Frank McEdward’s generous gift will support undergraduate learning initiatives at the library by funding an endowed professorship and a new reading room.

The Valley Library

Alumnus leaves $2.6 million to Valley Library

Gift endows professorship, helps restructure library

University libraries have historically been hushed, orderly places where patrons hear only whispers and the sounds of turning pages. But in a world awash in instantly-available information, librarians are restructuring spaces and rethinking how they serve people.

A $2.6 million gift from Frank McEdward, a 1957 electrical engineering graduate, is ensuring that changes at OSU’s Valley Library will be directed by one of the nation’s leading scholars of student learning.

Anne-Marie Deitering, an OSU assistant professor of library science, will hold the new Franklin A. McEdward Endowed Professorship for Undergraduate Learning Initiatives.

“In the library world, Anne-Marie is one of the leading stars in the pedagogy of undergraduate learning,” said Karyle Butcher, the Valley Library director and holder of the Delpha and Donald Campbell University Librarian Endowed Chair.

The McEdward gift, the second largest from an individual ever given to the OSU library, will also fund a new reading room, and a portion will support the College of Engineering, naming a lounge in the Kelley Engineering Center.

McEdward lived a quiet life in a suburb of Seattle and filled his house with books. A Boeing engineer, McEdward could fix “almost anything,” according to Sam Rondos, who lived next door for 40 years.

“When Frank took a fall and broke his arm at age 78, I asked if he had a will, but he just laughed,” recalled Rondos. “Frank never married or had children, so I suggested he give whatever he had to his school because he loved books and learning so much.”

McEdward, who died in 2007 at age 82, took his neighbor’s advice to heart, leaving the vast majority of his estate to OSU.

Deitering said today’s students learn in very different ways from a few years ago — from multi-tasking and small group learning to online social networking. “That completely changes how students use the library. Today, a library has to accommodate talking and moving furniture for use by small discussion groups.”

Deitering and Butcher both know that students view the library as an integral part of their learning experience at OSU. If that experience is good, they say, OSU benefits in the future.

The gift from Frank McEdward is a perfect case in point.


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