ANN ARBOR, MI - A $10 million gift celebrates the legacy of the University of Michigan’s William L. Clements Library’s four directors, including its founding director, Randolph G. Adams.
The donation from the Avenir Foundation will name the museum’s directorship the “Randolph G. Adams Director of the Clements Library” through the establishment of the Adams, Peckham, Dann and Graffagnino Endowment Fund. The named directorship was approved by UM’s Board of Regents at its June 20 meeting.
Adams led the Clements library from its opening in 1923 until his death in 1951, helping establish one of the most comprehensive collections of early American History in the world. During that time, he worked with William Clements, a former regent and the library’s benefactor, to triple the size of the library.
The endowment fund is named for the four men who have served as director since the library’s opening, including Adams, Howard H. Peckham, John C. Dann and its current director J. Kevin Graffagnino, who is retiring at the end of the year.
“The new endowment is tremendously important to the Library’s future,” Graffagnino said. “It will give future directors the fiscal and programmatic flexibility to dream big, pursue bold new initiatives, and accomplish great things in pursuit of our mission. The Clements (library) has been an international leader in early American history for 96 years, and this new endowment will help ensure that we can maintain that proud tradition through the library’s second century.”
In addition to the named directorship, the Clements Library’s rare book room also will receive a new name: The Norton Strange Townshend Room.
Graffagnino oversaw a two-and-a-half-year, $17-million renovation of the library that was completed in 2016. Designed by legendary architect Albert Kahn, the Clements Library houses original books, documents and other literature of American history and culture from the 15th century to the 19th that are available for study by students and researchers.
The endowment is open-ended for general support of the library’s needs and could be used to enhance historical collections, digitizing and other technology to make the collections accessible to global audiences and conserve rare original materials to preserve them for use by future generations, as well as provide staffing for special projects and new initiatives, Graffagnino said.