Albert R. Mann Library

As active professors, Richard (Doc) Aplin and Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) were Cornell leaders in very different fields. Yet both share a common legacy as teachers who made a life’s work of mentoring students and as scholars who committed their careers to seeing the fruits of good research applied  to the problems of our world.

Two named acquisitions endowments at Mann Library celebrate and extend this impact in a lasting way:

The Urie Bronfenbrenner Acquisition Fund for Mann Library was established by a generous gift from Liese Bronfenbrenner to honor Dr. Bronfenbrenner’s pioneering work in developmental psychology and his national leadership as co-founder of the national Head Start program.

The Richard (Doc) Aplin Distinguished Collection Fund at Mann, established by Prof. Aplin’s former student Robert Abrams ’56, commemorates the teaching, research and extension work of a beloved Cornell professor who touched the lives of countless applied economics and management students during his 38-year career at Cornell.  

The Bronfenbrenner Fund supports new acquisitions that document and analyze pressing issues of human development and social policy, including recent titles such as Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States (Ellen Herman, University of Chicago Press, 2008)  and Families, Schools and the Adolescent: Connecting Research, Policy and Practice 1965-2007 (Nancy Hill and Ruth Chao, eds.; Teachers College Press, 2009).  The Aplin Fund purchases a myriad of up-to-date economic, business and management resources, including powerful, often costly new e-resources such as CQ Interactive, a popular online tool used by undergraduate and graduate level economics and business students to gain mastery over the art of successful case interviews.
 
Both of these funds illustrate well the role that Mann’s acquisitions endowments make in sustaining the stellar quality one of the best research library collections in the U.S., even in the face of  severe constraints posed by a recessionary state economy. As we look toward the future of the Mann Library collections, one thing has become clear:  Gifts in support of Mann's acquisitions will only grow in their vital importance to the library’s role as a comprehensive repository of society’s knowledge and the foundation for the generation of new ideas. The Bronfenbrenner and Aplin Funds honor two memorable scholars in Cornell’s history, and they are making a profound difference to the quality of teaching and scholarship at Cornell--both for today and for tomorrow.

Find out more about making a gift to Mann Library