A closing gift from the Ahmanson Foundation has enabled the UCLA Library to complete a three-year challenge launched by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish an endowment for preservation and conservation. The library has raised $750,000, which has been matched by the Mellon Foundation to create an endowment of $1.5 million. The Ahmanson Foundation also provided a generous lead gift, and significant contributions have been made by the Robert G. and Janet S. Dunlap Trust, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Steinmetz Foundation and many individual donors.

"This endowment will allow the Library to address one of its most pressing needs, which is to protect our fragile and highly used resources, in perpetuity," said University Librarian Gary E. Strong. "We are deeply grateful to these visionary donors for enabling us to match the Mellon Foundation's challenge and for helping to preserve Library materials for current and future generations of students and scholars."

The Mellon Foundation gave an initial grant of $340,000 to the UCLA Library in early 2002 to hire a conservation specialist and to establish a conservation treatment laboratory. At that time the foundation also offered the library an additional $750,000 if an equal amount could be raised within three years.

Collections conservator Kristen St. John was hired as in 2002. She came to UCLA from the Rutgers University Libraries, where she was a conservator for special collections and university archives. The conservation laboratory, located on campus in the Southern Regional Library Facility, was completed in 2003. The facility provides the space, equipment and materials to repair and preserve highly used items that have been taken out of circulation because they have begun to show signs of wear, deterioration or damage.