Historians Help Secure Donation of 800 New Texts for Healey Library

By Leigh DuPuy

Through the thoughtful efforts of UMass Boston’s Jim Green and Stephen Haas, the Organization of American Historians (OAH) has arranged the donation of 800 new academic and scholarly texts by 183 publishers to the Healey Library following the OAH’s annual meeting held in Boston this March.

The donation, valued at $32,000, was arranged by Green, a historian and professor at the College of Public and Community Service, who served as the chair of the Local Resource Committee for OAH’s conference, “American Revolutions.” Knowing that OAH donates to local schools books that are displayed by publishers at their annual conferences, Green decided to pitch UMass Boston as a worthy recipient of the books.

“They don’t usually donate to universities,” says Green, “but as we are a public university affected by recent budget cuts, we were able to show them how much we could use these books.”

Green solicited the help of Haas, collections development librarian at the Healey Library, who contacted OAH to ask them to consider UMass Boston. “I sent a summary of our needs and explained the impact current budget cuts have had on our libraries,” said Haas. “For example, three years ago, the legislature designated 14.5 million dollars for all five UMass campus libraries. Last year, they designated 1.5 million.”

The OAH was also impressed with the mission of the university and its student body. “They like the fact that we have a multicultural, nontraditional student body and that the public is free to come and use our resources,” says Haas. “Also, with this donation, we will be able to use our current funds to acquire even more materials.”

The donation will be a great addition to the Healey Library, says Green: “These books include the latest research monographs, popular biographies by trade publishers, and new editions of classic titles and survey texts in U.S. history.”

Green worked for months with the OAH’s Local Resource Committee, which organized a number of activities, plenary sessions in city venues, and special events devoted to Boston history. “The conference really showcased the city, its institutions, and its people,” says Green. “We arranged events such as the town meeting with Howard Zinn at the Old South Meeting House and walking tours for conference participants that feature the Women’s Heritage Trail, the Black Heritage Trail, and the Working People’s Heritage Trail.” The latter, a tour that Green led, offered a “great opportunity to use monuments and historic sites to bring scholarship to street level. We as historians are looking at new ways to involve the public in history and to look at what’s been left out of the traditional texts,” says Green.

A record number of historians registered for the conference, which was highlighted by a session commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark desegregation decision in the Brown case.

The OAH is an association of 11,000 college and university professors, high school teachers, archivists, and writers who are dedicated to teaching, researching, and interpreting U.S. history and publishes the prominent Journal of American History.

Image: Collections Development Librarian Stephen Haas and Jim Green, historian and professor at the College of Public and Community Service, discuss the pending donation of academic and scholarly history books to the Healey Library. (Photo by Harry Brett)

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