Trustees Honor Retiring University Librarian
On May 5, 1990 the Library Associates Board of Trustees held its sixteenth annual meeting in Room 156 of Lauinger Library. At that time three new members were elected to the Board: Rev. Robert B. Lawton, S.J., Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown; Edward (Ted) McMullen, Georgetown class of 1991; and Joseph E. Jeffs, who was retiring on June 30 after 36 years of service, 30 of them as chief librarian.
Reporting on the library's major drive to increase its endowment, Mr. Jeffs said that funds together with pledges received since the beginning of the campaign amounted to $800,000. The goal of the drive is $2 million.
Board Chairman Neil Moynihan announced that various board members had joined together to establish a discrete book endowment fund to honor Mr. Jeffs on the occasion of his retirement. His tenure marked the transition of the library from a pleasant, if hopelessly overcrowded and inaccessible, relic holding around 200,000 volumes to a basic university collection of over 1,250,000 volumes housed in a modern building which is a central feature of student life on the Georgetown campus. In the 20 years since the opening of Lauinger Library, growth of the collections has been dramatic under Jeffs' leadership, aided in no small measure by the Library Associates.
The chair then presented the librarian with checks totaling $15,000 to be deposited in the Joseph and Jeannine Jeffs Book Endowment Fund, income from which will be used to purchase rare books and manuscripts in the field of twentieth century English literature. Donors to this fund include Maurice Adelman, Jr., Daniel Altobello, Jack Babcock, George Barringer, William Blatty, Timothy Childs, Salvatore Costabile, Robert Edmund, Herbert and Mary Fockler, David Ganz, George Giard, Jr., Philip Gruccio, Herbert Gstalder, Joseph Harvey, Homer Hervey, Joseph Jova, Philip Lauinger, Jr., Michael Leahy, Richard McMahon, Cornelius Moynihan, Fulton Oursler, Jr., Bernard Picchi, Martin Quigley, James Reed, Theron Rinehart, Nicholas Scheetz, Eric Smith, Jean Smith, Matthew Smith, Roy and Elizabeth Smith, Paul Straske, William Taft III, Peter Tanous, David Walsh, and the Library Council of the Consortium of Universities of Metropolitan Washington.
Any Associates who would like to contribute to this worthy cause may send a check made out to the Jeffs Book Endowment Fund to the Library Associates, Georgetown University Library, Washington, DC 20057.
Other New Funds
Several new book endowment funds have been established by individual members of the Associates' Board this year in response to the major fund drive. They are:
The P. C. Lauinger Memorial Book Endowment Fund, established by his son, Philip C. Lauinger, Jr. (P.C.'s death was recorded in Newsletter 23, August 1988.)
The Breier-Scheetz Manuscript Endowment Fund, established by Frederick B. Scheetz and Nicholas B. Scheetz, for the purchase of manuscript materials by nineteenth and twentieth century British and American Catholic literary figures.
The Louis and Laura Moscato Book Endowment Fund, established by their son, John Moscato.
The Peter J. Tanous Book Endowment, established by Mr. Tanous.
The Georgetown Chimes Book Endowment Fund, established by David J. Walsh.