See a list of items purchased with this fund.
The Richard J. Donohue Book Endowment Fund was established in 1984 by Richard J. Donohue, College Class of 1923. Donohue was a long-time supporter of the Library Associates before establishing this endowment. He died on October 14, 1987, leaving a further bequest to the fund. The fund is used for general acquisitions.
Donohue had a long career as a publishing business executive in Chicago, and in 1978 he gave Georgetown a collection of more than 40 volumes from the Lakeside Classics series published by R.R. Donnelley. According to Town's End Books and Bindery, Lakeside Classics is "the longest continuously running series of Americana." These annual publications reprinted neglected works that provided readers with a first-person narrative of people and events from a "pioneering period of the U.S."
R.R. Donnelley published a limited number of each edition as gifts for company employees and associates, rather than selling them, which makes them prized by collectors. Donohue arranged for the publisher to send additional volumes in the series so the Library would have a complete set.
Title page from Frontier Fighter, the 1984 Lakeside Classics edition, an autobiography of Billy the Kid associate George W. Coe.
Related Link:
"Richard J. Donohue Endowment," Library Associates Newsletter, August, 1985