I never thought I would write a letter advocating for Fresno State University to save the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature. Yet here I am.
The university must live up to its obligations and it must rescue a once-thriving asset at Fresno State and the broader Fresno community.
Arne Nixon was a beloved professor for decades who organized programs that made Fresno State known for its study of children’s literature. He died in 1997 but his legacy has lived on through the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature.
From 2001 to 2011, the Arne Nixon Center hosted notable authors and illustrators. Many donated books, original art, or their papers.
There were weekend seminars open to teachers, librarians and parents, inviting authors and illustrators from all over the country as speakers. It was at these classes that community members discovered award-winning artist and author Leo Politi, born in Fresno in 1908.
Nixon amassed some 22,000 children’s books. He had a vision: to establish a world-class children’s literature research center at Fresno State. He saw it as a West Coast partner to other children’s literature centers, including the Baldwin Library at the University of Florida, the de Grummond Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi and the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota.
His vision became reality when, in 1996, he donated his books to the Fresno State Library and later left a million-dollar endowment to support the center.
Opinion
Nixon signed a gift agreement with the university specifying that his collection be preserved, maintained and expanded as a pre-eminent, non-circulating collection.
The Arne Nixon Center became a department of the university library, similar to the Special Collections Resource Center and the music library, with staff paid from state funds. Within a few years, staff members included a professional librarian, two full-time paraprofessionals and student assistants.
By 2002, the Arne Nixon Center and its advocacy group raised $150,000 to purchase Hilda Bohem’s 1,900-item Lewis Carroll collection. In 2003, the Arne Nixon Center Advocates established the popular Secret Garden Party fundraisers (attendees had to buy tickets to learn the parties’ locations, which were held in beautiful private gardens).
By 2004, the Arne Nixon Center Advocates had more than 400 members, including 37 lifetime members who donated $1,000 to join. The multicultural, multi-language collection grew rapidly to 65,000 items, including a donation of a 6,000-volume cat book collection — the largest in the world.
In 2010, the Leo Politi Garden, funded by the Arne Nixon Center Advocates for $75,000, was dedicated, with the Politi family present, celebrating the friendship of Leo Politi and Arne Nixon. In 2014, the advocacy group had raised another $75,000 to add Politi’s art to the garden.
But in 2011, Angelica Carpenter, founding curator retired, and I stepped down as president of the Arne Nixon Center Advocates soon afterward. Staffing of the center was reduced to two, then one and then none.
The center has gone for periods of years with no professional leadership — or even a staff. Nixon’s vision has been forgotten. His endowment yields interest that should have been spent on the center, but there is no way to know if it has been or will be.
Recently, however, two people have been hired to work in the Arne Nixon Center in part-time positions, and a temporary librarian will start on July 22.
I believe that supporters of the Arne Nixon Center deserve a public commitment from the university to restore the Arne Nixon Center to its former staffing, program and budget levels.
The university must live up to its obligations. The alternative, specified in the gift agreement, is to offer the collection and its endowment to an institution that will honor Nixon’s intentions to honor and study children’s literature.
Denise Sciandra is the founding president of the Arne Nixon Center Advocates ( denises@comcast.net ).
