ENDOWMENT Available to Purchase

Academic libraries often wish to build endowments as a principal goal of fund raising activities. For example, one library development brochure begins: “Northwestern University Library's most pressing need is for endowed funds for the purchase of library materials.” Because carefully managed endowments can yield sustained purchasing power, they can assure the sustained collecting essential for building the most useful research collections. Some libraries, like Vanderbilt's, have endowments that help support maintenance of a library building. Creating an endowment for building maintenance is a natural concomitant of raising funds to build because it serves much the same purpose: sustaining library operations over the long term.