LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Rider University's Moore Library has received a grant of $14,204 from the New Jersey State Library for the preservation of the Louis A. Leslie shorthand collection.

Earlier in the year, the Library obtained a $40,025 grant from The New York Community Trust-John Robert Gregg Fund for the continuation of ongoing work to preserve the historic collection.

"The collection, when properly housed and shelved, will be a rich resource for researchers studying working conditions, social customs, and the development of business education over the past 250 years," said Lynn Livingston, University archivist.

Livingston said the state library grant is for a treatment plan prepared by a paper conservator, a temporary preservation aide, workshops for training staff and students in how to enclose the books and pamphlets, materials for the enclosures, and equipment to monitor temperature and humidity in Riderana, the University's archives.

Livingston estimates that there are now more than 10,000 items in the Leslie collection, which are primarily from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.

In 1983, the late Louis A. Leslie, one of the world's foremost shorthand authorities, bequeathed this notable collection to Moore Library. He had spent more than 50 years collecting shorthand materials from around the world. The collection contains every shorthand system invented as well as hundreds of unsuccessful systems that influenced later authors. In addition, it includes books inscribed in shorthand by such noted shorthand authors as Sir Isaac Pitman and John Robert Gregg.