Special Collections Acquisitions Fund
Special Collections is Carnegie Mellon’s repository for rare books, manuscripts and early scientific instruments and calculating machines. Open to the CMU community and to the public for research and instruction, it is envisioned as an interdisciplinary workshop, where humanistic modes of inquiry combine with innovative tools to study historical technologies, books and artifacts. Special Collections curates the long history of three kindred fields — computing, cryptology and information technology — from the Renaissance to the twentieth century.
Gifts to this fund received in the last year alone supported the acquisition of fascinating books and objects, including a 1763 printing of the Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in which Montagu describes the art of encrypting messages in flower arrangements, and an 1839 portrait of the inventor of punch cards, Joseph Marie Jacquard, woven in silk on a loom of Jacquard’s own invention.
Your gift to the Special Collections Acquisitions Fund helps us to advance our work by funding acquisitions like the above that make possible transformative exhibitions, research and other programs that bring students, scholars and members of the public into Special Collections and CMU’s Libraries.
Questions about giving? Contact Morgan Walbert, Director of Development, at mwalbert@andrew.cmu.edu or 412-420-4958.