A $2.5-million matching grant to the Seattle Public Library Foundation from the Paul G. Allen Charitable Foundation is expected to double the size of the library system's acquisitions budget in five years' time, library officials announced March 2.
The son of a University of Washington librarian, Allen is the cofounder of the Microsoft Corporation and donated a $10-million library wing to the UW campus some 10 years ago.
At its face the largest cash gift ever given to SPL, the $2.5 million is being divided into an immediate $500,000 boost to the children's collection and $2 million in matching-donation seed money to revitalize neighborhood stacks by 2002 as part of the foundation's six-month-old "Books, Bytes and Believers" project. Some $500,000 has already been raised toward the latter goal, library development director Terry Collings told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer March 4.