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Preservationist Terry Belanger Wins MacArthur “Genius” AwardTerry Belanger, professor and director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, has been awarded one of 25 fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Popularly called “genius awards,” the fellowships are given for “creativity, originality, and potential” and consist of $500,000 of no-strings-attached support over the next five years.The awards cannot be applied for and require no reporting. Recipients received a phone call out of the blue the week before the September 20 announcement, informing them that they had been selected. The foundation noted that Belanger was chosen for his work as a “rare book preservationist raising the profile of the book as one of humankind’s greatest inventions and as an integral part of the history of technology and human communication.” Belanger told American Libraries he did not view the money as a personal gift but as a boost to the work of the Rare Book School—which he founded in 1983 at Columbia University and moved to the University of Virginia in 1992—and as a way to ensure that the school is properly endowed. “I suspect getting the grant will increase our fundraising reach,” he noted. “Although the program is one of distinction, it is also one of hand-to-mouth. The money will really help. I’ve had to underpay my faculty and overwork my staff, so to have a little bit of slack is going to be really helpful.” For 30 years, Belanger has been an activist in the rare book world, helping shape the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the American Library Association’s Association of College and Research Libraries. His Rare Book School has educated thousands of practicing librarians, booksellers, collectors, and archivists. Belanger is the second member of the library profession to be awarded a MacArthur fellowship. The first was Getatchew Haile, cataloger of oriental manuscripts at the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, in 1988. Posted September 21, 2005. |
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