HUMANITIES ENDOWMENT CHALLENGE GRANT MET
In June 2005, the Durham County Library was selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to receive one of only 10 Challenge Grants offered nationally. In order to qualify for the entire half-million dollars, the Durham Library Foundation needed to raise $1.5 million from nonfederal sources by Jan. 31, 2008.
“NEH Challenge Grants contribute to the long-term viability and strength of America's leading cultural institutions and their humanities programs,” said NEH Chairman Bruce Cole. “These grants encourage support from individual, foundation and corporate donors to benefit the cultural life of our communities and our nation.”
Nearly 1,000 businesses and individuals contributed more than $1,500,000 to leverage the $500,000 challenge grant and to establish a permanent Humanities Endowment to be managed by the Durham Library Foundation.
Year after year, the Humanities Endowment will fund programs and collections to support the residents of our diverse community as they examine questions of self, community and the world, mining the wealth of local and national scholars and scholarly resources.
Philip Cherry, former library director, said, “This is an historic moment for Durham County and the Durham County Library. The NEH grant and the endowment it helps to create will allow the library to do more through its partnerships to ensure that residents enjoy a community that is vibrant, rich in aesthetic beauty and embraces and promotes its cultural heritage.”
Durham County Library director, Skip Auld noted, “Funds generated from the Humanities Endowment are helping the library deepen programming partnerships with Duke University, North Carolina Central University, Durham Public Schools, Durham Technical Community College, the Museum of Life and Science, Durham Historic Preservation Society, Hayti Heritage Center, El Centro Hispano and the myriad other arts, cultural and educational institutions represented in the community.”
In July 2007, the Durham Library Foundation distributed the first $75,000 from the endowment to support new and dynamic humanities programs and acquisitions planned by two part-time Humanities Coordinators.
Highlights from the Humanities Endowment:
Art with the Experts - In partnership with the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the library has developed a new series called Art with the Experts. In this series, curators and staff members from the Nasher bring the museum to the library with interactive discussions and slides from the Nasher’s current exhibitions. The first three events in the series were enthusiastically received by participants. We look forward to continuing Art with the Experts in January 2009 with a slideshow and discussion about the exhibition A Room of Their Own: The Bloomsbury Artists in American Collections.
Poetry for Everyone - In April 2008, nearly 250 people enjoyed the literary art form of poetry as part of Poetry for Everyone. Created in celebration of National Poetry Month, Poetry for Everyone was a series of six events held at different library locations during which more than forty local leaders shared their favorite poems. In addition to governmental, business and faith community leaders, local poets Kim Arrington and Michael McFee read from their own work, and poet Michael Chitwood read “Shirt” by Robert Pinsky. Attendees were enthusiastic about the program, and their evaluations included comments like, “What a treat!” and “Very good innovative program.” Poetry for Everyone was recently awarded Outstanding Adult Program from the North Carolina Public Library Directors Association. Look for a new line up of readers in April 2009!
The Foundation provides almost half of the Summer Reading Club budget, which allows staff to provide many varied activities and programs to encourage children to engage their minds at the library and to encourage families to read together. The library reached 20,831 children, teens and adults with programs, registered more than 12,000 readers and circulated more than 100,000 items for children and young adults in summer 2007.
Divining America: Religion in American History - In September 2008, the library launched a new humanities series called Divining America: Religion in American History. Through eleven lecture-discussions, scholars from Duke University, Duke Divinity School, UNC-Chapel Hill and Elon University encourage attendees to think about a variety of seminal religious movements in American history from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Topics include: Native American Religion in Early America, Religion in the Civil War and The Scopes Trial. Divining America is receiving rave reviews from attendees, who appreciate the opportunity to learn about American history in an accessible, engaging way.
