GSD Receives Grant To Organize Collections

Students and researchers will no longer have to paw through closets full of disorganized files to use the archives at the Graduate School of Design.

This year the library, which is internationally recognized as one of the world's most important research centers for the study of design, gas received an $85,000 grant from the J. Paul Getty Trust of Los Angeles to organize and catalogue some of the library's important but long-neglected collections.

Design school officials said the grant will pay an archivist to organize about 40 of the school's collections, making them more accessible to graduate students and visiting researchers.

"Although our archives are used by students, their primary use is for researchers," said Loeb Librarian James Hodgson. "With organization we will be better able to attract scholars to make occasional visits or to come to Harvard for research."

"We consider this a critical investment in enhancing scholarship in architecture and design history," said Design School Dean Gerald M. McCue.

Previously, said Hodgson, GSD staff "tried to organize [the archives] at least physically."

Hodgson, who is directing preparations for the project, said the library did not consider it important to organize these collections until last year, when researchers discovered that the documents included blueprints by several famous architects.

Some of the archives came to the Loeb already organized by their authors, but the grant will help catalogue them in a standard library format. The grant will enable the library to catalogue the collections on computer and prepare detailed descriptions of the different collections.

Architects' Papers

The archives to be catalogued include the papers of Arthur A. Shurliff and his son, Sidney N. Shurliff--noted Boston architects who planned the Charles River Basin; and the papers of Josep Lluis Sert, a noted Spanish architect and former dean of the Faculty of Design.

McCue said the project comes at a time when the University is placing new emphasis on the architecture school.

"The increased emphasis on history and criticism in our curriculum and the expanded Ph.D. programs in architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning...have contributed to the need to make these resources more accessible," McCue said.

The University, at McCue's urging, reinstituted the Ph.D. program in those three areas last year.