The American Library Association (ALA) recently received the largest gift in its 150-year history: a $25 million bequest from Washington, D.C.–based financial advisor James W. Lewis.
The bequest from Lewis, whose love for libraries dates back to his childhood in North Carolina, will provide needs-based scholarships for those training to be librarians. The gift will help fund ALA’s Spectrum Scholarship Program, which provides money for students of color pursuing their master’s degrees in library and information science.
“Libraries are the most democratic institutions we have,” Lewis said in a December 9 statement announcing the gift. “With libraries, anyone can walk in and benefit, not only from the books but from the resources and full offerings libraries provide to their communities.”
American Libraries spoke with Lewis about his memories of libraries and how he hopes future scholarships will address the profession’s current sociopolitical challenges.
Your childhood library was in New Bern, North Carolina. What specific memories do you have from there that planted the seed for your lifelong support of libraries?
Every Saturday when I was a little child, and even through grammar school, my mother and my aunt would go grocery shopping at every little grocery store in our hometown. One of the grocery stores that was a routine stop was located near a historic house called the John Wright Stanly House [New Bern’s public library building from 1935 to 1965]. So I would be dropped off at that public library. I was 5 or 6 years old, so it was an introduction to other worlds. I just loved it. I’m not even sure that I could read anything at that point.
I read, maybe a little bit later, all the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. My parents bought me some of those books, but I think some came from the library as well. So that’s my earliest recollection.
What inspired you to make a bequest of this magnitude, particularly for library school scholarships?
I had a client who died at 101 several years ago. She was a career employee of D.C. Public Library (DCPL), and I became very good friends with her. After September 11, I thought I should really do something to give back to the community because I had done absolutely no public service work of any sort before that. I thought, “Maybe I’ll apply to serve on the DCPL board of trustees.” I served 10 years [2002–2012] and got to know a lot about the DCPL system. Then later, I joined the Library Board of Visitors of the Wake Forest University Library in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
I would read the “Ask Ann Landers” syndicated advice column occasionally, and I remember she wrote one time that, in her opinion, it’s better to choose some organization to make the majority of your financial contributions to—so that you can really make a difference—and not just [issue another] $25 check or $500 check. I thought that I would like to contribute this large sum to the education of librarians. And this is what it’s all about: need-based scholarships for the graduate school education of librarians. No other qualification, just need-based—and, of course, you have to be accepted at the library school.
Your donation comes at a time when libraries and library workers are facing unprecedented intellectual freedom challenges. How do you think this gift could potentially combat that?
Who could be better prepared to choose the books that go into a public library than a professional librarian? Who could do that? In my mind, no one can do that because that’s part of the training, that’s part of the education. We don’t need private citizens with no background in library science or information science to make those determinations. I believe that promoting the education of professional librarians will combat that.
During your decade as a DCPL trustee, what was your most memorable accomplishment?
DCPL had been underfunded for a long, long time. But when Anthony Williams was elected mayor [in 1998], he wanted to improve the whole system. During the 10 years that I was on the board, I think that all 27 locations—including the flagship Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library—were either renovated or torn down and replaced. It was a great renaissance for the DCPL system.
You dedicated this gift to your parents because of their passion for education. Why was that such a passion of theirs, and how was that modeled for you?
Neither of them was a college graduate. I have just one sibling, one sister, and from the very beginning, it was just an assumption that we were going to go to college. To go to college, you needed to have a good elementary and secondary school education, and they promoted that as strongly as they could possibly promote it. They were always very encouraging and supportive of any form of education, and one way to be educated is to go to the library.
What are you reading right now?
Although I read it before, I recently checked out from the public library the Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls. I enjoyed rereading that. I wanted to revisit exactly why the book was named that. Poet John Donne had [written a poem by that name in 1624]; it was not Hemingway.
I read a lot of newspapers. I had a first career in journalism, so I routinely read The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal and sometimes The New York Times.
