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Private papers and personal effects covering two decades of the life of slain civil-rights leader Malcolm X were placed on long-term deposit at New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City and will be available to researchers as early as May 19, 2004, which would have marked Malcolm X's 79th birthday. Two of Malcolm X's daughters, Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz, turned over to the library for a 75-year period two large crates of hundreds of pages of materials--including letters, speeches, journals, and photographs--that had been the subject of an ownership dispute. Among the most significant items are diaries in which Malcolm X documented his trips to Africa and the Middle East, made soon after he broke with the Nation of Islam in 1964. The documents, which have yet to be assessed by scholars, were stored for years at the home of Malcolm's late wife, Betty Shabazz, in Mount Vernon, New York, and had been removed after her death in 1997. The Schomburg Center, located on Malcolm X Boulevard, is just a few blocks from the mosque where Malcolm X once preached.

Highlights useful resources in major areas of library/information activity. Donation of old postcards to the New York Public Library by Marshall and Prudence Montgomery; Acquisition of Ernest Hemingway's letters to his close friend Eric Edward Dorman-Smith by the Stanford University LIbraries; Donation of jazz bandleader Cab Calloway's papers and memorabilia to the Coppin State College's Cab Calloway Jazz Institute.

The article reports that the New York Public Library's Manuscripts and Archives Division received a major archive of papers relating to the early gay-rights movement in the U.S. The Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs consist of letters, photographs, handbills, manuscripts, publications, and ephemera accumulated over nearly 50 years by Gittings and her life partner, Lahusen. Information on the achievements of Gittings and Lahusen is presented.

The article presents an update on library collections in the U.S. and from around the world as of January 2008. New York Public Library has acquired the papers of historian and social critic Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Yale University's Irving S. Gilmore Music Library has acquired the entire archive of U.S. composer Benjamin Lees. The British Library has purchased more than 150 boxes of manuscripts, letters, and private papers belonging to playwright Harold Pinter.

The article discusses various art collections that libraries have received. Harvard University's Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America has been given the papers of cartoonist Marjorie Henderson Buell. Buell is famous for creating the cartoon character Little LuLu. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts acquired the archives of Meredith Monk. Monk is known as a multi-disciplinary artist who worked in music, directing, dance, and various other artistic mediums.