Support the Dorothy Porter Wesley Fellowship Endowment Fund

The Council is proud to announce that Lisa Unger Baskin has made a promised gift of $42,500, half of the total amount required, to endow the Dorothy Porter Wesley Fellowship in perpetuity. The Fellowship of $3,000 is awarded each year to a Black individual for research on any topic. The award was established in 2021 thanks to the vision and generosity of BSA Honorary member and President Emerita Barbara A. Shailor, and Mary and Bruce Crawford, who are funding the award through 2023.

In honor of Lisa Unger Baskin’s 80th birthday on June 27, 2023, the Council calls on our community to join her in the effort to fully endow the Dorothy Porter Wesley Fellowship in perpetuity. The name of the Fellowship will honor Dorothy Porter Wesley and Black bibliographers in perpetuity; crediting the endowment to Lisa Unger Baskin in the Fellowship’s description will recognize and honor Lisa’s lifelong activism through collecting, bookselling, philanthropy, and service in the field.

No contribution is too small and all gifts are fully tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Supporters can give online with a credit or debit card by clicking the donate button on this webpage. Individuals wishing to donate stock or retirement funds, or make major gifts toward this effort may contact Executive Director Erin McGuirl for more information by emailing erin.mcguirl@bibsocamer.org. All contributors will be listed in the December 2023 issue of PBSA; individuals may give anonymously and will be recognized according to their wishes. 

As BSA President Caroline Duroselle-Melish has said, the Dorothy Porter Wesley Fellowship supports new research and publications in the field of bibliography that are vital to bibliographical studies and to scholarly conversations across the humanities in the academy and beyond. Endowing the Dorothy Porter Wesley Fellowship will help the Society continue to foster the work of Black bibliographers, enriching our multidisciplinary and multi-faceted professional field with essential scholarship relevant to our work in libraries, the book trade, and as students and teachers in the academy.