Kahn of Columbus, OH, the damaged items were shipped to the Belfor Laboratories in Texas. Funding for this work came from the Friends of William Alfred.

Ebbets Field Home Plate
Said to be the last home plate from Ebbets Field, this artifact had long been housed in the President's Office.

Ruth Temple Papers (35 cubic feet)
The papers of Ruth Temple, a former Brooklyn College faculty member, were donated by her estate. Ruth Temple was instrumental in the creation of a CUNY graduate degree in Comparative Literature and was known for her bibliographies of literary criticism. Interviews of Dr. Temple's former student and longtime friend, William Wendroff, conducted by Special Collections intern Baila Spielman, provide valuable information on Dr. Temple's life both in and out of the classroom.

Judge John Ries Bartels Papers (75 cubic feet)
Judge Bartels was a Senior Judge for the Eastern District Courthouse at Cadman Plaza, Brooklyn. Appointed by President Eisenhower, he kept this post until his death in 1997. He is most widely known for presiding over the Willowbrook and John Gotti trials. The papers were given to us by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York

Edward Paolella Papers (30 cubic feet)
Professor Paolella donated more of his manuscript materials and research notes from his early career at Brooklyn College.

Shovel from the 1935 Groundbreaking for LaGuardia Hall
This shovel, used on October 2, 1935, by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia to break ground for LaGuardia Hall, the first building on the new Midwood campus, was in private hands. In 1999, just in time for the groundbreaking for LaGuardia Hall's new wing, Archivist Anthony Cucchiara secured it for the Brooklyn College Archives.

Shovels from the Groundbreaking for the New Library
These implements were used by Chief Librarian Barbra Buckner Higginbotham and President Vernon E. Lattin at the new Library groundbreaking, November 4, 1999.

Portrait of President Vernon E. Lattin
Painted by Professor Lennart Anderson of the Brooklyn College Art Department, this lifelike portrait was given to Special Collections by the President's Office.

Faculty Books from the Presidents Office (105 cubic feet)
Each of these circa 200 books is signed by its author. The staff of the Archives & Special Collections also processed materials for these existing Brooklyn College collections:

Office of the President, 2 cubic feet
Fraternities and Sororities, 1.5 cubic feet
Society for the Study of Social Problems, 4 cubic feet
Photographic Collection, 1 cubic foot
Master's Theses, 1999-2000

·  The Lincoln Center Institute