Individual Article:
New fund enhances the Library's collection on international affairs and cooperation
With deep appreciation to the Estate of Edward G. Hefter, the Library is pleased to introduce the Edward G. Hefter Library Fund for World Peace. The income from the fund is "to be used by the University Library to promote international understanding and human betterment through the acquisition of basic works on international problems and on foreign areas pertinent to or leading to a better understanding of world civilizations and cultures" (Fund Memo, Office of Development, April 6, 2005).
In fulfillment of the stated goals, the Library will acquire materials that support teaching and research associated, very broadly, with international affairs and cooperation as well as cultural studies. Principal subject areas will include political science, sociology, and anthropology. Other subject areas include economics, education, history, philosophy, and religion. Although books and, to a lesser degree, journals, will be the primary acquisitions, all resource types and formats (e.g. print, microform, electronic) will be considered.
The significance of this gift is epitomized in its first major purchase. It is neither a book nor journal. The "Yale-UN Oral History Project" http://www.library.northwestern.edu/ej/restricted/un_oral_history/index.html) began in 1989 and now includes close to 200 interviews with world leaders, United Nations diplomats and associates, and other participants in significant political events. For example, from Africa, there is an interview with the Prime Minister of Namibia; from Central America, the former President of Nicaragua; in Cambodia, the former Head of the Human Rights Division, UNTAC; and in regard to the Middle East, the former Senior Minister for Intelligence to King Hussein and former Permanent Representative of Jordan to the UN. Topics include the Iran/Iraq War and the experiences of UNISCOM in Iraq.
The interviews, recorded on audiotape and transcribed, are housed exclusively in the Dag Hammarskjold Library at the UN and the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale. Short of travel to these libraries, the materials have been largely unavailable to scholars. Due to the Hefter Fund, however, Northwestern University was able to encourage and negotiate a project to produce an electronic set of transcripts. Northwestern University Library will soon become the first and only library outside of the UN and Yale to have access to the full archive. The transcripts will be located on a secure web site and made available to the Northwestern community. The importance of this acquisition is noted in the words of Department of Political Science Assistant Professor Ian Hurd: "I'm already scheming ways of having my students make use of the materials, and so I'm sure once they are in the library they will begin to figure prominently in the research of our undergraduates."
Lucy E. Lyons