Wynar donates 11,000 volumes to University of Kansas Libraries

LAWRENCE, Kansas - In summer 1999 the University of Kansas Libraries received an impressive gift of over 11,000 volumes from the private library of Bohdan S. Wynar of Englewood, Colo. The collection focuses on Ukrainian studies with an emphasis on the humanities and social sciences. The University Libraries have excellent Ukrainian collections, the core of which were built by Michael Palij who retired as Slavic Bibliographer in the early 1980s. The Wynar collection fills the university's gaps in the late Soviet period.

Mr. Wynar is the founder and chief executive officer of Libraries Unlimited, a publishing firm specializing in library and information science. Born in Lviv, he came to the United States in 1950 after earning degrees in economics and political science. In 1958 he earned an M.A. in library science from the University of Denver.

He has been a professor of library science and was dean of the State University of New York School of Library and Information Science. Mr. Wynar has published extensively in the fields of library science and Ukrainian library history and bibliography.

Maria Carlson, director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies, noted that "the donation of Mr. Wynar's collection to the University of Kansas Libraries represents a significant step towards meeting the center's goal of enhancing Ukrainian studies in this country."

Bradley Schaffner, bibliographer for Russian and East European Studies, and his staff are working to create a title list of the collection. "Gifts such as the Wynar collection are invaluable to collection building for Russian and East European area studies," Mr. Schaffner said.

"Many of the materials represented in Mr. Wynar's library would have been impossible for the libraries to obtain through traditional means. Donations help to fill the holes in the university's otherwise strong holdings," Mr. Schaffner pointed out.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 30, 2000, No. 31, Vol. LXVIII

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