William H. Boardman, associate vice president for capital giving, agrees that meeting the library's needs may not seem so glorious to potential donors.

"Technology in general and air conditioning, doing things like infrastructure, are the hardest things to raise money for," Boardman says. "Most donors are interested in people."

Verba thinks that problem may stem from the role libraries play in student life--a resource used often, but not the real center of academics that a departmental building or office may be.

"People don't major in the library," Verba says. "The people who are most interested in the library usually are graduate students who become professors--who then don't have the money to give."

But Verba says that the University is committed to raising enough funds to complete the Widener renovations.

Campaign officials say they hope to reach their goals in endowed professorships as well. Each new chair costs the donor $3.5 million--so those who can't afford such a price tag simply don't give in this area.

"It was a very ambitious goal to try to add 40 chairs," Boardman says. "It's a combination of being a high goal and also that it is not easy for an individual to give 3.5 million dollars."

Strategizing

Everybody hopes that the last months of the campaign will show rapid improvement in fundraising for the library and for professorships, and officials are developing strategies to speed up the process.

The method they may choose to improve giving for professorships is called the "challenge method" and worked well earlier in the campaign to solicit funds for financial aid.

The first step of this method is to accumulate a fund made up of large, unrestricted gifts--by far the most difficult step.

The University then uses this "challenge fund" to bring in new gifts. Donors will have their donations "matched" with a gift from the fund with all the money given in their name.

By effectively cutting the price of an endowed chair by a large margin, this method could prove attractive to potential donors turned off by the large price tag before.

Harvard is attempting a different tactic to raise library funds, choosing instead to educate potential donors about the benefits of giving.

The best example of this was a "library weekend" several weeks ago for potential donors.