• Purpose and Accomplishments
• Who are the Friends of the Atheneum?
• Comments and Queries
• I want to be a Friend of the Atheneum

• to foster close relations between the Nantucket Atheneum and the people it serves
• to promote informed interest in the Atheneum's resources, services, and needs
• to work with the Trustees and the staff of the Atheneum on matters relating to its welfare
• to encourage volunteer assistance to the Atheneum staff

Accomplishments

FUND RAISING
FONA raises money through membership dues and merchandise sales, and several benefits each year.

FREE PROGRAMS
In addition to fundraising benefits, FONA sponsors free public programs at the Nantucket Atheneum throughout the year. Among the over two hundred such programs to date have been poetry readings, book and video discussion groups, art exhibits, writing workshops, and lectures by authors and scholars. Lecture topics have ranged from local to global. They have included many aspects of Nantucket history, the career of Lucretia Mott Coffin, the Civil War, Russian estates, bee-keeping, gardening, parenting, travel, sports, and cooking. There have been speakers on various genres of writing (biographies, memoirs, mysteries, and romances); old books in the Atheneum collections; and the processes of authorship, publication, sales, and the design and hand-production of books. During the Christmas holidays FONA has sponsored dramatic readings of Dylan Thomas's classic A Child's Christmas in Wales. Throughout the year a weekly book column "From the Atheneum" is contributed to the Inquirer and Mirror.

Speakers whom FONA has brought to the Great Hall of the Atheneum or the the larger venue of the Unitarian Church on Orange street include John Chancellor, Alfred Chandler, Frank Conroy, Jill Ker Conway, Francine du Plessix Gray, Flora Fraser, John Kenneth Galbraith, Henry Louis Gates, Stan Grosfeld, David Halberstam, Sebastian Junger, Christopher Lydon, David McCullough, Sena Jeter Naslund, Anna Quindlen, Ned Rorem, Tim Russert, Pierre Salinger, Dan Shaughnessy, Jean Strause, Frank Sulloway, and Paul Theroux.

FONA has sponsored an equally large number of children's programs at the Atheneum. Among them have been storytellers, puppeteers, magicians, and songsters. There have been workshops on writing, dancing, music, movement, science, and the process of creating books. Some of the children's programs at the Nantucket Atheneum are coordinated with the Nantucket public schools.

Through the Muriel Mercer Memorial Lecture Fund, an outstanding children's book author speaks at the Atheneum each year. FONA created this fund and has contributed to its endowment.

EQUIPMENT
FONA has provided the Atheneum with the following equipment:

• A number of computers with modems and printers, plus a scanner and software
• Two slide projectors
• A microfiche reader/printer
• A television, VCR and Reading Rainbows videos
• Sound equipment and microphones
• Two lecterns
• A Custom-made sign for Great Hall lectures
• Folding tables and chairs and a caddy for them
• A coat and book-bag rack for the Children's Room
• Book bins
• Complete furnishings for the staff kitchen, including a refrigerator and microwave oven

A major contribution has been compact shelving and hydrothermographic equipment for the book vaults, at a cost of over $20,000

BOOK ACQUISITIONS
Among FONA book purchases for the Atheneum have been:

• The Library of America Book Series
• The Metropolitan Museum Children's Illustrated Classics
• The Grove Dictionary of Art (334 volumes)

FONA has provided $10,000 for children's book acquisitions and has pledged an additional $10,000 for that purpose.

OTHER SERVICES TO THE NANTUCKET ATHENEUM AND ITS PATRONS
FONA subscribes to annual museum passes at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the John F. Kennedy Library, allowing Nantucket Atheneum patrons and their families free or nominal admission.

FONA purchases NRTA passes for the Atheneum staff to provide them with free transportation to and from work and to relieve downtown crowding and parking problems.

FONA has paid for the cataloging of the Atheneum's recently discovered early 19th century pamphlet collection and has contributed to the purchase of a collection of the letters of Samuel H. Jenks, one of the founders of the Nantucket public school system.

FONA has supported the Building Fund Campaign through the purchase of a computer and software and by a cash contribution of $10,000.