Libraries’ Raising Endowment for Map Collection

By Gerald D. Saxon

For the past three decades the UTA Libraries’ Special Collections Division has been building a cartographic history collection focusing on Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. Built largely through the private donations of individuals like Ted and Helen Mayborn, Lewis and Virginia Buttery, Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Chilton, Jr., Murray Hudson, and especially Jenkins and Virginia Garrett, and with the support of foundations like the Sid Richardson Foundation of Fort Worth and the Summerlee Foundation of Dallas, the collection now numbers 5,000 maps dating from 1493 to the present and includes more than 2,000 school and commercial atlases and geographies dating from the 16th through the 20th centuries. Indeed, UTA’s collection is one of the largest Texas and Gulf of Mexico map collections outside of the Library of Congress.

Two years ago Virginia Garrett donated more than 900 maps of Texas and the Gulf Coast to UTA—at the time this was the largest such collection in private hands. Mrs. Garrett’s collection came with a challenge. Her collection was donated with the provision that UTA guarantee that the map collection be preserved, cataloged, enhanced, and the focus of public and academic programs. In short, she wanted the collection to be a vital and growing one. Mrs. Garrett’s ideas about the collection and the university’s interest in preserving and providing wide access to it were essentially one in the same.

In order to ensure the viability and vitality of the collection and to carry out Mrs. Garrett’s wish, the university has launched an endowment campaign with a goal of raising $700,000. An endowment is a permanent fund that will grow over time and guarantee the long-term future of the collection. The interest revenue generated by the endowment will be invested in the map collection. To date more than $265,000 have been pledged from private sources for the endowment, and the university is actively seeking other donations. The endowment’s income is used to underwrite future acquisitions for the map collection, help preserve maps needing conservation treatment, implement programming focusing on cartographic history, and launch outreach initiatives informing people of the collection and encouraging its use.

UTA has become a leader in cartographic history education. The university brings together a rich map collection, world-class scholars who teach and research out of the collection, a library staff that is knowledgeable about cartographic history and committed to the collection’s use, undergraduate and graduate students eager to mine the library’s unique resources, and a library and university administration dedicated to building on these strengths.

For more information about the Virginia Garrett Cartographic History Endowment, please contact Gerald Saxon, Associate Director of Libraries, 817-272-5318 or email at saxon@uta.edu.

UTA Library Notes, vol 6 no 2 Fall 2000