WVU Libraries receives support during the year from donors and the community through
cash and endowment gifts as well as gift-in-kind in the form of artifacts and archives
for the West Virginia and Regional History Center, and books, rare and not, which
make it into our catalogue, and onto our shelves. Private funding opens
the door for resource purchases, live programming and hands-on research opportunities
that set our students apart as they embark on their careers.
Fully 38 percent of invested dollars (152 endowments) grows our collections in both old and new formats ensuring our ability to deliver the right information to the right user at the right time and in the process, to elevate our research libraries to the level of excellence needed by a leading R1 university. The transition to more online teaching formats has only increased the faculty and student requests and subsequent cost of accessing necessary materials and databases.
For every major, each dollar directly correlates to a response to a classroom or research need.
WVU Libraries Endowment Spend
❯ FY22 - $511,772
Graduate research commons opens
This year the Graduate Research Commons opened its doors on the ground floor of the Downtown Library. It is a space for graduate students to connect outside of their department. Here they can consult with librarians and other experts, access the most sophisticated databases and software, reserve time for group study and work on interdisciplinary projects.
The foresight of donors through The Charles E. Hendrixson Jr. Charitable Trust and the Eberly Family Library Endowment decades ago have paved the way for current graduate research.
Library awards provide new experiences
WVU Libraries is able to lift up our students, courtesy of private donation and estate giving. The Library Student Intern Fund provides library experience for undergraduates with financial need who do not receive work study. Alumna Claudia Cola and her spouse, Tom Frassrand, understood that WVU libraries employs many students throughout the year but can do so much more with this type of cash support.
Thomas J. Knight remembered fondly his career as Dean of Arts & Sciences during President’s Gee’s first term as President in the early 80’s. He connected with us in 2021 to donate his extensive library (a gift-in-kind which arrives this summer) and recognized he could help with an existing program to reward great undergraduate research utilizing library resources. By endowing the Robert F. Munn Library Scholars Award these students will be supported and the program can grow in perpetuity.
Telling our story for future generations
Many West Virginians and WVU alumni have embraced the work of the WV & Regional History Center providing substantial support for operations, acquisitions and preservation. The WVRHC is the premier special collections for our region of Appalachia. The James V. & Ann Pozega Milano Reading Room Collection Endowment ensures we maintain the best collection of research and reading with the Appalachian Collection (housed downtown in the reading rooms and the WVRHC).
Other areas of endowment and cash support provide for acquisition and preservation of rare books, modern congressional archives, area collections (Wheeling, Harrison County, Preston County) and subject collections (Military History, History of Technology, University Archives) and most recently, the West Virginia Feminist Activist Collection. The need for access and the race to preserve history stored on outdated technology lends extra urgency to digitization efforts. With a new Digital Archivist to manage multiple projects, funding in these areas goes immediately to the work.