Libraries

The Starr Foundation has supported libraries at K–12 schools, colleges and universities, cultural organizations, research hospitals, and neighborhood-based public systems that serve millions of people across the United States.

C.V. Starr East Asian Library at University of California, Berkeley

Libraries are essential to expanding access to education, knowledge, and information. Not only do they promote individual growth and empowerment, but they are crucial to building stronger, more informed communities. Public libraries, in particular, ensure that people from underserved or disadvantaged communities have access to the resources they need to improve their lives, such as literacy programs, job search tools, and internet access. Public libraries are community oases where people can gather, where children can play and read, and where teens can study and get homework help. The Foundation’s funding has also included support for a few subject-matter libraries in France, Brazil, and China.

Grantee highlights:

• The Starr Foundation first supported New York City’s three library systems in 1966—New York Public Library (NYPL), Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Public Library—that together serve all five boroughs. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Foundation’s support, including special emergency grants, helped sustain the libraries’ core programs for the public. Additional grants for NYPL’s world-renowned research and branch libraries have included endowment support, capital funding for its South Court renovation, and the renovation of children’s and teens’ rooms in the library’s branches. Brooklyn Public Library received support for its children’s reading programs and capital campaign. Foundation funding for the Queen’s Public Library included endowment support for the Chinese materials in its International Resource Center, and support for its Children’s Science Library Center.

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  Entry to the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University.

  Two of the most significant East Asian collections in the United States are housed at The C.V. Starr East Asian Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University. Both contain comprehensive and extensive materials in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other East Asian languages. In 1995, a lead gift from The Starr Foundation enabled Berkeley to merge and integrate its East Asian programs and collections into one expansive building, and to create technological infrastructure and facilities to digitize the collections and make them more broadly available to the scholarly community. With an endowment from The Starr Foundation, the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University in New York City was renovated, including a new entrance, additional stack space, and a new reading room.