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The Chemical Heritage
Foundation’s 25th Anniversary
Initiative TransmutationsN O . 2 n S P R I N G 2 0 0 7 Treasure the past Educate the present Inspire the future
Multimedia MatterMystery of MatterBuilds on Success of NOVA Episode
“Riveting” is how the New York Times described
“Forgotten Genius,” the PBS NOVA episode de-
tailing the life of Percy L. Julian, the pioneering
African American chemist. The two-hour film,
which aired early this year, deftly balanced
Julian’s chemical achievements, including the
synthesis of both a glaucoma drug and cortisone,
with his inspiring life story.
“Forgotten Genius” illustrates the power of
film and television. These media can explain
chemical concepts to a lay audience while also
exploring both the social context and the human
adventure of research—the painstaking proce-
dures, the alternate paths, the competition from
others, the struggle for funding, and the exhilara-
tion of discovery. This extraordinary project was
developed by Stephen Lyons while he was senior
editor for program development at the WGBH
Science Unit in Boston.
Lyons is now partnering with CHF on our
most ambitious educational effort to date:
The Mystery of Matter, a multimedia story of
Those who
experience
Mystery
of Matter
will never
think of the
chemical
sciences the
same way
again.
John Haas (right) discusses CHF projects with Stephen Lyons in the Othmer Library.Photo by Steven Begleiter.
c o n t i n u e d o n p a g e 13
about the life of scientist Percy Julian. We have also made
impressive progress on The Mystery of Matter, an ambitious
multimedia project that includes a five-part television series
about the centuries-long quest to discover what the world
is made of.
Thanks to support from our friends around the globe,
we have made impressive progress toward realizing the
goals of the 25th Anniversary Initiative. At this writing we
have received gifts and commitments for 80 percent of our
overall goal of $75 million, through which we will
• Expand our exciting program initiatives;
• Construct new exhibit space and conference
facilities; and
• Strengthen our endowment to provide needed
stewardship of our collections.
As we work to complete our campaign, we look to your
continued support. Together we will treasure the past,
educate the present, and inspire the future.
A note from the president
As the central place for the central science, the Chemical
Heritage Foundation tells the stories of science and innova-
tion to new generations, establishes the records of current
progress, and contributes to scientific discourse and
policy. In the past year, CHF advanced its mission and
25th Anniversary Initiative in new and exciting ways.
CHF is extending its reach nationally and internationally.
Our affiliations abroad now include the Japanese Society for
the History of Science, the Maison de la Chimie in Paris, and
the Society of Chemical Industry in London. Here in the
United States, we are working with senior executives and
experienced individuals from the chemical industries and
related fields in California’s Bay Area, Houston, and New York
City to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.
At our headquarters in Philadelphia, CHF hosted major
conferences and gatherings of influential individuals. The
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) centennial confer-
ence included the FDA’s commissioner, Andrew C. von
Eschenbach. In July the International Conference on
the History of Alchemy and Chymistry celebrated CHF’s
accession of the Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library.
Scholars came from sixteen countries, and the conference
was featured on the front page of the New York Times’
“Science Times” section. And, at the 17th annual Ullyot
Public Affairs Lecture in November, Ralph J. Cicerone,
president of the National Academy of Sciences, presented
his highly regarded research in atmospheric chemistry and
global climate change.
CHF has released new publications, including Under-
standing Moore’s Law: Four Decades of Innovation and
the two-volume Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library:
An Annotated Catalogue of Printed Books on Alchemy,
Chemistry, Chemical Technology, and Related Subjects. In
February 2007 public television stations nationwide aired the
NOVA episode “Forgotten Genius,” a CHF collaboration
32
From left to right, Randy Guschl, Arnold Thackray, Louise Pariser, and Rudolph Pariser during Heritage Day, May 2006. Photo by Douglas A. Lockard
In early 2005 the Chemical Heritage Foundation
established the Center for Contemporary History
and Policy to tackle these and other critical
issues at the forefront of science, business,
government, and public interests. Led by Arthur
Daemmrich (pictured at right), the center has
grown to eleven staff members, including four
Ph.D.-level program managers. By developing innovative
projects in each of its program areas, the center supports
meaningful independent scholarship on critical issues and
promotes greater public understanding of the chemical
and molecular sciences and industries, all within a historical
perspective supported by active use of CHF’s library and
collections.
The center has developed an impressive record of
success. For example, it has
• Established the now-annual SCI–CHF Innovation Day, which
brings together more than 180 rising stars of industrial
research to explore areas that offer significant potential to
commercialize new innovations and to encourage strategic
discussion of the chemical industry’s future;
• Organized a number of conferences and symposia on topics
ranging from perspectives on the emergence of nanotech-
nology to risk and safety in medical innovation;
• Published 10 articles in peer-reviewed scientific and social
science journals on topics ranging from Moore’s law to
pharmaceutical regulation; in addition, staff within the
center have independently published three books and
several white papers;
• Recorded, edited, and made available more
than 75 new oral histories of luminary scien-
tists, business leaders, and entrepreneurs; and
• Played a leading role in anniversary events for
several international organizations, including
the 75th anniversary of the Gordon Research
Conferences and the centennial of the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration.
The Center for ContemporaryHistory and Policy
How do new inventions get from the
laboratory to the market? Who are the
key players in the invention, testing, regu-
lation, and marketing of nanoproducts,
biodegradable plastics, biotech drugs,
and other exciting consumer products?
Why does it take so long and cost so
much to commercialize new inventions?
Are government regulatory agencies
ensuring safety, and at what point on a
cost-benefit spectrum?
Photo by Douglas A. Lockard.
54
Electronic Materials: Understanding Chemistry’s Role in the Computer Revolution
Advances in electronics have transformed
every aspect of modern society, but few people
realize how much these advances depend on
chemistry. The center’s program on the
chemical history of electronics, directed
by Hyungsub Choi, explores the history of
semiconductors and related materials;
innovation and entrepreneurship in Silicon
Valley; and the lessons to be drawn for
research management and regulation
from the fundamentally chemical history
of electronics.
The center recently published Under-
standing Moore’s Law: Four Decades of
Innovation, based on a conference marking
the 40th anniversary of Intel founder
Gordon Moore’s observation of the rela-
tionship between the rate of increase in
chip complexity and the decrease in cost
over time. The center is also building a
research archive of materials on Moore’s
life, career, and innovation network.
Nanotechnology: Social Response to Innovation
Nanotechnology is much in the news as a field
of great promise, but few people understand
what this remarkably interdisciplinary subject
encompasses. It seems very new, but in fact researchers in
a number of fields—chemistry, physics, biology, materials
science, electrical engineering and medical sciences—have
been working at the nanoscale (one-billionth of a meter—
a level at which materials behave differently than they do in
bulk) for decades.
As far back as 1959, Nobel laureate Richard Feynman
called for physicists to develop ways to visualize and manipu-
late the atomic constituents of matter in order to help biologists
understand life and to help chemists analyze molecules.
The invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in
1981 helped make that visualization and manipulation possible
and earned the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics for its inventors.
Cyrus Mody, the center’s program manager for nanotech-
nology studies, has written extensively on the history of the
STM, and he spoke on the subject during the James L. Waters
Symposium at the 2007 Pittcon meeting. “The
STM deserves recognition as one of the central
instruments of nanotechnology,” Mody says. “But
its history is also emblematic of changes in the
1980s and 1990s for how knowledge is commer-
cialized and how scientific disciplines cooperate.”
Oral History: Firsthand Perspectives onScientific and Business Change
By building a comprehensive and
informative collection over time,
CHF’s Oral History Program will
preserve a unique set of perspectives and enable
current and future scholarship on science since
1930. Managed by Rasheedah Cremer, the pro-
gram collects and preserves the knowledge and
experiences of key scientists, entrepreneurs, and
technologists in the molecular sciences and industries.
Currently CHF’s Oral History collection includes more
than 350 completed interviews. In addition to recording the
life stories of key individuals, the collection has focused on
historical events and field shifts; for example, the chemical
history of electronics, including Gordon Moore and his inno-
vation network; the history of Arnold Beckman and Beckman
Instruments; the history of the information sciences; and
the development and evolution of the Gordon Research
Conferences.
Each month a different oral history is featured in the
Othmer Library and on CHF’s Web site. Copies of these selec-
tions are available by request from the Othmer Library
and the Oral History Program. To read this month’s featured
oral history on CHF’s Web site, log on to http://www.chem-
heitage.org/exhibits/ex-nav2.html and click on “Featured
Oral History.”
Building on these initia-
tives, the center has ambitious
plans for 2007. First, it will
establish a new program area
focused on environmental
policy. Second, it will conduct
oral histories of leading
scientists and entrepreneurs,
including a significant group-
ing of oral histories of bio-
medical scientists conducted
under the auspices of The Pew
Charitable Trusts’ Scholars
Program in the Biomedical
Sciences. Third, the center will
host four conferences: the
annual Innovation Day and
conferences on the cluster
phenomenon in biotechnol-
ogy, on new methods for
recording and using oral
history, and on social studies
of nanotechnology.
Exciting longer-range pro-
jects are under way, including
planning for the first T. T. Chao
Conference in Houston (2008)
and the Robert W. Gore
Innovation Case Studies
Program, which will develop
in-depth analyses of materials
invented and brought to mar-
ket by industry since 1980.
PPrrooggrraamm AArreeaass ooff tthhee CCeenntteerr ffoorrCCoonntteemmppoorraarryy HHiissttoorryy aanndd PPoolliiccyy
Biotechnology History and Policy: A Focus on Clusters
The center’s biotechnology program explores
the scientific and industrial dimensions of this
rapidly expanding field, with a broad compara-
tive and geographic focus. Since 1980, when the first
biotechnology firms went public, the industry’s growth has
occurred in clusters. Regional concentrations of innovation
and entrepreneurship have flourished within local networks
of interconnected universities, service and supply industries,
innovative companies, and government support.
“The success of these centers of biotech activity has
spurred many states to plan economic development based
on biotechnology, yet the historical conditions of that
success have not been fully examined,” explains Ted
Everson, the center’s biotechnology program manager. The
biotechnology program is thus recording and telling the
broad story of biotechnology’s development through the lens
of regional dynamics.
Advances in
electronics have
transformed
every aspect of
modern society,
but few people
realize how
much these
advances
depend on
chemistry.
The center
supports
meaningful
independent
scholarship
and promotes
greater public
understanding of
the chemical
and molecular
sciences and
industries.
Participants at the FDA centennial conference, May 2006.Photo by Paul Pierlott.
6
Roy Eddleman.Photo by Douglas A. Lockard.
7
collection of chemical art, assembled by Chester Fisher
from the 1930s through the 1950s, was donated by Fisher
Scientific International through the efforts of Chester
Fisher’s son, James. Inspired by Chester Fisher’s example,
Roy Eddleman built a major collection of his own, and, with
his company, Spectrum Labs, donated a remarkable collection
of alchemical art to CHF. Meanwhile John Haas and Eugene
Garfield made possible the purchase of the handsome
portrait of Robert Boyle that graces our lobby, while an
anonymous donor contributed the funding needed to
acquire the N. C. Wyeth depiction of an alchemist and
his assistant that was commissioned by the Hercules
Chemical Corporation for its annual calendar.
Because collections are like bushes that need to be
shaped and regularly pruned, the acquisition of new materials
is governed by a well-thought-out collections policy. Even as
we explore new areas for possible expansion, we seek to
build on our strengths in existing areas, such as polymer
chemistry, chemical education, and our ongoing initiative to
acquire papers of Nobel Prize winners in chemistry.
Recognizing that we cannot collect everything, or even
everything that is offered to us, we try to consider each
item’s research value, historical significance, and overall fit.
When we accept an item, we take responsibility for it.
We establish intellectual control via cataloguing, box lists,
finding aids, and registers, and increasingly this information
is made available online. To secure our collections, CHF
follows industry standards, with limited access, secure
storage, careful registration, and monitoring systems.
To preserve our collections, we maintain proper climatic
conditions and address the conservation of individual items
according to priorities set in collection surveys. Conservation
usually does improve the appearance of an item, but it is
undertaken less for cosmetic reasons than to stabilize and
The Chemical Heritage Foundation’s collections lie at the
heart of its mission, fueling exhibitions, conferences, media
presentations, and the research of visiting scholars and staff
alike. The items that make up CHF’s collections are
elements of our common past, and each one—be it a book,
a painting, a laboratory notebook, or a Beckman Model DU
Spectrophotometer—is precious.
“The material history of the chemical sciences is critical
to the overall story,” says Robert D. Hicks, director of CHF’s
Roy Eddleman Institute for Education and Interpretation. “A
pH meter, glass apparatus, or a photograph of a research lab
are documentary sources in their own right and as critical to
understanding chemical achievements as any written text.”
CHF’s collections have been built from a variety of
sources over a period of 25 years. The Othmer Library began
with 30,000 volumes donated from the renowned Chemists’
Club Library collection. The ACS Book Share program allowed
us to grow that core into a collection of 137,000 volumes
drawn mainly from university, college, and industrial
libraries; additional donations from Sunoco and Atofina
augmented this material. And the generosity of Gordon and
Betty Moore enabled us to acquire the Roy G. Neville
Historical Chemical Library with its wealth of alchemical texts.
CHF’s archival collections are based on donations. From
our first significant acquisitions (the papers of Nobel laureate
Paul J. Flory, donated by his wife, Emily, and the papers of
synthesis expert Carl S. Marvel, donated by his son, John, and
his daughter, Mollie) to our most recent ones (the papers of
Nobel laureates Alan G. MacDiarmid and Richard Smalley,
donated by the authors themselves), the archives have
received a steady stream of significant original materials.
Begun with a few small pieces loaned to us by Beckman
Coulter, CHF’s instrument collection has grown to more
than 2,000 pieces, largely through our acquisition of the
holdings of the Bodenseewerk Perkin-Elmer Collection.
Individual instruments of great importance have been
given by Paul Wilks, Thomas Porro, James Bohning,
Charles Judson, John Baldeschweiler, Richard Smalley, and
Alan G. MacDiarmid. Again, generosity is not limited to
individuals alone. The Varian Corporation, Capital University,
Swarthmore College, and Montclair State University have all
made donations and enriched our instrumentation.
CHF’s holdings include the arts as well as science.
A magnificent portrait collection, including a group of photo-
graphs assembled by author and publisher Williams Haynes,
provided a foundation for our fine art holdings. A superb
The items that
comprise CHF’s
collections are
elements of our
common past,
and each one
is precious.
Right: The title page from a German translation of Oswald Croll’s Basilica chymica (Frankfurt: Bey Gottfried Tampachen, 1635?), Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library. Photo by Douglas A. Lockard.Above right: First image of a buckyball sketched in Richard Smalley’s notebook, ca. 1985.Richard E. Smalley Collection.
CHF Collections
98
protect the item from deterioration or to
prepare it for travel and exhibition.
Donors aware of the importance of
these measures donate specifically to our
conservation efforts. The Fisher family
granted CHF $95,000 to conserve a group
of paintings that will be part of the major
traveling exhibition Fortune and Folly:
Images of Alchemy in Northern European
Art, 1500s to 1700s. In addition funding
agencies like the National Endowment for
the Humanities regularly award grants for
conservation and preservation surveys.
Every day outside scholars join our
staff and fellows in exploring the riches of
our collections. CHF offers a unique van-
tage point for discovery and interpretation:
“We are the only institution in the world
with an active collecting and exhibiting
strategy for these materials,” says Hicks.
And beyond enabling research, CHF creates and supports major
programs and events, which rely on its collections:
� CHF has created nearly a dozen fascinating exhibitions
on topics including the chemistry of electricity, Joseph
Priestley’s chemical and philosophical work, and the
contributions of women to chemical advances. In the works
is a collaborative show with Skidmore College on selected
molecules’ impact on each decade of the twentieth century.
� The CHF staff is building a permanent exhibition on the
“greatest human adventure ever.” Slated to open in 2008,
the exhibit will feature people who contributed to chemical
discovery, tools and processes that have advanced the
field, and the impact of these discoveries and innovations
on global society.
� Scholars use the Neville collection and art from the Fisher
and Eddleman collections to do research on the history of
alchemy, an area now understood to have played an impor-
tant role in the evolution of modern chemistry. This work has
produced numerous papers, an international conference
(held at CHF in 2006), and an alchemical art exhibition
to be shown in Houston, Palo Alto, and Philadelphia in
2009–2010.
� Bill Nye, “The Science Guy,” used CHF’s collections
in the chemistry segment of his Science Channel
series 100 Greatest Discoveries. In addition film-
maker Stephen Lyons came to CHF for materials
on twentieth-century African American chemist
and entrepreneur Percy Lavon Julian for a NOVA
documentary. Lyons is now using CHF’s collections
for a PBS series called The Mystery of Matter
(see related story, p.1).
� Scholars associated with CHF’s Center for
Contemporary History and Policy and others use
the oral histories and personal papers we collect
from living scientists and entrepreneurs to
understand patterns of discovery and innovation in
the chemical and molecular sciences. This analysis
has important implications for corporate research,
regional economic development, and global
competitiveness.
Until CHF obtained its own home at Independence
National Historical Park, we did not have the space to collect
actively and could not make our collections available for
research and enjoyment. Over the last decade we have
followed a facilities master plan to create the storage, study,
and exhibit areas that these wonderful collections deserve.
We are grateful to all who have helped propel CHF and our
collections to the point where we can effectively treasure
the past, educate the present, and inspire the future.
We are the only
institution in
the world with
an active
collecting and
exhibiting
strategy
for these
materials.
Every day
outside
scholars join
our staff
and fellows in
exploring the
riches of our
collections.
Left to right: “Pocket-sized” scanning tunneling microscope, CaliforniaInstitute of Technology, 1988–1990, gift of Dr. John D. Baldeschwieler. Photo by Gregory Tobias. The Medical Alchemist by Franz Christoph Janneck(Graz 1703–1761 Vienna), oil on copper, Fisher Collection. Photo by Will Brown.
Portrait of Leo Baekeland, inventor of bakelite, ca. 1900, William HaynesPortrait Collection. A handblown Depression-era carboy used to transportone of the first shipments of the acrylic polymer Plexigum. Photo by Gregory
Tobias. Frontispiece from Joseph Priestley’s Experiments and Observationson Different Kinds of Air (London: printed for J. Johnson, 1774), Roy G.Neville Historical Chemical Library. Photo by Douglas A. Lockard.
10
For more than 60 years, Roy G. Neville followed his passion
for rare and early books, building an extraordinary library
that will inform our understanding of chemical enterprise for
decades to come. “He did it out of love for the subject and for
books,” Ronald Brashear, director of CHF’s Othmer Library,
says of Neville. “But at some point it
evolved into a really serious collection that
had major research potential. The term
chemistry doesn’t do it justice,” Brashear
adds. “Chemical matters is better.”
The Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical
Library, housed since 2004 at the Othmer
Library, includes works by Robert Boyle,
Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, Antoine
Lavoisier, John Dalton, and Dmitri
Mendeleev. Manuscripts, dissertations,
and pamphlets complement the books.
Some 400 titles are unique to the collection,
which documents nearly five centuries of
chemical thought.
Born in Bournemouth, England, in 1926,
Roy Neville was inspired to collect books
as a youth after reading Percy H. Muir’s
Book-Collecting as a Hobby: In a Series of
Letters to Everyman (London, 1945). A local
bookshop owner encouraged Neville’s interest and sold him
several early volumes, including a chemistry book printed in
1649. “I put those books in my saddle bag,” Neville says,
“and cycled back home and gladly showed my father, who
said, ‘Hmm. He certainly saw you coming.’”
Despite a modest background and limited resources,
Neville was focused and determined. He slowly built an
impressive collection. In 1951, after receiving a B.Sc. from the
University of London, Neville came to the United States on a
Fulbright scholarship. He went on to earn M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees in chemistry from the University of Oregon. He also
won a university-sponsored contest for the best graduate
student private library—a success that fueled his lifetime
commitment to assembling a remarkable and unique
collection of books.
AboutRoy Neville
11
Neville spent his early career in the
aerospace industry. The author of some 40
papers and patents, most related to heat- or
corrosion-resistant polymers, he also founded
and served as president of Engineering and
Technical Consultants in Redwood City,
California. The company specialized in methods
of pollution control, especially the treatment
of wastewater that contained cyanides.
Though he faced the demands of career
and family as well as the challenge of rising
prices for antiquarian volumes, Neville con-
tinued to collect books, with the full support
of his wife, Jeanne. Each work was selected
for the role it and its author played in the
unfolding chemical drama. Neville was a
loving steward of these treasures, taking
great care with them and making meticulous
bibliographic records and summaries that
place the works in context. He also used his
books for scholarship, finding the time to
write a number of significant papers on the
works of Boyle, Dalton, Priestley, and
Macquer, and thereby combining his love of
history with his scientific knowledge. (Most of the journals in
which Neville published these papers are available in the
Othmer Library.)
At one point, around 1968, Neville contemplated
selling his collection, but ultimately, he realized, “No, I’m not
through with collecting books yet, and I’m going to regret
this, so right now I’d better just not do it.” Almost 40 years
later, the acquisition of Neville’s magnificent 6,000-volume
collection, made possible through the generosity of Gordon
and Betty Moore, was a true milestone in the expansion of
CHF’s library.
Even as it was being catalogued for public use, the
Neville collection excited scholars all over the world, and
they began to use it to chart new paths in understanding the
history of chemistry. “It’s important for scholars to be in a
place with such a large critical mass of works because they
encounter things they may not have been aware of and make
links they wouldn’t have made if all these works weren’t
together,” Brashear says. “It’s one thing to read about this
collection, but it’s another to actually discover it.”
Brigitte Van Tiggelen, research assistant at the Centre de
Recherche en Histoire des Sciences of the Université
Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-neuve, Belgium, agrees.
“My first acquaintance with the Neville collection was about
Roy G. Neville at home with his library, 2004.
Phot
o by
And
rea
Tom
linso
n.
Some
400 titles are
unique to the
collection,
which
documents
nearly five
centuries of
chemical
thought.
The more
people come
to meet
these books,
the more they
will find.
Photos by Douglas A. Lockard.
13
Mystery of Matter
c o n t i n u e d f r o m p a g e 1
� A mass-market companion book aimed at the general
public as well as high school and college students.
� An extensive Web site on the human story of chemical
enterprise with interactive features to attract and engage
young people.
� A special teachers’ edition DVD designed to complement
the TV series by reinforcing core scientific concepts and
the excitement of discovery.
� A community outreach program to distribute educational
materials to underserved audiences through science
centers and libraries.
This exciting project demonstrates the wholesale
approach to education mandated in CHF’s strategic plan.
“By leveraging the power of media and producing resources
for teachers, CHF can share this great human endeavor
with millions,” explains CHF’s president, Arnold Thackray.
“Everyone connected with CHF has helped us achieve this
kind of impact as we celebrate our 25th anniversary.”
Initial funding for The Mystery of Matter has come from
the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and the Otto Haas
Charitable Trust, as well as from generous annual donors to
CHF. Additional funding for this multiyear project is being
sought through applications to the National Science
Foundation and other sources.
the centuries of enterprise that led to
understanding the nature and elegant
interrelationships of atoms, elements, and
the periodic table. The Mystery of Matter
will illuminate the succession of alchemists,
natural philosophers, and chemists who
unraveled these mysteries by exploring
the contributions of Priestley, Lavoisier,
Dalton, Avogadro, Bunsen, Mendeleev,
Curie, Rutherford, and the like. “Those
who experience the project will never
think of chemistry the same way again,”
Lyons says. Lyons gathered materials for
The Mystery of Matter at CHF through the
support of a Haas Fellowship.
The Mystery of Matter encompasses
� A prime-time six-hour PBS series, shot in
high definition, with an engaging narrator
and actors re-creating landmark discover-
ies with working replicas of the original
laboratory equipment. Oregon Public TV,
one of the most prolific sources of PBS
programming, is our partner station.
By leveraging
the power of
media and
producing
resources for
teachers,
CHF can
share this
great human
endeavor with
millions.
The Mystery of Matteradvisory board in June 2006. Front row, from left to right: MaryEllen Bowden, BernadetteBensaude-Vincent, David Condon,and Larry Principe. Back row, from left to right: John Theibault, Mark Michalovic,Stephen Lyons, Marco Beretta, Ned Heindel, Robert Anderson, and Robert Hicks. Photo by Douglas A. Lockard.
It’s one thing
to read about
this collection,
but it’s another
to actually
discover it.
12
meeting one book,” Van Tiggelen says. “But
one meeting leads to another and becomes
a conversation. This is the strength of the
Neville collection.”
“The more people come to meet these
books, the more they will find,” she adds.
The annotated catalogue of the Neville
Library, published this fall, further reveals the
collection’s spectacular holdings. Selected
images from the books have been digitized for
inclusion in the Othmer Library online catalog.
This past fall marked the inauguration of
the Neville Prize in Bibliography or Biography,
awarded for an outstanding monograph in the
chemical or molecular sciences. The first
recipient, Robert E. Schofield, was recognized
for the second volume of his definitive biography
of Joseph Priestley, The Enlightened Joseph
Priestley; A Study of His Life and Work from
1773 to 1804. CHF has also established the Roy
G. Neville Fellowship, which supports scholars
in a variety of fields—including historians of
science, technology, and allied fields; historians
of the book and print culture; bibliographers;
and librarians—who will make use of the
Neville collection.
As Roy Neville celebrates his 80th birthday,
he has the satisfaction of seeing the wonder-
ful Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library,
the happy result of his singular vision and
efforts, safely held at CHF and known to
researchers around the world. For CHF, the
Neville Library is not only a jewel in itself,
it is also at the center of our plan to be the
library of record for the great story of chem-
ical achievement. On behalf of generations
of scholars to come, we salute and celebrate
the vision and passion of Roy Neville.
Photos by Douglas A. Lockard.
1514
Treasure the past Educate the present Inspire the future&25th Anniversary Initiative
Tom Kennedy, Barbara Wilson, and Phil Ashkettle at the Quail West Club,Naples, Florida. Photo by CHF Staff.
Progressevents
Bill Stavropoulos accepts CHF’s Distinguished Service Award.Photo by CHF Staff.
CHF continues to make great progress in our efforts to raise
$75 million to support the development of new programs, the
building of new exhibit galleries and conference space, and the
growth of our endowment.
We are continuing to host events and award ceremonies
around the country, bringing together friends and
colleagues to honor achievements, to
discuss our many programs and activities,
and to provide a forum for our supporters to ask
questions and learn more about the foundation.
Over the past 12 months, we have hosted events in
Palo Alto, Pasadena, New York, Chicago, Naples, and
Boston. We are planning additional events for San
Diego, Houston, Raleigh-Durham, Palo Alto, Phoenix,
and New York in the coming months. If you are interested in help-
ing CHF host an event in your area, please contact Nancy Vonada,
events manager, at 215.873.8226 or nvonada@ chemheritage.org.
26.2
25
19.5
25 25
14.9
0
5
10
15
20
25
Fund
s (m
illio
ns)
Endowment Capital Programs
Funding Use
GoalRaised
M O V I N G T O W A R D O U R G O A L
2007 Petrochemical Heritage Award winner Dan Duncan and his wife, Jan, in San Antonio, Texas. Photo by Sam’s Studio.
Arnold Thackray with 2007 Pittcon Heritage Awardee David Schwartzand Pittcon President Beth Kirol. Photo by Alya Hameedi.
Joshua Barer; Sol Barer, winner of the 2006 Chemists’ Club’s Winthrop-Sears Medal;and Meryl Barer at the 2006 Heritage Day celebration. Photo by Douglas A. Lockard.
Wise StewardsCHF’s investment performance on our endowment consist-
ently outpaces that of other endowment funds, according to
annual surveys by the National Association of College and
University Business Officers (NACUBO).
Year NACUBO CHF Difference
FY2006 10.7% 14.0% +3.3%
FY2005 9.3% 12.7% +3.4%
Currently at $153 million, our endowment continues to
grow at a healthy rate, thanks to the wise guidance of our
Investment Committee:
Lewis E. Gasorek (Chair)
President, Listowel Incorporated
Norbert DittrichPresident, The Robert A. Welch Foundation
Rajiv L. GuptaChairman and CEO, Rohm and Haas Company
Miriam SchaeferCFO, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Sheldon ThompsonRetired Executive, Sunoco
Ross M. Wilson IIIAssistant Treasurer, American Chemical Society
Chemical Heritage Foundation315 Chestnut StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19106
Treasure t h e p a s tEducate t h e p r e s e n t
Inspire t h e f u t u r e
N O N P R O F I TO R G A N I Z AT I O NU . S . P O S TA G E
P A I DP H I L A D E L P H I A , PAP E R M I T N O . 5 4 6 0
Transmutations INTHISISSUE
136
14
Mystery of MatterBuilds on Success of NOVAEpisode
The Center for Contemporary History and Policy
CHF Collections
Progress & Events