As an undergraduate in the 1950s, Dr. Richard Buchanan learned to appreciate libraries thanks to his work at the Vanderbilt library. Little did anyone know then that the student worker behind the circulation desk would one day make a $1 million gift to endow the Vanderbilt Library Fellowship program.
“My time working at the library’s circulation desk meant so much to me and taught me the important role the library plays in connecting the university to its highest mission of education and research,” says Buchanan. “My wife and I want to ensure that the library is able to give this same gift to other students as well, expanding their horizons and opportunities throughout the generations.”
Through their generosity, Richard (BA’57, MD’61) and Poppy (BSN’61) Buchanan will establish the Poppy Pickering Buchanan and Richard D. Buchanan Library Fellows Fund. This fund will benefit students and future library users by supporting strategic projects in which selected students work on multidisciplinary teams under the mentorship of faculty and professional librarians.
The Buchanans also are longtime supporters of Vanderbilt, having given generously to the School of Medicine and School of Nursing, as well as to the Library Fellows program previously.
Thanks to their support, fellows will be able to pursue projects involving some of the library’s rarest and significant collections, including the J. León Helguera Collection of Colombiana, a treasure trove of Colombian political, economic and social history; Judge Hu C. Anderson’s personal papers from a Nazi war crimes trial over which he presided; and presidential speeches from the Vanderbilt Television News Archive.
For example, last spring Janna Adelstein, a junior in the College of Arts and Science, worked with History Librarian Jason Schultz to curate Tracing the Movement of Population: American Legacies of Expansion and Removal, using Special Collections to develop the narrative of migration. “I spent the past summer interning for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, working to help Native Americans advocate for voting rights through litigation,” Adelstein says. “The historical research I conducted as a library fellow helped me see how past events in our nation’s history can have significant modern-day repercussions.”
“This generous gift from Poppy and Richard Buchanan ensures a robust program of hands-on, immersive learning as our students undertake serious research and create digital scholarship,” says University Librarian Valerie Hotchkiss. “We hope to mentor current Vanderbilt students in as meaningful a way as the librarians of the past inspired Dr. Buchanan.”
—BECCA JENSEN