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This record colocates books received in conjunction with the Random House records.

The Corporation awards grants to nonprofit organizations and institutions for projects that are broadly educational in nature and that show promise of having national or international impact. Certain appropriations are made for activities, such as Corporation-led initiatives that are administered by the foundation's officers. The trustees set the overall policies of the foundation and have final authority to approve all grants above $50,000 recommended by the program staff. Grants of $25,000 or less, called discretionary grants, are made upon the approval of the president and are reported to the board; larger discretionary grants, those between $25,000 and $50,000, are also reviewed by a Corporation-wide group, which makes recommendations to the president. (from Program Guidelines 2003-2004 (http://www.carnegie.org/sub/program/areas.html))

Correspondence, manuscripts, documents, financial records, photographs, drawings, engravings, and printed materials of Benjamin. The personal and business papers concern Benjamin's publishing and bookselling company, his numerous benefactions, the disposal of his collections, and many printed catalogs for his company, 1883-1940. The two major correspondents are the business and financial records for the printing, binding, and extensive promotion through a network of agents of Stedman's A LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE FROM THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME; new ed. (New York, W.E. Benjamin, 1894). There are also letters, manuscripts, documents, and drawings of English literary figures collected by Benjamin. Among these are six letters of George Eliot, 47 letters and six manuscripts of John Ruskin, and three letters and one manuscript of Joseph Mallord Turner, with four letters relating to the artist. In addition there ten drawings and watercolors by Ruskin.

The collection is primarily made up of notes for lectures that he gave and classes that he taught, drafts of essays and books he was working on, some books and literary journals, and some correspondence.

Library survey papers documenting Lyle's service on "visitation committees" of the Southern Association of Colleges and Universities. For each library evaluation or survey there are letters, committee documents, and related supporting materials supplied by the library under study. Southern academic libraries surveyed include the Universities of North and South Carolina, Rice University, and Washington and Lee University.