Largest Library Gift: Feeds the Soul of the Campus

I can remember going to libraries in elementary school, being absolutely amazed, and thinking I have to read all the books,” recalls Lorrey J. Bianchi ’69. His wife, Kathleen Casey Bianchi’s appreciation of libraries also started early on: “In my family, a library visit was considered a normal part of life— you go to the grocery store, you go to the library.”

Recently the couple arranged a planned gift that will benefit and strengthen the UMass Amherst Libraries. Via a bequest, the libraries are expected to eventually receive a gift with a multi-million dollar value. The Bianchis made the arrangement in an effort to help the UMass Amherst’s library system take its place among the top research libraries in the United States.

Their gift will create the Lorrey and Kathleen Bianchi Library Special Collections Fund to endow support for the Special Collections and University Archives Department. The bequest will also create a Bianchi Scholarship Fund to endow scholarships for students who are the first in their families to attend college.

Since his undergraduate days at UMass Amherst, Lorrey Bianchi has been a student of European history. He later specialized in French history and the life of Napoléon III, the last monarch of France and its first president. Originally a chemical engineering major, Bianchi switched to history because, “In my sophomore year, I found out that being color-blind was going to make me a very dangerous chemical engineer.”
Kathleen Bianchi’s undergraduate years at Michigan State University were devoted to radio and television production. She applied for a public relations job at Aetna Insurance in Hartford but was encouraged to go into the then-fledgling computer programming department. “It turned out, it was interesting work, and I was good at it,” she notes.

Her husband’s successful career in information technology also came about through some serendipity. Fresh out of college—he was the first in his family to earn a college degree—Lorrey Bianchi was steered into the field by a recruiter who noticed the science and math classes on Bianchi’s transcript. A pioneer in data warehousing for financial services, Lorrey met Kathleen at New England Life Insurance Company in Boston, where they had adjoining cubicles.

Now retired, the couple comes to campus frequently, usually with a stop at their favorite place, the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. The Bianchis believe, “The library is the soul of the campus, enabling students and professors in every school and college to reach their full potential.”