Notre Dame College’s Clara Fritzsche Library has received the maximum award from the Celebrating Ohio Book Awards and Authors (COBAA) grant program from the State Library of Ohio.
The College library has been awarded $2,000 from the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) to purchase 215 award-winning titles that received the Anisfield-Wolf Award, which recognizes books that have made important contributions to the understanding of race and diversity, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, which recognizes the power of the written word to promote peace.
The Clara Fritzsche Library on the college campus is free and open to the public.
The LSTA/COBAA grant, which is sponsored by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, provides funding to promote and expand the collection development of books written by Ohio authors or authors who won Ohio book awards.
LSTA awards only about 1,500 grants each year. Ohio supports nearly 750 libraries, according to the State Library of Ohio. The American Library Association states the US has more than 110,000 libraries.
The addition of Anisfield-Wolf Award and Dayton Literary Peace Prize books to the Clara Fritzsche Library’s holdings will serve to supplement and update the distinguished Humanitas Collection, formerly the Tolerance Resource Collection, at the College. The books also will also serve to promote and provide resources for the College’s newly created Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which is housed in the library.
Most of this new collection will circulate and will be available to the Notre Dame and extended Northeast Ohio communities as well as valuable as a supplemental teaching tool across a variety of disciplines.
The Notre Dame Humanitas Collection, initiated as the Tolerance Resource Center in 1994 by former faculty member and alumna Margaret Kocevar ’90 (1969-1996), is designed to provide students, faculty, scholars and members of the greater community with the opportunity to understand and appreciate issues of racial, cultural and religious diversity in the world around them.
Kocevar, with the assistance of Sr. Mary Louise Trivison, SND, (1928-2015) professor of theology at the College, envisioned a center that would become a local and regional headquarters for research, outreach and education on the Holocaust, anti-bias issues and diversity. Through the generosity of her family, the donation of Kocevar’s books and research related to the Holocaust forms the cornerstone of the Humanitas Collection.
Researchers, authors, historians and interested individuals can access the extensive collection of books, DVDs, videos, educational curriculum guides, periodicals, multimedia resources, maps, posters and photographs.
The Clara Fritzsche Library is open Mondays through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Fridays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. through May 17. Summer hours are forthcoming. Enter campus at 1857 S. Green Road.
For more information contact Karen Zoller, library director, at 216.373.5266.
February 2023
About Notre Dame College
Notre Dame College is a private, Catholic, liberal arts college in South Euclid, Ohio, committed to teaching students how to make a good living and live a good life. Founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame in 1922, the College offers bachelor’s degrees in 30 disciplines plus a variety of master’s degrees, certification programs and continuing and professional development programs for adult learners on campus and online. For more information, visit NotreDameCollege.edu.