Preserving the Prange Collection
This was a banner year for the Gordon W. Prange Collection. Significant funding was secured from the Nippon Foundation of Japan and the National Endowment for the Humanities, $477,000 and $300,000 respectively, to complete the microfilming of the Newspaper Collection which has been the focus of staff activities in recent years.
The visibility of the collection in Japan was greatly enhanced by the mounting of the first-ever exhibition of materials from the collection at the Aizu Museum of Waseda University in Tokyo from December 5-11, 1998. More than 2,800 persons viewed the exhibit during its week-long stay there. A symposium on the immediate postwar era was held in conjunction with the Waseda exhibit. A second exhibition, viewed by more than 5,000 individuals, as well as a symposium, were held the following spring, from May 20-June 10, 1999, at the Kyoto Museum for World Peace at Ritsumeikan University. As the fiscal year ended, plans were being finalized for a third and final exhibition at the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. Delegations from the Libraries traveling to Japan in conjunction with the exhibitions in Tokyo and Kyoto included Dean Lowry, Desider Vikor, Amy Wasserstrom, and Ernest Notar. These visits afforded the staff additional opportunities to cultivate development opportunities in Japan, confer with key personnel at Japan's National Diet Library, and otherwise promote the interests of the Prange Collection.
© 2001 University of Maryland Libraries
Last Revised: 01/24/01