ACRL announces Nijhoff Grant winner

Contact: Mary Ellen Davis


312-280-3248

ALA News Release


For Immediate Release


March 2001

ACRL announces Nijhoff Grant winner

Sue Waterman, resource services librarian for German and romance languages at Johns Hopkins University, has been awarded the 2001 Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) West European Specialist Section (WESS) Martinus Nijhoff West European Specialist Study Grant.

The grant of 10,000 Dutch guilders covers air travel, transportation, lodging and board for two weeks of research in Western Europe.

Waterman will use the grant for travel to Belgium to gather research in support of her book-length study,
Collecting the Nineteenth Century: The Book, the Specimen, the Photograph as Archive. The study investigates 19th century theories of collecting and collections, through examination of four members of the prominent Selys Longchamps family. Waterman has been working on the project since 1993 and will visit archives in Belgian institutions to complete her research.

"This is an unusual project that will add to the store of knowledge in a variety of disciplines," award committee chair, John Cullars said. "[Waterman] has thought out and planned her project... in an admirably thorough and realistic manner."

Waterman presented a lecture on her project at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in July 2000, and authored "Archive of French and Belgian Publishing Prospectuses," a finding aid published by the Library of Congress.

The award will be presented at the WESS Membership Meeting on Monday, June 18, at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in San Francisco.

For more information about ACRL awards, visit the
ACRL Web site or contact Mary Ellen Davis, executive director, ACRL at 800/545-2433, ext. 3248 or
mdavis@ala.org.

The ACRL, a division of the ALA, is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products, and services to meet the unique needs of academic librarians. It is dedicated to enhancing the ability of academic library and information professionals to serve the information needs of the higher education community and to improve learning, teaching and research.