Grantmakers in the News

The Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center received a $1 million grant earlier this year from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation. The contribution will be used to upgrade the Archives & Special Collections reading room, which supports scholarly access to the many manuscripts, books and artifacts housed within the Woodruff Library of the AUC.

Currently, the Archives & Special Collections is home to a number of historically significant items, including its most recent addition, the books and writings of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr., Collection.

"With the addition of the Morehouse King Collection, the Woodruff Library will serve an increasingly important role in its West End community, attracting visitors and spurring economic and cultural growth," said Bank of America chairman and CEO Kenneth D. Lewis. "We are pleased to help the library renovate the reading room and update its capabilities to house and display the King papers and its impressive collection of historical holdings for students, the community, and visitors from across the country."

Bank of America’s donation is the first major contribution the Library has received toward a comprehensive building renovation plan designed to transform the Woodruff Library of the AUC into a 21st Century teaching and learning environment. This contribution will help fund physical improvements to the reading room and staff areas, the expansion of climate control capabilities and archival storage facilities. The Special Collections staff will also receive training in current digitization processes and technology, further increasing public access to Library holdings.

“The information seeking behaviors of the 21st century student require different resources and spaces for instruction and research,” said Loretta Parham. “This generous gift from Bank of America will allow us to start improving Library spaces, specifically the Archives and Special Collections reading room. Historically, the Atlanta University Center and the institutions it represents, have served as a touchstone for social, intellectual and economic progress within the City of Atlanta. It is fitting that Bank of America’s contribution will support enhancements to the Archives & Special Collections reading room that makes historical records and artifacts chronicling those activities more accessible to the public.”

The Library’s Archives & Special Collections dates back 81 years to the Negro Collection of the Trevor Arnett Library of Atlanta University, the oldest among the separate and special collections of AUC member schools that were combined and relocated to the Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center. Materials within the Woodruff Library Archives & Special Collections are regularly referenced in articles, books, exhibits, films, Web sites and other scholarly works and used daily by students, faculty, authors, journalists, curators and other researchers nationally and internationally.

The library, which is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this year, provides collaborative services for the exclusive benefit of four of its member institutions — Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, and Selma College.

Bank of America has embarked on a 10-year goal to give $1.5 billion to nonprofit organizations engaged in improving the quality and vitality of their neighborhoods. The bank will give more than $200 million in 2007. Bank of America approaches giving through a national strategy called "neighborhood excellence" under which it works with local leaders to identify and meet the most pressing needs of individual communities.