By Colin Chazen
02/15/08
Comprising over 100 volumes and covering every country that issues stamps as postage, the John Hay Library’s George S. Champlin Memorial Stamp Collection is one of the world’s largest collections of international postage – and it’s about to get even bigger.
The University received two grants from the Champlin Foundations last month, which fund an array of projects on the condition that they benefit the public. A grant of $50,000, received annually, will be used for the continued support and expansion of the Champlin Stamp Collection. An additional grant of $200,000 will be used to fund display cases that will be placed inside the Hay’s reading room, and will increase the library’s exhibit capacity, according to the Library’s Web site.
The display cases are part of a proposed $4,000,000 renovation to open up the Hay Reading Room and restore it to its original size and purpose. The Reading Room currently houses Library staff offices and materials waiting to be processed, with the remaining one-third of the room open only to those working with the Library’s special collections. Once the renovation is complete, the special collections reading room will be moved and the Hay reading room will again be open to students seeking a quiet, elegant place to study.
“(The reading room) could be wonderful, as it once was and was intended to be,” said Harriette Hemmasi, the University librarian.
Though the proposed renovations are still millions of dollars in fundraising away, the installment of the new display cases should begin later this year, according to Hemmasi. The display space inside the Hay is currently restricted to a small exhibit room and a scattering of cases, an amount “inadequate for the amount of material in the Library,” Hemmasi said. The Library houses more than 2.5 million items.
Beginning in 1960, George S. Champlin, the president of a family-owned jewelry manufacturing company in Providence, began donating to the University a collection of stamps from countries around the world. He added to the collection almost every year, and by the time of his death in 1979, it had grown from six to 90 volumes.
“This was his great passion,” said Brent Lang ’04, the Library’s communication and marketing specialist. “He’d ask all his employees, when they went to various countries, to look for stamps.”
The Champlin Foundations’ primary goal is to “fund tax exempt organizations within Rhode Island that have the greatest impact on the broadest possible segment of the population,” according to its Web site. The foundation has a long history of supporting the University Library, and was awarded the William Williams award in 1997, the Library’s highest honor, according to a press release on the library’s Web site.
“We’re so grateful for the grant,” Hemmasi said. “The foundation has been a great supporter of Brown.”