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U.Va. Health Sciences Library Receives $1.04 Million

The University of Virginia's Claude Moore Health Sciences Library has received a $1.04 million gift—the largest in the library's history. Alvin V. Baird, Jr. and his wife Nancy, of Harrisonburg, Va. donated the funds, which are expected to generate more than $1 million dollars over the next 16 years. The gift will create and fund the Alvin V. and Nancy Baird Professorship in Historical Collections.

We were pleased to make this gift to the health sciences library because we realize the importance of properly archiving historical materials, said Nancy Baird. In addition, some of Al's happiest years were spent at the university.

The Bairds' gift will establish an endowed professorship for the library's curator of historical collections, ensuring continuing professional oversight for the rare books, manuscripts, archival records and photographs that comprise the collection. This will enable the library's historical collections and services department, which already has a national reputation for excellence, to better serve an audience that includes medical and nursing students, undergraduates, faculty, staff, scholars and researchers.

The Bairds have a generous record of giving to U.Va., especially to the health sciences library. In the past three years, Alvin and Nancy Baird contributed more than $100,000 to create a collection endowment and support the library's renovation, said Library Director Linda Watson. We are thrilled to use the Baird's latest gift to celebrate their passion for history. Few medical institutions have an endowed curator position for their historical collections. This gift places U.Va. in a rare and privileged position.

Alvin Baird, a retired cattle farmer, attended U.Va. and the University of Maryland, then served in the Pacific during World War II and became active in the VFW, American Legion, Fauquier County Historical Society and the Virginia Historical Society. Nancy Baird received a B.S. from Madison College with graduate work at The George Washington University. She worked in the Office of the Naval Architect at the Norfolk Navy Yard, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and has published several volumes of genealogical research.

July 2, 1999