$2 Million Gift for Library
MRS. HELEN SPENCER AND THE LATE MR. SPENCER Foundation Gives Library to KU.
By John Harrington
By John Harrington The enlarging of KU's physical plant was enhanced by the recent donation of $2 million by the Kenneth A. and Helen F. Spencer Foundation to the KU Endowment Association to build the Spencer Research Library.
The new facility is to be built behind Strong Hall in place of barracks buildings which have stood since the end of World War II. It will house KU's collections of books and manuscripts in a number of fields. Special emphasis will be on the humanities, historical aspects of the social sciences, and the history of science.
THE SIX buildings presently behind Strong—officially called Strong Annexes—were erected in 1945 in anticipation of a postwar enrollment boom of returning veterans. Plans have included tearing them down almost from the day they were brought here.
Construction is expected to begin in 1966, according to R. Keith Lawton, vice-chancellor. He said that the site will probably not be cleared until late this summer because the departments and classrooms housed in the barracks must be relocated.
Preliminary designs by architect Robert Jenks of Kansas City, Mo., have been approved by the Spencer Foundation.
The new library will include a special room for the collection of the personal papers and documents of Kenneth A. Spencer. These papers were requested by the University shortly after Spencer's death in 1960, and have been catalogued and stored.
SPENCER GRADUATED from KU in 1926 majoring in geology, and worked for the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company as a mining engineer. By 1941 he was vice-president and general manager of the company.
During that year he founded what was to become his most outstanding business achievement — the Spencer Chemical Company, which has been responsible for major industrial development in this and other regions.
Spencer was one of nine men who in 1944 established the Midwest Research Institute, now one of the top such institutes in the nation.
Spencer was honored by KU several times during his career. Among the honors were the Erasmus Haworth award in 1953 for outstanding contributions to geology by a KU alumnus and the Citation for Distinguished Service in 1943.
THE LIBRARY is not the first gift to come to KU through the Spencers. In 1958 they provided a distinguished professorship in engineering. A beautiful home for the provost of the Medical Center in Kansas City was also donated, and last October, Mrs. Spencer contributed the non-sectarian chapel to the Medical Center.
The Kenneth A. Spencer Memorial Lectures, made possible by his friends at the time of his death, have brought such distinguished men as Fred R. Kappel, board chairman of American Telephone and Telegraph, to the campus in recent years.
The library, according to Thomas R. Buckman, director of
libraries, will be a modern workshop for use of KU's important and growing collection of rare books, manuscripts, maps, archives, and other specialized collections.
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AMONG THESE collections are:
- The John Crerar collection on economic history.
- The Watkins collection on Kansas business and economic history.
- The Summerfield collection on the Continental Renaissance.
- The Melvin collection on the French Revolution.
- Collections on James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, and Rainer Maria Rilke.
- The Realey collection on the English 18th Century.
- The Ralph Ellis collection on ornithology and the history of travel and exploration.
- The Pennell collection of photographs of early life in Kansas.
Also
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- The Thomas J. Fitzpatrick collection on botany.
- Coats
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- The Edmund Currl collection on early English publishing.
- The Stirling-Maxwell collection on Cervantes.
"Kenneth was first and always a Kansan," she said, "and had strong loyalty and great devotion to the University of Kansas."
been pleased by the action of the foundation.
- The Wallace E. Pratt collection on geology.
Fred Green Western Wear
910 Mass.
Good Morals a Must
Candidates for admission to KU in 1866 had to be at least 14 years of age, and were "expected to present satisfactory evidence of good moral behavior."
- The Gerritsen collection on
the social, economic, and political history of women.
"This building will provide facilities urgently needed for scholarly research by faculty and students," Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe said. "It will be, as well, a regional resource. It will be an attraction for visiting scholars, and it will enhance the University's ability to obtain and keep outstanding faculty members.
"IT IS THE largest single gift ever made to KU or to any institution in Kansas."
After the announcement of the establishment of the library by the Spencer Foundation, Mrs. Spencer, who attended KU, said that her husband would have
Students were asked to be prompt at the opening of the term, and "continue unto the end, and not absent themselves from town without permission of the President."
6 Daily Kansan Tuesday, February 8, 1966
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