When Dr. Michael Biggins of the University of Washington Libraries received an email in 2009 requesting information on how to make a donation of Lithuanian books, little did he suspect that in 2010 he would receive 47 boxes bulging with 1,330 books. The donor was Liucija Baskauskas, PhD of Santa Monica.
In choosing books to donate she focused on Lithuanian language books that would be the most valuable to students/scholars in the fields of Ethnography/folklore/history (317) and also books in fields that she had extensive holdings. These were art/theatre art (228), literature (316) and children’s literature (71). Other categories include nature/geography, theology/philosophy, science, military, cookbooks, sports military, and guidebooks. In addition, there are 56 books in English and 14 in Russian.
Dr. Baskauskas kept approximately 1,500 books that she is actively using or may need for further research. These are heavily concentrated in ethnography, politics and art. They been inventoried and are gifted to the University Washington Libraries to be sent at a future time.