Major Gift Supports Baltic Studies

A. Gerald Anderson, Reference and Research Services
Michael Biggins, Slavic & East European Section

The UW Libraries has received as a gift one of the most extensive collections of Latvian studies materials in North America, numbering some 12,000 books, 100 journals and periodicals and 370 microfilm reels. The original owner, the Latvian Studies Center Library in Kalamazoo, Michigan, developed this collection over several decades to serve as a central cultural resource for Latvians in America. Recent financial exigencies made it necessary for the Center to relocate the collection.

The University of Washington with its active and growing Baltic Studies program and extensive library facilities proved to be the most attractive of several candidates that expressed an interest in acquiring the collection. The UW is the only university in North America currently offering a curriculum in all three Baltic languages and literatures, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian. Baltic Studies at the UW are jointly sponsored by the Department of Scandinavian Languages, and the Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies Program of the Jackson School of International Studies. Materials from this gift will become available as part of the Suzzallo and Allen Libraries collection over the coming months.